Love, Vampire Flowers Part 1
Entry posted by Clephas
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Love, Vampire Flowers was one of the VNs I have been looking forward to, if only because Lovesick Puppies (by the same company) was such a hidden gem at the time. I won't say this approaches Lovesick Puppies for impact, because it doesn't. In comparison, it begins much more slowly and the problems tend to be more of the 'classic charage' type (well, the heroines' ones anyway). The big draw of this is that the protagonist is about as psychologically mature as you could hope for from a 'good guy' vampire, lol. Unfortunately, that very maturity is the cause of most of the boring parts of the early part of this VN. Not only that, but the makers of this VN indulged in a rather heroic effort to avoid getting to the point when it came to the common route, lol.
So far, I've played two heroine paths, Chris's and Rie's. About two thirds of the VN is repeated text (since the actual choice to cause a split-off is in the prologue, I'm unsure if it would be called a common route, lol). This is the main reason why I felt like they took forever getting to the point. To be honest, in the two paths I've played so far, the biggest disappointment has been the somewhat hurried nature of the heroine paths in comparison to the overly drawn out common route. There was room in this for a story with a lot more depth and impact, and the protagonist himself would have provided more than enough ingredients for this, even without the heroines' own personal issues.
That said, by charage standards, the heroine paths are quite good... it is just that there is so much potential in the setting that it can't help but be wasted on a 'normal charage'. This VN's setting would have made for a first-class nakige, if they'd gone for a heavier emphasis on emotional drama in general. I also felt that they misused the protagonist's flashbacks to his distant past, as the one in Chris's route would have fit a lot more in with Rie, considering her background. There were points where a clash of wills and ways of thinking should have occurred, logically speaking, but didn't, even though Haruto himself isn't exactly a weak-willed person.
Basically, it was my impression that they started out trying to create a truly dynamic protagonist to drive a more in-depth plot... but probably had to downsize everything except the common route, most likely due to budget constraints. There are hints all over the place that they meant to create a much deeper plot but for some reason didn't do so, and that is immensely frustrating for me, given my fondness for a good story.
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