i will tell you something about how my ADHD works basically if my arousal (level of stimulation) is less than the ideal measure im gonna be distracted by anything and everything around me if its more than the ideal measure im gonna get overstimulated and dissociate like hell

so you might ask whats the ideal measure for me well most of the times i can say that videogames stimulate me a good bunch with hearing touching and watching but thats not always the case which is also funny when you look at me playing turn based rpgs because i would just spam A instead of being left with doing nothing THAT BEING SAID reading a book is too little stimulation which is why i put music while i read which is also why i dont read shocker in the other end if im at a lunch with people and everybodys talking at the same time im probably gonna get overstimulated and not talk for like 2 hours minimum

that being said this game has no music so you can only imagine how hard it was for me to not get distracted every 3 seconds I LOVE visual novels also because I can't really read books so they're a nice compromise but and even if they don't have voice acting I can follow the storyline if there's some kind of auditory stimulation like music or sound effects but here it was HARD it was so fucking HARD to follow the storyline you won't believe

ok this whole premise was to say that when I could not take it anymore I Googled lofi piano and the game ended after 5 minutes :) very cool

hello charlotte is still something that i cant really put my hands on but i still decided it was time to explore this visual novel and SOMEHOW i actually managed to make some connections between the charlotte world and the charles world incredible what happened but still i think it would be better to replay all the installments with the knowledge that i have right now about the series but im probably not gonna do that because i care for my mental health

that being said the presentation of this visual novel FUCKS its sososososo good its incredible if you ask me the art direction was always some of etheranes greatest assets and im glad that they managed to translate it almost seamlessly into the VN media all the characters are beautifully drawn expressively animated and still have some type of connections to the designs you see in the trilogy its honestly amazing if you ask me . the backgrounds are those stack images that you can find online with those blur filters but WHO CARES when the portraits are THIS GOOD

story is probably my favorite part of this and while i again dont understand as much as a true hello charlotte fan would i genuinely loved every single second of this actually getting to know the real charles and vincent and anri piece by piece was a breath of fresh air and while i still dont have an entire clue of what this was all about since most of the plot twists or character revelations are pretty implicit exploring another chunk of hello charlotte lore was pretty interesting

vincent is probably the most interesting character of the bunch and someone with the thickest backstory in the entire cast everything he says hurts me to an infinite extent i can FEEL the sadness through the screen and i cannot believe how tightly written he is for a visual novel that clocks in at around 1 hour literally the pure highlight of the entire game and still seeing charles and anri dealing with their issues and struggle through adolescence was also pretty incredible i have no idea how they managed to make this feel so personal and intimate but thats something that i always felt in all the other installments but since this is actually on a more SoL side of things instead of the absolute fucking hysteric mess that is the hello charlotte trilogy thematically plot wise and visually going through all the stages of grief in a grotesque and hellish environment the down to earth and relatable environment of humble houses and schools really makes this such a gem to close the HC hellhole

im pretty said there wasnt even a single track in the game apart from my ADHD but also for an emotional sense theres a lot of sad story beats in here and they NEEDED a good ost to bring the sorrow forward but if youre me you can duck tape an emotional piano on youtube in the background and call it a day

so ughhhhhhhhh not a lot else to say i liked the runtime of this series and maybe i will come back to it sometime in the future maybe after reading an infodump on what this story is really about so i can stop not understanding what the fuck is happening but even if i didnt this is such a good rpgmaker series that everyone should play just for the vibes . ABSOLUTELY UNMATCHED EXECUTION etherane must be making these games on LSD i know you boo dont lie to me

side note im in love with the little vertical illustrations that pop up sometimes like theyre CGs for storytelling purposes etherane bending the medium whats new