All in all it was pretty damn good, this is more like the YU-NO I love.
Playthrough notes here: (Spoilers for Desire and YU-NO)
Desire. notes
~started Al's route~ this motherfucker literally has his name embroidered on his shirt lmao
he's into spanking, huh
Kanno's games tend to have a kind of comical tone to them when the player does something stupid, but seeing the protagonist's face contort to match that is kind of unsettling...
"What a little schoolgirl! A guy who does embroidery?"
"Don't be so sexist. A guy can do embroidery, too, if he wants."
ok it's weird that the "face changes" aren't represented on the actual center sprite, but rather in a box on the bottom right corner.
I'll accept that it's one of the first games to even HAVE face changes, and maybe technical limitations prevent storing multiple full-body sprites, but it's still offputting
seems to be the first plot-driven story from C's Ware
"What exactly are you trying to accomplish by opening your fly?"
"She's working so hard, it's almost as if her life depends on it!" (hmmmm)
oh sexy time with Christie
OH MAN IT'S KYLE
OH MAN IT'S ME NOW
THEY'RE MAKING POETRY WILL THEY FUCK LMAO
"Further I rammed towards reaching the bang, my hard prick pulsing inside the poontang"
"Like a priest does his bible when preaching at mass, I used both hands to grab her plump ass"
"Her tight quivering anus caused me to chuckle... so I slid in my finger right down to the knuckle"
Al is giving Sylvia shit for wanting to be more masculine, hmm....
"Women with a beauty like yours should express it to the fullest extent" wow
"Even if I don't want to be feminine?"
"Yes, because I really dig you." WOW
Jesus Christ he's such a fucking asshole to Sylvia -- there's no way this isn't going to end in an h-scene
WOW! I was wrong on that one, he just left
Makoto and Kyle together, I'm sure this is the appearance of the "compulsory sex" plot device
OH CHRIST, WHY IS SHE NAKED
Sheryl is the fucking best, such a bro
"Don't you read English subtitles? I told you that area is off-limits!"
ooooh the seawater is off-limits huh???
I'm glad Reiko is giving Al shit for cheating on his girlfriend
I've been switching between the PC-98 and Windows images, definitely digging the Windows images surprisingly. Just not a fan of the character designs in the PC-98 version (besides Sylvia and Sheryl)
I just noticed the sign in the building says "LABOLATORY" lol
It's still weird seeing the PC-98 images on top of the Windows interface... like how the outdoors images are in monochrome but the island map (from the Win version) is hi-res
Bio-chemical warfare + dead heroine found with chemicals in her body... is this Love Potion all over again???????
also it's kind of annoying that the music resets whenever you change location
I kinda like Kazumi's character
this game is leagues better than everything that came before it from C's Ware, they're actually talking about their feelings!!!
and there are semblances of character arcs!
Sheryl's h-scene was really awkward
#freeAl
ayy Sheryl x Sylvia catfight
HER EYES OPENED
HOLY SHIT REIKO'S EYES OPENED
SHE'S NOT DEAD???? not gonna lie that freaked me the fuck out
Al and Tina are totally alone on the island now and are living off the land... this is starting to remind me of the ending of YU-NO
What the fuck is happening???
HIS FACE IS MELTING AAAA
SHE KICKED HIM THROUGH TEH CHEST
~finished Al's route~
that was pretty fuckin good, not gonna lie
I'm getting strong YU-NO vibes here:
Man and daughter figure stuck in an area outside time, daughter sacrifices herself to save father, whole point of story is to get them reunited (or something like that)
~started Makoto's route~
she's touching herself to him, great
but I'm liking the two perspectives deal here, especially for a mystery story like this --- instead of forcing you to reread stuff to pick up on hints you missed, you get the same scenario from another perspective
I'm going to try to evaluate Makoto's route based on BOTH as an entry route and as a secondary route --- the player is allowed to start with either Al's or Makoto's route, so I want to see how the quality of the experience would change if I picked Makoto's first
the female doctor/nurse characters are always sketchy as fuck in these games, but not here for some reason --- the male doctor is bad tho
LMAO Makoto called the kid a little whore
"What's a whore?"
"(You little shithead...)"
there's a blatant double standard here --- Al's motivation is to uncover the truth, but all Makoto wants to do is fuck Al
there are also way fewer choices in Makoto's route than in Al's... in Al's route you had to investigate each item individually, with Makoto you only investigate a scene at a time. Narratively it makes sense - Al is a newcomer and also a reporter, while Makoto has no reason to inspect everything since she's been here for a long time. But I can't help feeling that Makoto's route is an afterthought compared to Al's
"She'd continue with her research even if James Bond had his prick up her ass"
Never change, translators
oh shit, Reiko and Makoto were fucking each other?
and they are now, great
OH NO, MAKOTO OVERHEARD THE RHYME FUCKING
grr Makoto's first h-scene...
#makotoDidNothingWrong
err wait I just realized that Makoto cheated on Al before she found out he was cheating on her, but I still feel sympathetic to her --- if you read both AlxChristie and ReikoxMakoto's scenes again, neither of them are really consentual... and KylexMakoto CERTAINLY isn't
oh great, blackmail now
god fucking damn it
I hate this route so much
I fucking hate this route so much
I want it to end
Is Martina really trying to say that "even if your partner cheats on you, you should trust in him because he still loves you?"
NEVERMIND, the nurse is off her fucking rocker too
i hate this route so fucking much, i can't even put it into words why
this makes me so fucking mad
the girl's route exists so the protag can be repeatedly raped and felt sorry for
this is bullshit
why can't this game treat Makoto with dignity?
~Makoto end~
this route was really kinda awful in its treatment of its protag
the ending was alright, but I can't look past the fact that Makoto fell in love with her rapist
anyway a new route opened up, maybe it's faster
~martina route start~
martina's pretty fuckin cool, not gonna lie
is she trying to revive / clone her dead daughter or something?
or maybe transport to another dimension where her daughter is still alive?
she's pretty fixated on this notion of "destiny" （運命）
Martina is the closest to a real human being in this story lol
man this is a pretty good route so far, digging the Tina and Martina dynamic
Tina's gonna be reborn?
WHAT THE FUCK IS THERE A TIME LOOP????
SHE's TINA????????
holy shit wow, you got me, game
~end of game and epilogue~
damn, that was pretty good
but we absolutely did not need Makoto's route in there at all. it did nothing for this game. It was a cool idea, but I hope it was done better in Eve ~Burst Error~.
This game is definitely a spiritual predecessor to YU-NO, though, like holy shit lmao.
