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This review contains spoilers
By necessity, this post will discuss heavy topics such as mental illness, trauma, sexual abuse, rape, incest, animal abuse, and self-harm. This behemoth also contains spoilers for SayoOshi, tread carefully.
It's very rare that I find a game as grotesquely beautiful as Sayonara o Oshiete ~Comment te Dire Adieu~. Released by Craftwork in 2003 to lukewarm reception that developed into a cult-like following, SayoOshi is considered one of the "Denpa Trifecta." This trio of "main" denpa games that almost any denpa fan will point to as inspiring many of the other games includes SayoOshi, Tsui No Sora, and Jisatsu no Tame no 101 no Houhou.
For the sake of people reading this who have no idea what the heck a denpa is, denpa as a genre is probably best defined using the following three points:
1.) The protagonist is unreliable, and often mentally ill, in some way, shape, or form.
2.) The world around the protagonist seems to be going mad, for reasons the protagonist is trying to figure out.
3.) The plot itself involves the protagonist losing it more and more throughout the plot, though the protagonist often isn't particularly stable or grounded to begin with.
It's probably my favorite subgenre of visual novels. When it's done well, I think it's the most satisfying to see everything come together. And SayoOshi is done really well, in my opinion.
Many other people would disagree with my assessment, especially when it comes to the ending and how mental illness is depicted. I hope, in this long-winded review, I can get my own views on it across. I doubt I'll change anyone's minds, but at the very least, I hope this is somewhat enjoyable to read.
I believe SayoOshi is, at its core, a story about weighing your own guilt with what you're obligated to do, and how being obligated to do things out of guilt and because others tell you to will always lead to destruction, both of yourself and those around you. It's about cycles of abuse and trauma eating people from the inside out. It's not a story about overcoming trauma, or personal hardships. It's a game about how trauma can change people, oftentimes for the worse.
For many, the whole twist about Hirosuke, our nameable protagonist, being in a university hospital for having multiple uninterrupted breaks from reality is a cop-out, even if it was heavily foreshadowed from the beginning. And I can understand that. Even at release, the whole "the protagonist is actually just insane" plot twist was overplayed. But genuinely, I think it pulls it off, especially when it comes to balancing out the relationships and dynamics.
Some visual novels are meant to have a core message of "keep going even when it hurts, even when you feel yourself breaking into a million little pieces," and SayoOshi stands in stark contrast to that. Part of Hirosuke's whole problem is that he continued persevering out of obligation and guilt, without feeling he could reach out for help. He views himself as a deeply horrible human being, and I can't say I disagree much with that assessment. He's hurt insects and cats on purpose. He stole his sister's panties on multiple occasions as a teenager. He can only seem to love something if it's broken.
However, behind the horrible human being, you see all these systems that absolutely failed him. His family failed him. No one saw his concerning pattern of behavior as a child and thought to get him help. There were no attempts to get him help other than shaming him as a group activity, and we can see that made him scared to reach out. Even if his parents had done something, or tried to, the mental health system in Japan is already horrible, and mental health issues tend to be highly stigmatized. As far as we can tell, there were no genuine attempts to try and help him. Almost everyone significant in his life failed him, and this continues on and on until the only way he feels he can cope with his guilt, with his intrusive thoughts, is to bottle it up and create an escapist fantasy.
This isn't me defending him as a person, this is me defending him as a character, as well as the decision to make Hirosuke like this. To drive home the point that he's been failed by most major systems in his life, and that there were so many points where someone could helped him and instead no one did, leading to guilt feeding into obligation feeding into guilt feeding into obligation, and so on, and so forth.
Hirosuke feels guilt for his actions. He doesn't want to be like this. Even at his worst, you can see his hesitation, his trepidation, and again, his guilt. I don't think he's happy hurting other people. But, at the same time, he can't stop anymore. And the loss of control leads into guilt, which makes him feel obligated to continue, which feeds into a destructive cycle.
I think, also, it's interesting to view this cycle with Semina and Tonae. It's a much more subtle cycle for both of them, but still quite interesting.
