Ryan Ashfyre

I'm surely grateful for all the hard work being put into this. I just wanted to know if we should still expect the partial by this week, was all. 

I've my doubts that, beyond a small, vocal minority, people considered YU-NO to be a "good game" purely by virtue of its length and difficulty.
 
 
 
Given how I mentioned Rewrite in my previous comment, I'll take this opportunity to drown you all in a sea of text again bwahahahaha briefly explain my opinion on that.
 
By and large, I actually like it. Character-wise, Kotarou was pretty fun to watch (plus his lunchroom scenes with Lucia were freakin' hilarious) and the five heroines, while not all equal (Lucia was obviously out in front by a mile and anyone who thinks otherwise doesn't know what the hell they're talking about has a different, but respected opinion) were at least entertaining to watch in their own ways.
 
Story-wise, the common route, along with the five main heroines' routes and the Moon route were all good. Now, admittedly, I do think that some could've been a lot better; Shizuru and Kotori's routes in particular. Both had endings that, while not terrible, came across as trying to appeal as more emotional than they actually were.
 
Shizuru's Route:


 
It also reinforces the impression I had of Kotarou throughout the whole route, in that he was something of a sacrifical lamb, all for the sake of Shizuru's personal development. And honestly, that really took away from any emotional investment I might've otherwise had for them.
 
If Kotarou were going to be a source of strength for her, then you've gotta do better than just having him throwing himself into the proverbial fire for her. That just ain't gonna cut it. I need more.
 
Kotori's Route: Kotori, while I like her character well enough, had probably the weakest route of the five, with an ending that just screamed


 
And hey, I'm a fervent believer in all of that, hands down. That said however, you've got to earn that in a story. Kotori's route didn't do that, instead seeming to rely on gimmicks and cheap plot twists in order to try and force it out of us, and it didn't work.
 
All finally, we come to the Moon Route.
 
Honestly, I don't have a single major complaint about it. Essentially, it took all the best elements of what we'd seen so far and meshed 'em all together into a single, oh-your-god-the-world-is-on-fire-and-we've-gotta-save-it battle that brought our beloved characters back together again for a single, climactic ending. And it was great.
 
If Rewrite had just ended there, I would've been happy.
 
But noooooooooooooooo, the good people at Key just couldn't let it go and had to give us the absolute crapfest that was the Terra Route. That said, and to avoid another long rant on my part, I'm just going to list off everything that pissed me off about it one by one:
 
- Kotarou turned into a complete d***. Seriously. He was so light-hearted and confident about himself before. I enjoyed reading his POV and now I just can't stand him.
 
ALSO, I thought it was made painfully clear at the end of the Moon Route that


 
- What the actual hell happened to Kotarou's powers? Sure, in all the preceeding routes, there were differences in developments and usage, but there was always a sense of consistency behind his power(s). In Terra though, things just go completely off the rails and throw you for a loop. It's like they just threw their hands up in the air and said: "F*** it. We need this to happen, so we're doing it," consistency be damned.
 
- Kagari. Again, we come back to the end of the Moon Route where

and yet Kotarou somehow still finds himself infatuated with this girl whom he knows nothing about? Um... okay, how do you square that with a character that has absolutely no recollection of anything that happened in Moon?
 
- We don't see Chihaya, Lucia, Shizuru or Akane (aside from a brief encounter, iirc) anywhere.
 
- The story. If the Moon Route was an exercise in how to do Rewrite's ending right, then Terra does the exact opposite. Instead of focusing on the characters and letting them develop the story, it's the story and extenuating circumstances that have everyone running around like a bunch of chickens with their heads cut off, and it's damn confusing and unemotional gibberish to boot.