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Kimi to Tsunagaru Koi Flag


Clephas

1679 views

To be blunt, I only started this one first because I don't want to read something written by Kazuki Fumi (the writer of Nanairo Reincarnation) just yet... I'm sleep-deprived, so I wouldn't be able to appreciate it, lol.  In any case, it was either this game or the new Windmill release, and, when in doubt, I try to get the new company games out of the way first. 

This is written by Scokan, a new writer on the VN scene.  Judging by what I saw in the common route, he is about of average level for a charage writer or maybe slightly better, with a tendency toward using the wrong kanji for some archaic terms.  The characters in this VN all fall into classic VN stereotypes.

Kikyou is a somewhat innocent tsukumogami (For the inexperienced: tsukumogami are objects that have, over a long period of time, gained a form of sentience and some spiritual power) who is devoted to her duty but hopeless at doing anything related to that duty (whereas she is abnormally good at cooking and other daily tasks).  She is enthusiastic and kind-hearted, but she has a tendency to apologize excessively. 

Haruka is the classic genki stepsister.  She loves her niichan and is virtually attached to him at the hip, despite his protests.  She is generally cheerful and tends to want to touch those she likes constantly.  Underneath, she is surprisingly vulnerable, though her fundamental baka-ness means that she rarely remains down in the dumps for long.

Shiori is your classic kuudere (a type that we don't see that often these days).  She seems aloof at first, but, when people try to talk to her, she has a tendency to give them the benefit of the razor edge of her tongue.  She also has as much trouble being honest with her feelings as any other tsundere variant.

Misaki... is your classic deredere osananajimi miko (yes, this pops up enough in charage that it has become an archetype).  She rather obviously is in love with the protagonist from the beginning, and this makes his rather half-hearted and awkward attempts to avoid her rather irritating in the prologue.  Moreover, she is extremely pushy and tends to settle into the usual 'fuufu manzai' situation in front of others when it comes to the protagonist. 

The protagonist, Yuuto, is... a hetare.  I'm sorry, but that is how I feel.  Oh, the getchu page makes him seem like a shadowed character, but he is just half-heartedly misanthropic... and this part of his character is handled poorly in the common route (he hardly struggles at all against what is happening, despite his supposed misanthropy).   I found him immensely irritating a lot of the time, though his interactions with Haruka are frequently amusing (as opposed to his interactions with Misaki being downright annoying). 

Common Route

The common route is mostly classic charage fare.  You get lucky sukebe events on a regular basis, the heroines forgive the protagonist quickly, and the protagonist eventually stops resisting the friendship of the heroines (without crossing the line into favoring any particular one).  Thankfully, all the routes split off from the same choice, so there is no massive number of meaningless choices to annoy the reader, but I thought that Kikyou's character was poorly developed in the common route, considering that she is the obvious main heroine.  A lot of this is that she is a non-presence during most of the school hours, and the writer applies the plot device of the magic power keeping the protagonist from getting too far from her inconsistently.  As a result, I exited the common route with a fondness for most of the heroines but a bit irritated/stressed because of the way Kikyou was neglected and the protagonist was such a hetare about some things.

Kikyou

It was a close race between her and Shiori, but I picked Kikyou first (I have no intention of bothering with the other two heroines, as they are both types that make better side-characters than heroines).

As if they were sorry for treating Kikyou like a side-character in the common route, her own route is... emotionally-packed.  There is some serious drama in there related to her nature as a tsukumogami and the protagonist's trauma (which is touched on in much more detail here), and it was almost as if an entirely different writer was handling the more serious parts.  I cried several times... but this path uses a rather archetypical set of events (if you've played other kamisama-heroine paths, you'll recognize the tropes instantly), and even though it is presented well, the pacing is kind of sloppy toward the end.   The ending of this path is... short.  I say this in annoyance, because this would be an ideal path for a Hikoukigumo no Mukougawa-style 'to the very end' ending.

I want to talk about the ichaicha in this path separately because it is worthy of note that it almost felt like a nukige at times.  Kikyou and the protagonist have almost no restraint, and it is made worse by the fact that Kikyou is the type to gladly respond to just about any kind of advance and the protagonist is the type who has self-control issues once he actually has a girlfriend.  There is, thankfully, only one date in here and they didn't try to insert something unrealistic like the innocent kamisama wanting to go shopping (which would be out of character for Kikyou but which some writers would have insisted on). 

Shiori

I picked Shiori for a very simple reason... I have a weakness for kuudere heroines who really hate being alone.  Shiori's path is, like Kikyou's, fairly emotional, with her asthma playing a role in the path's story along with the protagonist's trauma (once again, and showing off a bit more detail as to what happened leading up to it). 

By the time I got halfway through this path, I started to recognize a pattern in how this writer is handling the protagonist... at some point, the heroines start to mother the protagonist to one degree or another (the reason why this is part of the relationships makes sense when you've played the common route), and, similar to Kikyou's route, the protagonist is like a dog in heat throughout much of the route after the romantic connection forms (as is the heroine).  I feel it necessary to mention this because the 'intensely sexual' phase of most charage routes tends to be a lot less extensive than I saw in this one.  This felt much closer to Majikoi levels in some ways, hahaha.

The ending is reasonably touching... but again, by my standards, it felt like it wasn't quite enough, as it ended less than a month after the climax (I like 'years later' endings). 

Conclusion

If you want to try a newer (up and coming) charage company, this is a good choice.  For this game, they used artists from Studio Ryokucha and Gesen, and it shows in the styles.  There are more emotional moments than is the norm for your standard charage, but that is a plus rather than a negative.  The only real downsides are a few pacing issues, the briefness of the endings, and the weakness of the common route (lol). 

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