Semina is the older sister. She was always the one meant to look after Hirosuke, especially because of the gender dynamics at play. But because Hirosuke was "off", and because she was often pushed aside for him, even as a child, she never liked him. Then, Hirosuke hits puberty and takes an interest in her. He steals her underwear, and naturally, she likes him even less and becomes more cruel to him. Meanwhile, her parents are still heavily pressuring her to become a teacher. She gets into her first choice of university, and becomes a teacher like their parents wanted. Hirosuke fails the tests twice. She tries to comfort him out of guilt and out of obligation as his older sister, and this makes things worse because he thinks she's pitying him instead of genuinely wanting to help him. Again, she's been horrible to him until now. This makes sense.
Next, he finally loses it. By this point, their parents are dead, and she's the only one left for him. Obviously, she feels guilty and obligated to take care of him. So, she tries a bunch of things to snap him out of his fantasy. None of them work. Eventually, she takes him to Tonae, at the end of her rope trying to fulfill her duty as his older sister. She visits him every day. But visiting him every day, when he's become deeply misogynistic and gynophobic, does far more harm than good, especially when she's already burnt out from taking care of him and prone to snapping at him. Despite it, he seems to be making at least a little progress before he walks in on Semina and Tonae talking, causing him to completely lose faith in his doctor and beginning another spiral.
At almost every point, Semina's actions are driven by both her sense of duty as his elder sister and as his only living relative, and her guilt for being mean to him, for being unable to find a doctor that can help him, and for not doing, or being, enough. She feels guilty after she snaps at him, and she feels more guilty when Tonae points out that her being near him so often likely made things worse for him, instead of better.
Tonae is the doctor, but she's also Semina's high school friend. They were in the swim club together, and Semina saved her from drowning. Tonae already essentially owes her life to Semina. Thus, when Semina asks her to try and help Hirosuke leave his delusion, of course Tonae agrees. How could she not? That's the person who saved her life! Of course she's going to agree to try and take on his case. Thus, the cycle of guilt and obligation begin again.
Hirosuke is gynophobic. Because she feels she needs to save him, for her own savior, she ends up trying to posit herself as a motherly figure to him. This seems to work well enough for a bit, considering we can see him opening up to her. However, if she pushes back too hard against his delusion, he'll completely lose trust in her, meaning she has to try and ask more roundabout questions to try and ascertain what's going on with him, meaning progress isn't particularly fast. Our first major setback comes when he feels comfortable enough to talk about the nightmare, and Mutsuki, the subject of his nightmare, walks in. This leads to him having a panic attack, and her realizing that the angel in his nightmares is Mutsuki. Unfortunately, she's unable to calm him down after that, since he's on the verge of a spiral. He finally trusts her again after a little bit, is ready to try and talk to her about his nightmares, and walks into her office... only to see Semina with her, thus fully sowing the seeds of distrust that only continue to grow throughout the rest of the game.
Tonae becomes desprate to try and save him. She can feel him clamming up after the progress she made, and so, guilt and obligation combine once again to give her the wonderful idea to try and snap him out of it using sex. Obviously, this doesn't work, given that, once again, Hirosuke has a very complicated relationship with sex and women. (Also see: the power dynamic difference, and the fact Hirosuke is literally unable to consent in a way that matters due to his delusions.)
Tonae feels so indebted to Semina and so duty-bound to help her patient that she takes drastic measures that likely didn't need to be taken in order to try and help Hirosuke, but these measures only make the situation worse. Thus, compounding her guilt, and her obligations, into another destructive spiral.
I don't think it's fair to claim that Sayonara O Oshiete does an asspull of an ending, especially considering the fact the foreshadowing wasn't super subtle, at least to me. I don't think it came out of left field, I think it built up beautifully, especially as we watch these traumas and spirals intersect and hurt everyone involved even more. It was genuinely almost painful to read at times, seeing the cycle everyone had trapped themselves in. My god, was it worth every minute.
I think also, with the concept of spirals and cycles in mind, the actual format works really well. Some of the text just hits different on a second play through without skipping! That doesn't mean I don't have my gripes with it, just that I think it works well.
I don't know how to describe how it resonated with me. I've tried, and tried, but I just can't. I think it's one of those stories you have to experience for yourself to truly understand.
Now, onto things that aren't the plot!
