Little Busters!

released on Jul 27, 2007

Little Busters! is a Japanese visual novel developed by Key. The story follows the life of Riki Naoe, a high school student who has been a member of a group of friends named the Little Busters since childhood. Riki brings multiple girls at his school into the Little Busters to have enough people to play a baseball game. The game is rated for all ages in Japan, but a version containing adult content named Little Busters! Ecstasy exists as well.


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Put this down as one I've got to sit with in order to give stronger, more detailed thoughts on. In the same way that revisiting CLANNAD was important as a piece of self-reflection and an analysis on my own growth and changes over the decade-plus since I'd first played it, Little Busters! served to embolden my understanding of how important my friend group has been every step of the way through those changes. One of the most tightly-organized Key games, with every route offering something to the grander narrative, and while After Story from CLANNAD remains the personal peak of their output for me, you'd be hard-pressed to find a true ending route with the sheer payoff and emotional conviction of Refrain elsewhere in the medium.

I'm going to take a break from finishing the Ecstasy routes, having completed Saya's, and go back for Kud Wafter in the same stretch of time. I'd like to let the original game sit a little longer, Refrain given time to wash over me a little more, and hell - maybe I'll even watch the anime, because I really do love this cast and their stories. The Little Busters are eternal, forever and ever.

Back in college I went through a pretty major identity crisis revolving around my ADHD. I quit my meds due to depression, but my grades slipped. I realized medication had filled many cracks in my life. How much of my academic success was me? Was I doing well, or was "I" just my medication the whole time? Did people prefer me more like that? Did I? Should I sacrifice some happiness just to get by?

My personal life events have absolutely nothing to do with Little Busters itself, but it sure as hell has something to do with my reflections on it. We sometimes miss the force of timing in our observation of texts. Certainly in this site's attempt to catalogue our perspectives, there's at least one game you hold dear to your heart because it reached you at an impressionable time over a describable objective quality, no? Our opinions can be more reflections our personal biases than a work itself, as much as we strive to find agreement or objectivity.

Don't worry, I don't think that's necessarily wrong. When we do acknowledge that we may be fond of works due to our vulnerability or relative youth, we don't need to concede that work to nostalgia. Something like Little Busters or Clannad may not have the greatest or most unique writing, translation, or prose; they're often limited by the crack fan squads trying to bring these translations over to us without the budget and rigor of a full localization team. But I think we should still vaunt a work's capability of affecting us in the right way at the right time. Mio's route shot through walls I put up for myself, and Refrain helped me clean up the rubble - that's it, and I loved it. I can't thank Maeda and company enough for reaching me and getting me through a really rough time in my life. Maybe it was because I was young that it affected me. But maybe when we're young we need a different kind of story to talk to us.

Objectively, I can try to say at least that Little Busters is a stellar young adult story. If you're not going through something, then Little Busters is still warm, funny, and genuine; it has a fantastic soundtrack, a wonderful cast, an addicting minigame to shake up the common route, a sense of humor that bridges the language barrier, and a giant heart holding it all together at the center. If you're going through something rough, though, this may be just the little extra you need. Even when it's goofy or melodramatic - like everything key - I can promise that it'll do its best to give you a hug, a pat on the head, and a nudge off to where you ought to be.

LITTLE BUSTERS ARE FOREVER!!!!!

Rarely does a story manage to get me so emotionally invested in such a large and diverse cast of characters. Every route is purposeful, and Refrain is perhaps the best Key content I have ever experienced.

Probably my most played VN next to Umineko, I adore all of the characters and playing this VN feels like coming back home, in a really weird way that I can't really describe. It's extremely funny/fun at times and at others will make you a sobbing mess, so far it's my favorite Key VN :) Mio is best girl.

friendship... friendship?? again??