I have my fair share of problems with Ciconia so far but thankfully my expectations were tempered from the start due to the setting and scale. The abnormally large and varied cast is handled fairly well and they have good interactions. The non-wartime parts are entertaining and do a good job of endearing you to the characters while building up the world. The wartime parts end up feeling very repetitive with a lot of redundant dialogue regarding the WALLS OF PEACE and DONT KILL DONT DIE and generally uninteresting action scenes. It feels like every other scene features ryukishi using the game as a mouthpiece to tell the reader how bad humanity is and how much war sucks and it ends up detracting from the story. The themes are meaningful and interesting but the lack of subtlety makes it feel very tiring after a while. Often I was subjected to scenes where everyone would be all buddy buddy and spend 5 minutes talking about how much they'll support peace which is annoying when anyone with more than a couple brain cells knows from the start that they will end up killing each other. Presentation is upgraded from the other WTC games but it doesn't really get a lot of chances to shine given how few legitimate fights there are. Music is good as usual but not really as memorable as umineko's or as impactful as higurashi's. Despite my problems, the ending was great and I'm interested to see where the story is going to go from here now that they've built everything up.

Ciconia when they cry has an interesting story with themes and ideas that makes it more interesting but still we didn’t see the full potential of the story, I’m excited to see what will he do with the story.

This phase was focused on the characters especially the children, I mean it was obvious by the title “ For You, the Replaceable Ones” and the children were well written, not that excellent but still good.

in conclusion it was a fascinating ride but lacks so many things, especially the cliff hanger I wished it was more exciting.

Ryuukishi has improved a hell of a lot since Umineko. The man finally learned how to stop padding story with as much annoying pointless filler, and the battle special effects are actual animations now instead of seizure-inducing powerpoints. Bravo.

The story is definitely a much larger scale than Higurashi and Umineko, and I hope that he won't be biting off more than he can chew (which I slightly felt about Umineko). I'll have faith in him, though, if we ever get the second phase. And goddamn I can't wait to see the characters develop, his characters are why I always come back.

Gluttons for punishment, rejoice, because once it gets rolling, there are no brakes on this pain train. It’ll test your limits, challenge your worldview, and by the time it’s all over, you’ll be so emotionally spent that it’ll be weeks before you can fully process the implications of what you’ve just witnessed. Fair warning, though: common side effects include feelings of emptiness, PTSD, and unrealistic expectations for any and all other visual novels.
Playtime's over. Time for despair. Experience the definitive version of a masterpiece in the When They Cry trilogy's thrilling conclusion. Note: therapy not included.