The art is some of the most visually interesting and beautiful art I've ever seen. The usage of color, the compositions themselves, and the art style all meld so well together. It's stunning, visceral, and still maintains a dreamlike aspect to it. I hesitate to call it a treat for the eyes, considering how grotesque it can get, but it's one of the prettiest visual novels I've ever had the pleasure of playing. The art holds up really well, even two decades later.
The music was also very good. None of the tracks were too long or too short, and it was interesting, hearing auditory foreshadowing for some of the characters. However, I do wish there was more of it. It could have benefited from having more music tracks.
The sound design with regards to voices was... just okay. It was fine. There were some standout moments, but even for it's time, it seemed a bit low-quality. There weren't many sound effects, but I did like how the school bell got progressively more messed up.
Overall, I rate this a 9/10 or a 4.5/5. If you have the stomach for it, you should try it.
It's very rare that I find a game as grotesquely beautiful as Sayonara o Oshiete ~Comment te Dire Adieu~. Released by Craftwork in 2003 to lukewarm reception that developed into a cult-like following, SayoOshi is considered one of the "Denpa Trifecta." This trio of "main" denpa games that almost any denpa fan will point to as inspiring many of the other games includes SayoOshi, Tsui No Sora, and Jisatsu no Tame no 101 no Houhou.
For the sake of people reading this who have no idea what the heck a denpa is, denpa as a genre is probably best defined using the following three points:
1.) The protagonist is unreliable, and often mentally ill, in some way, shape, or form.
2.) The world around the protagonist seems to be going mad, for reasons the protagonist is trying to figure out.
3.) The plot itself involves the protagonist losing it more and more throughout the plot, though the protagonist often isn't particularly stable or grounded to begin with.
It's probably my favorite subgenre of visual novels. When it's done well, I think it's the most satisfying to see everything come together. And SayoOshi is done really well, in my opinion.
Many other people would disagree with my assessment, especially when it comes to the ending and how mental illness is depicted. I hope, in this long-winded review, I can get my own views on it across. I doubt I'll change anyone's minds, but at the very least, I hope this is somewhat enjoyable to read.
I believe SayoOshi is, at its core, a story about weighing your own guilt with what you're obligated to do, and how being obligated to do things out of guilt and because others tell you to will always lead to destruction, both of yourself and those around you. It's about cycles of abuse and trauma eating people from the inside out. It's not a story about overcoming trauma, or personal hardships. It's a game about how trauma can change people, oftentimes for the worse.
For many, the whole twist about Hirosuke, our nameable protagonist, being in a university hospital for having multiple uninterrupted breaks from reality is a cop-out, even if it was heavily foreshadowed from the beginning. And I can understand that. Even at release, the whole "the protagonist is actually just insane" plot twist was overplayed. But genuinely, I think it pulls it off, especially when it comes to balancing out the relationships and dynamics.
Some visual novels are meant to have a core message of "keep going even when it hurts, even when you feel yourself breaking into a million little pieces," and SayoOshi stands in stark contrast to that. Part of Hirosuke's whole problem is that he continued persevering out of obligation and guilt, without feeling he could reach out for help. He views himself as a deeply horrible human being, and I can't say I disagree much with that assessment. He's hurt insects and cats on purpose. He stole his sister's panties on multiple occasions as a teenager. He can only seem to love something if it's broken.
However, behind the horrible human being, you see all these systems that absolutely failed him. His family failed him. No one saw his concerning pattern of behavior as a child and thought to get him help. There were no attempts to get him help other than shaming him as a group activity, and we can see that made him scared to reach out. Even if his parents had done something, or tried to, the mental health system in Japan is already horrible, and mental health issues tend to be highly stigmatized. As far as we can tell, there were no genuine attempts to try and help him. Almost everyone significant in his life failed him, and this continues on and on until the only way he feels he can cope with his guilt, with his intrusive thoughts, is to bottle it up and create an escapist fantasy.
This isn't me defending him as a person, this is me defending him as a character, as well as the decision to make Hirosuke like this. To drive home the point that he's been failed by most major systems in his life, and that there were so many points where someone could helped him and instead no one did, leading to guilt feeding into obligation feeding into guilt feeding into obligation, and so on, and so forth.
