GUTB

I tried playing Little Busters, but I just couldn't over the boredom. It's been years now, but I think I read a few hours into it on and off before dumping it.

Summer Days is a masterpiece compared to the vast majority of junk VNs. Almost all games in that genre are just worthless maid/loli fluff. School/Summer/Shiny/Cross Days tackles real-type love triangles and drama. Only Kiminozo is better IMO. To draw an example, take Kiyora giving the numeric code for "I like you" to Itou, how it plays out with him and Kotonoha in the woods, how it ties into different choices, outcomes, and all the plot details that went into setting up the scenario. Now compare that to Rewrite's romance plots -- Chihaya can't even say what she feels about him, Kotarou just starts sleeping with Akane after a time skip who goes crazy for no good reason, Lucia also goes cra-cra for no reason immediately after having found true love except a throw-away line about a drug. I can't wait to read about how he hooks up with Kagari for no apparent reason. MajiKoi is another series that utterly destroys Rewrite in basically every way. That's pretty embarrassing considering how MajiKoi is a gag/meme game from a mid-tier VN maker. Rewrite is not a good VN. It's barely mediocre. It just barely holds you, and like other mediocre VNs, you keep reading because you've already invested so much you might as well get the few good scenes from it that it has to offer. I am aware there are many complaints about Rewrite by other people, but it annoys me everyone who comments on it has to preface everything with "this is the greatest game known to man, but if I HAD to nit-pick something I thought might be just a tiny bit better..." No. Truth: there is more wrong than right with this game.

VNs are a unique medium that is between a novel and a comic book. They are a fusion of narrative and images, hence the term VN. Ryushiki normally produces very low-budget VNs with very little art assets, but they are famous for their stories and plots (even as they tend to become nonsensical -- like when lots of people called out the Baetrice mystery a white knight effect early on, and lots of other people -- myself included -- refused to believe the solution would be that simplistic, and after running around in 5 million directions and shoveling the BS high it turned out that's EXACTLY what it was). In regards to my VN experience, I've been reading for many years. I think the first one was that old imouto game....uh I forget the title now. But I was there reading Kiminozo, with the game window on one side of the monitor and a Breen's JDIC open on the other doing kanji stroke lookups (I only did that for games I was really into like that). I was there waiting for YEARS after the first MuvLuv for Alternative, and I played that sh1t the instant it came out (mind blowing experience, unlike Rewrite). Of course, I have a few favorites that I still watch out for like Age and Akabee Soft, etc. I'm into very high end VNs or VNs with amazing stories I can dig into. Yes, School Days, Summer / Shiny Days, etc, are some of the very best VNs of their genre. I've been noticing a steep decline of AAA and high quality VNs. Why hasn't NitroPlus put out another game at the level of Muramasa? Why hasn't Xuse put out something as good as Eien no Aselia? WTF has been LooseBoy been doing since G-senjou no Maou? And so on.

"Brilliant" massively over-states Rewrite in virtually every category. If you find it "hilarious" when Kotori spouts some random slaughtered English for the billionth time, or Kotarou delivers yet another dumb pun, or how Chihaya says "Hai?!?!" in response to literally every question, etc, than I suppose I have no right you can't be really impressed with that aspect of the game.... Another "brilliant" feature of the game: massive plot holes. For example, in clearly supernatural parts of Lucia's route being literally forgotten by the second half with a pathetic excuse given. Or the Earth Dragon being called the strongest familiar while that is supposed to be Sakuya -- avoiding that would have been really simple, but that is one aspect of the game's laziness. Or when there's 4 people having a fight in the abandoned church in Chiyaha's route when according to Lucia's route anyone who goes in will contract a deadly illness within minutes. Of course I could on and on... I liked Lucia's route the best -- because Ryushiki shows his skill as a writer unlike the other hacks. There is a natural and satisfying romance that goes from mutual attraction, to confession, to dating, and finally a kiss -- I mean, how hard is that? Why do all the other writers fail at this -- like how in Chiyaha's route you don't get to even so much as HUG her?! Also the fight as the end of Lucia's route is silly and nonsensical, it's a very well scripted fight scene that was exciting, while most other combat in the game is honestly lame. So MANY scenes in which the writer forgets about Kotarou's capabilities. Key is a major VN studio. It's not really forgivable to be so cheap on CGs. In a modern VN, it's really important to create a scene -- unless you are someone like Ryushiki who puts out games famous for their plots and stories. CGs are an important tool for scene creation. High quality developers (like Age) use CGs and a lot of sprite animations and other effects to better create scenes. I brought up Summer Days as an extreme example of a high quality festival scene -- you see colorful festival stalls, lights everywhere, crowds, the sound of wooden sandals, and festival music completes the image. The Harvest Festival is......absolutely nothing. The same barren backgrounds with no one in them. No special music. No sound effects. The only idea something is happening is from the text alone. Also....Summer Days has much better romance stories.

Summer / Shiny Days is a masterpiece compared to Rewrite. The story and genre is completely different but from a technical standpoint SD utterly destroys Rewrite.

Rewrite is often called Key's finest VN, and maybe it is, but it's also terribly boring and at best a mediocre VN, not a AAA effort. All of the heroines are interesting, but their routes are mostly mediocre hack-jobs with the exception of Lucia's probably due to Ryushiki's greater talent. They all have giant plot holes , characterization problems, and like all mediocre VNs the heroine routes forget most other characters even exist. The common route could easily be cut in half and nothing at all would be lost. The SoL comedy is bad outside of the Yoshino / chuuni segments and a few gag scenes. The largest issue though is the laziness of the production. Several important characters don't have sprites. Very few CGs in comparison with the number of scenes -- and some of the few CGs we do get are of useless scenes like the ramen stand scene, Chihaya watching a card game, etc. Some high quality VNs can augment CGs with animated sprites and other effects to build a scene, but Rewrite does very little in the this department. In general scenes are very static, boring and lifeless. When the Harvest Festival comes, you would have absolutely no idea it was there if the fact wasn't bieng narrated to you. Now compare that with the festival in Summer Days -- visuals, audio, sound effects, etc, immerse you into those scenes. So, in general, it seems Rewrite is just a mediocre VN at best, just longer than most in the genre.