An incredibly gorgeous and atmospheric title.

This game is essentially a walking simulator disguised as an exploration puzzle game and takes place over the course over several small short stories.

The stories themselves are ok at best, they’re simple and relatively straightforward without much thematic connection or complexity but what I really enjoy this game for is its phenomenal art direction and sound design.

It’s incredibly clear just looking at the game that it did not have the highest budget nor did many people work on it. The models are relatively low quality with stiff animations, and occasionally characters actually start clipping through their clothes and the objects near them in animations. What makes this game a visual treat is really the phenomenal lighting and color palettes utilized in the various chapters. The lighting mostly uses standard fuzzy glows but makes it look particularly beautiful is its contrast against the mostly darker colored environments and player character. Because of the darker areas the lighting glows and pops out more. Sunbeams and moonlight function mostly the same except when interacting with liquids, which start to shine in contact. When combining these aspects you have some visuals I really love; a spiral staircase being illuminated from light above as glowing rose petals fall to the ground; blood positively sparkling under the moonlight reflected by a twilight blue greenhouse; a spotless white sanitorium illuminated from windows to the courtyard, silent bar your footsteps and the chirps of birds outdoors; a forest enveloped in a dark fog illuminated only by the glow of cyan butterflies; the game is full of locations like this and these are only a few of my favorites.

The sound design is also great and adds a fair amount to the experience. The OST is mostly ambient tracks played by the piano and typically has a gentle, occasionally somber feel to it. The sound effects are more pronounced and add a fair amount; the drip-drop of blood falling off a table from an overturned teacup; the bustling of curtains in the wind; the pitter-patter of fish out of water; playing the game without sound would remove so much of it.

So yeah, it’s a pretty neat game. If you care at all about either dark or joyous atmospheres in games without much else substance present, then I think you’d enjoy it.

Mediocre to downright awful in almost every way. The music and aesthetic is good, working together nicely to create a honestly awesome mid-2000s feel. Other than that, there really isn’t anything good here. The story is neither thematically nor narratively good, with incredible pacing issues. It feels like the actual story of the game is only 10 or so hours long, but is stretched far more than it needs to be so players can experience the repetitive and bare bones daily life over the course of a in-game year. The decision to have most major story events on full moons is thematically nice, but the weeks in between full moons are hollow and empty with little to do. The social links were alright, but even the best ones didn’t leave much of an impression on me. And finally, Tartarus is incredibly boring to play through completely, with the floors being essentially same the whole way throughout, and the combat is painfully dull and lacking in mechanics. Have not played The Answer but probably never will since I hear it’s somehow even worse than this game.

Despite this game being arguably one of the most important ever made from a Western market perspective, I had never bothered to actually play through the game in its entirety until very recently. I always saw it as a neat iconic relic from the past and only ever played the first few levels. But, my interest in the early games of the Mario franchise did spark up a bit recently, which led to me playing through this fully.

The actual game is…ok! It’s the most fundamental Mario title, but also potentially the most basic. There’s nothing really super flawed or bad about this game; I think it’s actually probably as perfect as it could’ve been. It’s just nothing that crazy to begin with. And that’s fine for the first entry, but it makes this game all the worse in retrospect compared to its peers.

Regardless, the game is still enjoyable. If you have the will to actually try it, you’ll probably enjoy some kind of fun from its simplicity. You just need to actually get past the first few worlds for the game's addictive nature to set in.

Because the normal Hirukowashi-hen doesn’t have a page here, this review will have my thoughts on both.

Frankly…this story…is very degenerate. Despite that, I didn’t really find it painful to read. It was so ridiculous and idiotic, I just didn’t care and went along with the ride. And I think once you do that the sheer insanity of this side story becomes a little funny, which is the point. Towards the end the writer, whoever wrote this, tries to justify it all by making it about how good partners in relationships at least try to get themselves invested into what their partner likes but like…it’s so weak and meaningless it really doesn’t matter.

The alternative version is slightly better, Irie being a blatant pedophile would normally be extremely cringeworthy, but the lunacy of the events made it a bit funnier. Satoko and Shion also have more dialogue in this version as well, which makes it instantly better. Sadly, this version cuts out Hanyuu entirely but like…the less young looking characters around Irie, the better.