Hirosuke feels guilt for his actions. He doesn't want to be like this. Even at his worst, you can see his hesitation, his trepidation, and again, his guilt. I don't think he's happy hurting other people. But, at the same time, he can't stop anymore. And the loss of control leads into guilt, which makes him feel obligated to continue, which feeds into a destructive cycle.
I think, also, it's interesting to view this cycle with Semina and Tonae. It's a much more subtle cycle for both of them, but still quite interesting.
Semina is the older sister. She was always the one meant to look after Hirosuke, especially because of the gender dynamics at play. But because Hirosuke was "off", and because she was often pushed aside for him, even as a child, she never liked him. Then, Hirosuke hits puberty and takes an interest in her. He steals her underwear, and naturally, she likes him even less and becomes more cruel to him. Meanwhile, her parents are still heavily pressuring her to become a teacher. She gets into her first choice of university, and becomes a teacher like their parents wanted. Hirosuke fails the tests twice. She tries to comfort him out of guilt and out of obligation as his older sister, and this makes things worse because he thinks she's pitying him instead of genuinely wanting to help him. Again, she's been horrible to him until now. This makes sense.
Next, he finally loses it. By this point, their parents are dead, and she's the only one left for him. Obviously, she feels guilty and obligated to take care of him. So, she tries a bunch of things to snap him out of his fantasy. None of them work. Eventually, she takes him to Tonae, at the end of her rope trying to fulfill her duty as his older sister. She visits him every day. But visiting him every day, when he's become deeply misogynistic and gynophobic, does far more harm than good, especially when she's already burnt out from taking care of him and prone to snapping at him. Despite it, he seems to be making at least a little progress before he walks in on Semina and Tonae talking, causing him to completely lose faith in his doctor and beginning another spiral.
At almost every point, Semina's actions are driven by both her sense of duty as his elder sister and as his only living relative, and her guilt for being mean to him, for being unable to find a doctor that can help him, and for not doing, or being, enough. She feels guilty after she snaps at him, and she feels more guilty when Tonae points out that her being near him so often likely made things worse for him, instead of better.
Tonae is the doctor, but she's also Semina's high school friend. They were in the swim club together, and Semina saved her from drowning. Tonae already essentially owes her life to Semina. Thus, when Semina asks her to try and help Hirosuke leave his delusion, of course Tonae agrees. How could she not? That's the person who saved her life! Of course she's going to agree to try and take on his case. Thus, the cycle of guilt and obligation begin again.
Hirosuke is gynophobic. Because she feels she needs to save him, for her own savior, she ends up trying to posit herself as a motherly figure to him. This seems to work well enough for a bit, considering we can see him opening up to her. However, if she pushes back too hard against his delusion, he'll completely lose trust in her, meaning she has to try and ask more roundabout questions to try and ascertain what's going on with him, meaning progress isn't particularly fast. Our first major setback comes when he feels comfortable enough to talk about the nightmare, and Mutsuki, the subject of his nightmare, walks in. This leads to him having a panic attack, and her realizing that the angel in his nightmares is Mutsuki. Unfortunately, she's unable to calm him down after that, since he's on the verge of a spiral. He finally trusts her again after a little bit, is ready to try and talk to her about his nightmares, and walks into her office... only to see Semina with her, thus fully sowing the seeds of distrust that only continue to grow throughout the rest of the game.
Tonae becomes desprate to try and save him. She can feel him clamming up after the progress she made, and so, guilt and obligation combine once again to give her the wonderful idea to try and snap him out of it using sex. Obviously, this doesn't work, given that, once again, Hirosuke has a very complicated relationship with sex and women. (Also see: the power dynamic difference, and the fact Hirosuke is literally unable to consent in a way that matters due to his delusions.)
Tonae feels so indebted to Semina and so duty-bound to help her patient that she takes drastic measures that likely didn't need to be taken in order to try and help Hirosuke, but these measures only make the situation worse. Thus, compounding her guilt, and her obligations, into another destructive spiral.
I don't think it's fair to claim that Sayonara O Oshiete does an asspull of an ending, especially considering the fact the foreshadowing wasn't super subtle, at least to me. I don't think it came out of left field, I think it built up beautifully, especially as we watch these traumas and spirals intersect and hurt everyone involved even more. It was genuinely almost painful to read at times, seeing the cycle everyone had trapped themselves in. My god, was it worth every minute.
