Spoilers ahead.
Thoughts on the First Playthrough#
I finished the first playthrough this morning. Because I was rushing to finish, I didn't complete a few of Shī's requests, and the final boss having three lives was a bit annoying 😡.
The ending had a subtle sadness to it. Turns out, Aoyu is a person from the future who came back to create a new future. This creates a cycle where the repetition is necessary to create a new future. But this repetition is like multiple playthroughs, and it feels like there's a reasonable explanation for it (lol). I heard that in the second playthrough, you can break out of this cycle, which has motivated me to start the second playthrough.
When I completed the game, I felt a sense of loss, as if this special "summer vacation" had truly come to an end. This is probably the first time a game completion has given me this feeling. It's probably because the story was immersive and aligned with my taste (I'd like to call this game "Fugu Ecstasy Game").
The character development was well done. After completing the game, each girl left a deep impression on me. Shy but brave Kokoro, lively Yūki, tsundere student council president Rina, gentle and strong-willed Shīhan, (adjective pending) Hinako (I found out from the wiki that she was actually the protagonist of the previous installment), adorable Kiroro, gentle sister Mifune, energetic Yōō and the conflicted Shī. I found out from the wiki that many of the characters are connected to the previous game, so I want to play it.
The combat system in this game is a semi-real-time system, like a semi-turn-based system. It was interesting when I first encountered it. I played on normal difficulty, but later found it a bit time-consuming, so I switched to easy and completed the game. However, even on easy difficulty, I had a rough time in the final chapter. Also, I never really understood close combat. Basically, whenever there was close combat, it was either death or severe damage. But fighting monsters with the girls is a different story. It would be great if there was an option to skip battles in the second playthrough.
Also, in this game, every mind space has a stealth mission, and after playing many of them, it became quite annoying, especially in the later stages of the mind space. I had to run a long way, and if I made a mistake, I had to start over, which really messed with my mindset.
I played this game on the Switch. The handheld mode had decent graphics, but some of the text was a bit small. When I played it on a big screen, it was just average. If you're looking for better graphics, I recommend buying the Steam or PS4 version.
In conclusion, it's a really good game (in my opinion), and I recommend all Fugu fans to give it a try. However, the price of this game is really high. It's easy to deceive us anime fans (and we willingly fall for it).