Having completed all routes of The Fruit of Grisaia, I'm not quite sure I would strongly recommend reading this one to most people. And even if I would, definitely not as a starting point for VN's in this genre.
Grisaia's a pretty basic set of romance stories, with a twist that every one of the main characters, protagonist included, carries some kind of difficult past and/or mental scars. Thus, every route is your run-of-the-mill school love comedy eventually leading to protagonist and his chosen one to confront the issues, and a single choice that either makes or breaks their lives. In nutshell, this pattern is my main issue with Grisaia. I didn't really expect a masterpiece-level writing, but would it hurt to add some variation? Maybe more endings (surprisingly, there is no "neutral" end), or at least more choices. Making Makina and Yumiko's route not so similar would have been nice too.
That said, Grisaia is not really bad. If you wanna get that romance itch scratched and maybe add a tearjerker or two, then Grisaia would do nicely enough. Hell, if you REALLY resonate with any of the girls, then you might even really like this one. I was mostly interested in Michiru and Sachi by the end of common route and ended up liking their routes the most. So "read for a bit, see if you like anyone, read their routes then bow out" seems like a good enough strategy to take with this one.

For me, my favourite part of Grisaia was its satisfying endings. If you're looking for good romance and decent bad endings too (except Makina's route), I definitely recommend checking this out.

There are some questionable fanservice moments (I played the Steam version without modding), but if you can look past that, my ratings are:
Michiru route: 9/10
Sakaki route: 8.5/10
Sachi route: 9/10
Makina route: 3.5/10
Amane route: 8.5/10
Makina bad end 4/10
Amane bad end: 8.1/10

Feels like I'm walking out of the corner of a dark room, pulling open a forbidden tome. Any time this work is mentioned, whether by friends or strangers, I feel like I'm stepping on glass recommending or giving it any sort of positivity. It is inextricably bound to my personal baggage, the way I came across it, what it meant for me, and how it's pretty much front up a problematic work I cherish. The characters featured in this work are underage, you bet your ass there's adult content, and there's all manners of triggering topics. I'm sort of walking a mental tightrope thinking about what to say because I feel like there's hounds at the heels and, honestly, I find myself idealistically clashing whether to go through with detailing my thoughts at all because of that issue when I could just keep it locked up fully private. But I want to be true to myself as well as my thoughts on art, so before going on, if the latter sentences already have you on guard, that's fair enough. I'm not going to support the morality of this kind of work being a-ok in japan, the economic incentives of japan otaku, etc.. I just want to talk about how this work means a great deal to me.

I think before picking up Fruit of Grisaia, a lot of my thoughts on romance were pretty, i guess for lack of a better word very edgy/disgruntled. Extreme bachelor/bachelorette for life vibes. Not quite incel territory but the sort of mental justification of removing yourself from the equation and thinking in some way that makes you better. I'd read a couple works, Spice and Wolf for one although I didn't finish it. Anime kind of offers itself as kind of easy to fit yourself into when you're this subtype. It was maybe 5 years ago now then where I started reading Fruit of Grisaia off a friend's tacit recommendation.

What followed wasn't transformative exactly but my mentality changed as the story progressed. Grisaia initially offers comfort with the common route, as these polar extremes of character archtypes all mesh into one classroom and you laugh and slowly get to know their quirks and deeper personalities. The dialogue is pretty great, these characters are so excellently defined in their rapport and they have a multitude of different edges that make them feel more like people than softer rounder stereotypes, slowly removing itself from the idea of archtype altogether.

It's when each character's route comes in, that it starts fully exploring their traumas and slowly uncovering realizations on the ways we think after dealing with the extreme ends of our grief. Suddenly 'quirks' make a lot more sense, motivations that feel promptly niche for some people or weird become tangible, and kind of falling down a rabbit hole of grief spirals and guilt. Guilt for many things, blaming ourselves for our own issues, and wallowing in that despair underneath while still putting on performative smiles and seeking friendship to heal over the wound. That's the VN's main appeal, that continuous grieving and self criticism, and then after acknowledging them, learning to deal and move on with them. And that way Grisaia points towards moves me on to the next point that really span my world around.

Companionship. As a still pubescent mind that I have to reiterate kind of strove away from the romantics the ways Grisaia had me invested in these characters' union with a MC (who is a total asshole gamer dork) started to really change my ideas on what I wanted in life and what I was doing acting on my own. I fell deeply in love with the romantics, how these characters comforted each other and slowly ran through the checklist of genuinely well communicated relationships. So at one point I had to sit down while reading and look at myself. Was I afraid of being hurt? Was I afraid of opening up? Do I too have issues I have to come towards and deal with, that I'm feeling comfortable sticking under a facade of stern emotions?