I think also, with the concept of spirals and cycles in mind, the actual format works really well. Some of the text just hits different on a second play through without skipping! That doesn't mean I don't have my gripes with it, just that I think it works well.
I don't know how to describe how it resonated with me. I've tried, and tried, but I just can't. I think it's one of those stories you have to experience for yourself to truly understand.
Now, onto things that aren't the plot!
The art is some of the most visually interesting and beautiful art I've ever seen. The usage of color, the compositions themselves, and the art style all meld so well together. It's stunning, visceral, and still maintains a dreamlike aspect to it. I hesitate to call it a treat for the eyes, considering how grotesque it can get, but it's one of the prettiest visual novels I've ever had the pleasure of playing. The art holds up really well, even two decades later.
The music was also very good. None of the tracks were too long or too short, and it was interesting, hearing auditory foreshadowing for some of the characters. However, I do wish there was more of it. It could have benefited from having more music tracks.
The sound design with regards to voices was... just okay. It was fine. There were some standout moments, but even for it's time, it seemed a bit low-quality. There weren't many sound effects, but I did like how the school bell got progressively more messed up.
Overall, I rate this a 9/10 or a 4.5/5. If you have the stomach for it, you should try it.
Ever since Natsume has put out their first original Harvest Moon, unrelated to the Bokujo Monogatari series, I pretty much swore them off. But I'm going to be perfectly honest: I am a farming sim enjoyer, and despite more games coming out for the genre, the actual quality of these games has been kind of horrendous. I personally have found that Story of Season's game quality has been steadily declining since they've started working on games for the Switch. While I appreciate the contributions it's made to the genre, especially in regards to gay marriage, I don't like Stardew Valley's core gameplay mechanics. All the other farming games coming out recently seem to have missed the point of a farming game: a rewarding gameplay loop, likeable characters, and, do forgive me if this seems controversial, but farming. The one farming game that I have been enjoying is still in early access, so to say I've been craving a new farming sim game that actually scratches the itch I've been having is an understatement.
So, I swallowed my pride and gave this a try.
As you can probably tell by my rating, my itch remains unscratched.
To start with, if you play it for the computer, there is no keyboard or mouse support. Well, mostly. You use the controller for most of the gameplay, but you have to use your keyboard to enter names. As an example, when first creating your character, you have to press "confirm" on the name field, go to your keyboard to type in the name, and then you have to go back to your controller, go down, and press confirm. Does this sound wonky? Perhaps a bit awkward? It is! And you'll have to do this every time you adopt an animal, too!
Next, let's go over the character creation. You pick your gender appearance, your skin tone, your hair color, your eye color, your birthday, and your name. You might notice, right around this point, that there is no option to pick your hairstyle or eye shape, when this has been a thing for most other popular farming games for A While. That isn't my only gripe with the system, to be clear. The darker skin tones are just ashy as hell, and the hairstyle and eyes just look... bland.
Let's get into the actual game itself.
It's a bold move to make movement cost stamina. I have never seen a game do that before, and I'm always open to new innovations in the farming sim genre. This design choice does NOT pay off. Early game, there is a quest that you have to complete to continue the story: go into the mines, get some silver, give it to Doc Jr. Fine, in theory. In practice? Jesus fucking Christ. To get to the silver, you need to be at a certain level in the mines, which is fine until you remember movement costs stamina. And breaking rocks costs stamina. And digging costs stamina. You finally get down there, and spot some silver, and you finally smash it with your pickaxe, but...
Oops! Your inventory is full! Did I mention the inventory system is abysmal? Your bag is split up into three main sections. You have food, you have non-edible stuff like fences and flowers, and you have materials, which are completely seperate from the non-edible stuff. You have ten slots in each part, which can be upgraded if you collect enough power wisps, which are like, little hidden golden guys. Also, you can only upgrade one section at a time to have an additional three slots. These slots fill up FAST. I have never had problems with early-game inventory management in any other farming game, and this isn't hyperbole.
Also, what is up with the movement and aiming system in this game? It's genuinely so wonky. In order to go down a level in the mines, you have to position your body just so, and then you'll still end up hitting the dirt next to the ladder instead. This is also true for the actual farming aspects of the game.
