I managed to spend a lot less money this year, which means more money for importing games. I severely cut back on the impulse purchases, and that’s not due to an increased self-control level either. I think my main interests have been getting more and more niche each year, and I’ve been doing more importing/online shopping so I own almost all the existing English 7th-gen games I really want. Nevertheless, I did buy some goods:
Sora no Kiseki FC & SC Special Collection Book
I don’t usually play fandisks, but when I do, they don’t end up being very worthwhile (with few exceptions). Such is the case with Rewrite Hf. I’ve never played a fandisk from Key before since past records had them release fandisks for only a single popular heroine that wasn’t the main (Tomoyo After, Kud Wafter), but Harvest Festa had routes for all the heroines and I liked the characters in Rewrite, so I decided to go for it. Unfortunately, I could have spent my time better by playing other VNs in my backlog (and in English).
After clearing all the other girls’ routes, you unlock Kagari’s route. Hers is yet another AU, taking place shortly before the harvest festival. The supernatural still exist, but the occult club is still together in this branch world. I’m typing this after I went on an overnight school trip, so I might not remember the details too well.
Shizuru’s route in the original Rewrite was pretty lackluster. It didn’t reveal much about the world or add to the player’s knowledge, and ended off with a pretty bad outcome to boot. I was initially interested as to where the writers would go for her route in Harvest Festa, but since they only want this fandisk to be cheerful and happy, they chose to go AU like for Akane. At least this route was obviously not taking itself seriously, making it more enjoyable.
In Rewrite, our fabulous NEET club president’s route ended off…very badly for the world, I should say. I was expecting a rewrite for a better and more light-hearted ending like Lucia’s HF route, but the writers decided that was not possible so they gave Akane an AU story where the whole world is normal, superhumans and demons don’t exist, and Gaia is just an environmental action group.
Chihaya’s route in the original Rewrite probably had the most idealistic shounen manga-like story progression, and ended everything off on a high note with everyone alive and well and teamwork trumps all. It had the happiest final outcome with the occult club scheduled to regroup soon and everyone is well and alive. Chihaya’s route in Harvest Festa is the happiest so far, bringing back the slice-of-life days in Rewrite’s common route.
Remember how I was unimpressed at how the childhood friend and advertised heroine (let’s face it, everyone thought she was the main girl) got shafted in the romance department? Her route ended with Kotarou leaving the hospital to confess to her, and the fandisk continues off of that to give us a happy end where they get married.
I haven’t done visual novel playthrough posts for the longest time (lazy, lazy me), but since I remember having fun with Rewrite around this time last year, I’ll do the same for Harvest Festa. Since this is supposed to be a fluffy fandisk, here’s to hoping that the sci-fi and infodumping be kept down so I don’t have to split my head due to my lack of proficiency in Japanese.
When you click “start” on the menu, you get sent to a screen where you can select your heroine. Initially, like Rewrite, you can only go for Kotori, Chihaya, or Lucia. I chose Lucia for my first route, as she is my favorite out of the initial three.
http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2012-03-25/key-little-busters-visual-novel-gets-tv-anime
http://www.moetron.com/2012/03/25/little-busters-tv-anime-announcement-leaked/
Everyone’s been wanting a LB! anime since god-knows-when, and it seems like they’re finally getting it. I’m pretty excited for this, although I’m waiting on more news since the animation studio wasn’t announced. Something like LB! is gonna be easy to screw up, so I’m keeping fingers crossed for KyoAni. It seems like each Key game has been playing more and more on the “multiple routes/playthroughs” mechanic of the visual novel medium and thus becoming harder to animate into one linear storyline suitable for an anime. I’m really interested in how they’ll handle the “secret of the world,” although at this point everybody interested in Little Busters has probably played the visual novel already.
There had been several updates to the site since the last time I checked, and an actual about section. Basically, Harvest Festa takes place in one of the possible futures of the world that Kotarou rewrote at the end of Rewrite (his “rewriting” allow for infinite possibilities and such), and so the main events of the original VN never happened and everything is peaceful and all. Because the original events did not exist, the heroines all get new stories. Even Kagari transfers to Kotarou’s school, which makes the whole thing sound like a happier AU like Muv-Luv Altered Fable. More happy slice-of-life, like the common route. The site describes it as a “future like a festival.”
I’m OK with a fandisk like this. I liked the characters in Rewrite a lot, so a fandisk with more fluff is want. Rewrite HF! is due for July 27, 2012.
カレーまみれ勇者の冒険 Curry Chronicles 