The answers are complicated but the year after finishing Fruit I took what I felt were the mental lessons. A year later I'd gotten into a relationship for my now 3-years going SO. I started expanding outward, letting myself be more vulnerable, I discovered or more like acknowledged my queerness, got really into romantics, found solace in being the internet punching bag furry. I don't think Fruit was entirely alone in moving this boulder but it's because it's so heavily responsible that it's ironic I never thanked or called back to it going forward. Sometimes the way you grow up or find real lessons in empathy comes from the worst places you can think of, and thusly I have no unbiased way of really acknowledging this work without again putting my personal baggage on full display.

And of course, Fruit of Grisaia isn't really perfect at all. The way the traumas are brought up aren't dealt with with the most deft of hands, and a couple of its conclusions to move forward with these issues are very anime magical and not really giving the trauma or disorder the attention it really deserves. In some ways that's fine because Yuuji as MC is designed to have to find some way to magically give some solace or solution to these characters, and the best part is that at the least, Grisaia acknowledges that none of these are perfect solutions and all the characters of Grisaia have to still, live with that trauma, even to their final days. There's still a couple asterisk quite disgusting triggering scenes as well, and it's certainly above the 'peak kamige' genre in many many ways by one) not having the MC rape at all (wow what a concept), and two) having care and context for when these triggering scenes happen. But it's still colored in shades of an individualistic but remarkably partially otaku lens nonetheless.

Still, it's going to go down in my life as problematic media #1 or close for a good deal and I'll live with that. I obviously can't recommend this to most people in fear of them finding that the stack of cards that is my mental rationalization and experience with this might be even more deeply flawed than I already acknowledge, but I'm not going to fuck around saying it's anything but amazing to me.

3 yıllık serüvenin ardından Grisaia'nın ilk oyununa rota rota inceleme yazmaya karar verdim. Benim için bu yapımın bu kadar uzun sürme nedeni dilindeki deyimlerdi. Deyimleri çevir oyunu çevir derken 15 dk sonra başıma ağrılar giriyordu. Google lens ve kendimi geliştirmem ile bu sorunu çözüp en azından daha hızlı bir şekilde oyunu oynamaya başladım. Spoiler vermemeye çalışsamda bu bir vn olduğu için vn de de eleştiriyi hikaye bazlı yapacağımdan ufak spoilerlar olabilir.

Kızları kendi rotalarında biraz daha ayrıntılı konuşacak olsam da giriştede onlardan bahsedeceğim. Vnlerin flag ve seçim mantıkları olduğundan ondan da direk burada bahsetmek istiyorum. Bu oyunda seçim aşırı az çok lineer bir oyun oynuyorsunuz. Seçimleriniz, Sachi rotasını açma, Heroin seçme, Ending seçmeden ibaret oyun toplamında en fazla 8 seçim falan vardır. Seçimlerinizle değişen bir hikaye istiyorsanız bu oyun sizlik değil. Kimileri bunu bir eksi olarak görebilir ama benim için bir önem taşımıyor.
Common Rota
Grisaia'ya başlarken animesini izleyerek başlamıştım bu nedenle az çok ne ile karşılaşacağımı biliyordum. Beklentimi kötü şeyler yaşamış kızların yanında olup onları kendimiz ile birlikte iyileştireceğiz şeklinde ayarlamıştım bunun ne kadar doğru olup olduğunu ne yazık ki oyunun giriş kısmından size söyleyemiyorum. Benim için 3 yıl süren common rotada kızların yaşadıkları hakkındaki olaylar hiçbir şekilde işlenmiyor ve betaber günlük yaşam aktiviteleri şeklinde geçiyor. Common rotada heroinlerin ve ana karakterin birbirlerine yaptığı konuşmalar aktiviteler ile ağırlıklı gidiyor kötü değil ama bence fazla uzun olmuş bu kısım ve de hep bir grup içinde muhabbet dönüyor bu da kişiliği yüzünden Yumiko'yu tanıyamamamıza neden oluyor ve bir noktada çok fazla aynı tarz espiriler dönmeye başlıyor. Rota girişlerinde heroinlerle biraz daha birebir vakit geçirebiliyorsunuz da o da şu anlık yetersiz kalmış.

This game is kinda based and redpilled because the whole premise is that if you act like a stereotyped anime girl, you probably have some mental illness that needs to be treated ASAP. Then again, it also kind of relishes in the fact that the girls act like anime stereotypes, but it ain't all that bad despite some highly questionable plot developments (fuck Makina's route), good/bad endings that have little to do with the choices you're presented with, and romance elements that feel randomly forced in most routes besides Yumiko and maybe Amane.

The game manages to make these stereotyped characters likeable and entertaining enough to carry an otherwise very shaky narrative, a lot of people complain about the common route and I agree it drags a lot, but also some of the best character interactions are in it, and the flashbacks where you see the backstories of the girls from their POV are very well done, usually the highlight of their respective routes.