Unlike in previous farming sims, you don't have to equip your tools to use them. The game does that automatically. Great, in theory. In practice, with the piss-poor aiming system, it just leads to the player expending stamina on things they didn't need to do, when stamina management is already such a pain.
With stamina management, let's talk about the map: It's way too big with the stamina management system, and too awkward to navigate. You can't jump, and even a slight slope will prevent you from progressing onwards. It's bad.
With farming, you get seeds by either buying them, or finding harvest wisps who will give you some seeds. You will have to talk to the wisps to get most the seeds you need for requests. Do you need to complete an early-game quest where you need ten of three different types of flower? You can't buy the seeds, but you can spend real-world hours trying to collect enough seeds from the wisps to grow them! I wish I were exaggerating, one of the flowers you need can only be received by a very specific wisp in the overworld early-game, and I've only managed to get about six of them so far, even using the overworld map to mark the location. Seasonal crops don't seem to be a thing, meaning you can grow any crop at any time, which is cool I guess, but also kind of boring. Anyways, the farming sucks.
The animal rearing is just nothing special. You build up friendship really quickly, which is weird, but there doesn't seem much financial incentive to. Your eggs don't sell for much more once you build up friendship with your chicken, but I didn't get super far, so who knows,
I don't have much to say about the characters. There isn't much to say. They have no substance, they just stand around and say the same line while you try to rack up friendship points. They're bland. Some of the designs are cute, I guess, but that's about all I can say on them.
Finally, the graphics. God, the graphics. They're better than the previous Harvest Moon game, but the bar is stuck in permafrost with how low it is. They're just not good. I went into this knowing it wasn't going to be good, but I feel personally offended by the items floating into character's hands.
With all of that out of the way, let's talk about the good. There's... not a whole lot to talk about. I liked the concept of being able to move around your farm on a large map. I liked being able to reuse your animal waste as fertilizer. I liked having a kitchen super early. That's all I have to say for the good parts.
To make a long story short: I feel content with my decision to never play another Natsume game, because this one was a flaming pile of animal waste. It had a few good concepts, but executed them terribly. I might pick this up again when I'm drunk and think it might be fun, then remember why I decided not to keep playing it.
So, I swallowed my pride and gave this a try.
As you can probably tell by my rating, my itch remains unscratched.
To start with, if you play it for the computer, there is no keyboard or mouse support. Well, mostly. You use the controller for most of the gameplay, but you have to use your keyboard to enter names. As an example, when first creating your character, you have to press "confirm" on the name field, go to your keyboard to type in the name, and then you have to go back to your controller, go down, and press confirm. Does this sound wonky? Perhaps a bit awkward? It is! And you'll have to do this every time you adopt an animal, too!
Next, let's go over the character creation. You pick your gender appearance, your skin tone, your hair color, your eye color, your birthday, and your name. You might notice, right around this point, that there is no option to pick your hairstyle or eye shape, when this has been a thing for most other popular farming games for A While. That isn't my only gripe with the system, to be clear. The darker skin tones are just ashy as hell, and the hairstyle and eyes just look... bland.
Let's get into the actual game itself.
It's a bold move to make movement cost stamina. I have never seen a game do that before, and I'm always open to new innovations in the farming sim genre. This design choice does NOT pay off. Early game, there is a quest that you have to complete to continue the story: go into the mines, get some silver, give it to Doc Jr. Fine, in theory. In practice? Jesus fucking Christ. To get to the silver, you need to be at a certain level in the mines, which is fine until you remember movement costs stamina. And breaking rocks costs stamina. And digging costs stamina. You finally get down there, and spot some silver, and you finally smash it with your pickaxe, but...
Oops! Your inventory is full! Did I mention the inventory system is abysmal? Your bag is split up into three main sections. You have food, you have non-edible stuff like fences and flowers, and you have materials, which are completely seperate from the non-edible stuff. You have ten slots in each part, which can be upgraded if you collect enough power wisps, which are like, little hidden golden guys. Also, you can only upgrade one section at a time to have an additional three slots. These slots fill up FAST. I have never had problems with early-game inventory management in any other farming game, and this isn't hyperbole.
Also, what is up with the movement and aiming system in this game? It's genuinely so wonky. In order to go down a level in the mines, you have to position your body just so, and then you'll still end up hitting the dirt next to the ladder instead. This is also true for the actual farming aspects of the game.
Unlike in previous farming sims, you don't have to equip your tools to use them. The game does that automatically. Great, in theory. In practice, with the piss-poor aiming system, it just leads to the player expending stamina on things they didn't need to do, when stamina management is already such a pain.
With stamina management, let's talk about the map: It's way too big with the stamina management system, and too awkward to navigate. You can't jump, and even a slight slope will prevent you from progressing onwards. It's bad.
With farming, you get seeds by either buying them, or finding harvest wisps who will give you some seeds. You will have to talk to the wisps to get most the seeds you need for requests. Do you need to complete an early-game quest where you need ten of three different types of flower? You can't buy the seeds, but you can spend real-world hours trying to collect enough seeds from the wisps to grow them! I wish I were exaggerating, one of the flowers you need can only be received by a very specific wisp in the overworld early-game, and I've only managed to get about six of them so far, even using the overworld map to mark the location. Seasonal crops don't seem to be a thing, meaning you can grow any crop at any time, which is cool I guess, but also kind of boring. Anyways, the farming sucks.
The animal rearing is just nothing special. You build up friendship really quickly, which is weird, but there doesn't seem much financial incentive to. Your eggs don't sell for much more once you build up friendship with your chicken, but I didn't get super far, so who knows,
I don't have much to say about the characters. There isn't much to say. They have no substance, they just stand around and say the same line while you try to rack up friendship points. They're bland. Some of the designs are cute, I guess, but that's about all I can say on them.
Finally, the graphics. God, the graphics. They're better than the previous Harvest Moon game, but the bar is stuck in permafrost with how low it is. They're just not good. I went into this knowing it wasn't going to be good, but I feel personally offended by the items floating into character's hands.
With all of that out of the way, let's talk about the good. There's... not a whole lot to talk about. I liked the concept of being able to move around your farm on a large map. I liked being able to reuse your animal waste as fertilizer. I liked having a kitchen super early. That's all I have to say for the good parts.
To make a long story short: I feel content with my decision to never play another Natsume game, because this one was a flaming pile of animal waste. It had a few good concepts, but executed them terribly. I might pick this up again when I'm drunk and think it might be fun, then remember why I decided not to keep playing it.
This one was heartbreaking to have to decide not to finish. When I say "I wish I could have loved this game," it is not an exaggeration. Cross Channel should have been catnip for me. I love radio waves, unreliable narrators, senses of unease, and mental illness. I'd been meaning to play it for years before finally biting the bullet and giving it a try.
It fucking sucks. I wish I had a better way to phrase that, but gentler phrasing doesn't get my point across as well.
My issues don't lie with the different translations, they lie with the writing and plot itself. Cross Channel cannot set the mood or keep tension during the scenes that truly need it, and the plot isn't good enough to look past it. It feels like the people behind it tried to make a serious story, but ended up making the equivalent of a fourteen year old Kaworu kinnie on Tumblr's vent blog circa 2015.
The only reason I gave it this high of a score is because there seemed to be some genuine feeling behind it, and honestly? I'm a sucker for seeing an author pour out their soul. But that can only carry a game like this so far, with the fundamental issues it has.
Cross Channel feels like it tries to say something heavy but buckles under its own weight while trying to do so. I'm still sad it sucked so bad. Wouldn't recommend.
It fucking sucks. I wish I had a better way to phrase that, but gentler phrasing doesn't get my point across as well.
My issues don't lie with the different translations, they lie with the writing and plot itself. Cross Channel cannot set the mood or keep tension during the scenes that truly need it, and the plot isn't good enough to look past it. It feels like the people behind it tried to make a serious story, but ended up making the equivalent of a fourteen year old Kaworu kinnie on Tumblr's vent blog circa 2015.
The only reason I gave it this high of a score is because there seemed to be some genuine feeling behind it, and honestly? I'm a sucker for seeing an author pour out their soul. But that can only carry a game like this so far, with the fundamental issues it has.
Cross Channel feels like it tries to say something heavy but buckles under its own weight while trying to do so. I'm still sad it sucked so bad. Wouldn't recommend.