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Worst routes you've ever read in a VN and why


starlessn1ght

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Hard to say which one is the worst, but when it comes to a route i didn't really like that i can remember from the top of my head is the Rewrite Shizuru route, that may be mainly because off the dissapointment i felt, i had built up quite the expectation cause i absolutely loved Shizuru as a character, and the bits and pieces i got from the video we get and see etc just built up my expectations, but when i played the route i felt mostly only dissapointment, not a horrible route, but it did somewhat dissapoint me. :P

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Tomoyo (Clannad) - mainly because of the mindblowingly terribad ending.

Ayame (Crescendo) - awkward, stupid and it generally makes no sense whatsoever.

Every route in Shuffle!, because it's a complete kusoge and none of those routes are Kareha's.

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Hard to say which one is the worst, but when it comes to a route i didn't really like that i can remember from the top of my head is the Rewrite Shizuru route, that may be mainly because off the dissapointment i felt, i had built up quite the expectation cause i absolutely loved Shizuru as a character, and the bits and pieces i got from the video we get and see etc just built up my expectations, but when i played the route i felt mostly only dissapointment, not a horrible route, but it did somewhat dissapoint me. :P

 

Gonna add Benio from Comyu here, though it's a true end VN i really didn't like the route, even though i liked the heroine :D

I found that they achieved nothing during the route, though they hinted towards Keisar being reached, there's nothing formal, and they didn't even end up together officially.

 

 

Tomoyo (Clannad) - mainly because of the mindblowingly terribad ending.

You didn't like that route/ending? :o It's been quite a long time since i read it but as i can remember I quite enjoyed it, i disliked the Yukine route more. :)

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You didn't like that route/ending? :o It's been quite a long time since i read it but as i can remember I quite enjoyed it, i disliked the Yukine route more. :)

Yukine is also high on my list for being absolutely pointless, but Tomoyo's was worse.

 

I even let the premise of her trying to join the student council to save trees slide, even though I have serious doubts that the council even has the power to influence this stuff. Then there was this bullshit Romeo and Juliet plot that's about as pathetic as they come. And it all ends with a unilateral sacrifice on Tomoyo's part, while Tomoya literally loses nothing in the deal. Never even tries to improve himself in any way, or to convince anyone, just keeps on being a waste of space until Tomoyo says goodbye to her bright future and throws herself into his lap again. LOVE WINS.

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Yukine is also high on my list for being absolutely pointless, but Tomoyo's was worse.

 

I even let the premise of her trying to join the student council to save trees slide, even though I have serious doubts that the council even has the power to influence this stuff. Then there was this bullshit Romeo and Juliet plot that's about as pathetic as they come. And it all ends with a unilateral sacrifice on Tomoyo's part, while Tomoya literally loses nothing in the deal. Never even tries to improve himself in any way, or to convince anyone, just keeps on being a waste of space until Tomoyo says goodbye to her bright future and throws herself into his lap again. LOVE WINS.

You're making some good points ^^ My opinion is prolly biased by the fact I just like it when love wins, it's my 2nd VN and it's been quite a long time since I read it so I don't remember too much, my VN experience was quite low. :)

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Michiru from Grisaia. Nonsensical drama (as Zeno pointed out), Yuuji being a complete asshole for a good portion of her route, a bad ending that made NO SENSE (not to mention the terrible good/bad end choice which was confusing as fuck) and the complete lack of chemistry between them. It felt like Yuuji got together with her more out of obligation than anything else.

Also, Tsubaki from G-senjou. She's just an unrealistic character to the bone and her route reflected that. Only good thing about it was the bad end, which was very fitting for a character like her. Good end was a massive ass pull, as expected from a terrible route :)

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  • 3 months later...

I really can't say what route is the worst but if I had to field a contender I would say Karin's route in To Heart 2. Any potential sweet moment or anything like that was reduced into nothing thanks to her playing the blackmail card. Repeatedly. And tricking someone to join your club when they help you (even if the story handwaves this as a common occurrence) and blackmailing someone due to an accident into stay in your club is simply wrong.

 

Other contenders consist of most of the routes in Tick! Tack! are pretty bad mostly because they are based around the concept of "Alright how can we screw up Nerine and how can we screw up her relationship with Rin?"

 

To elaborate: we can turn Nerine into a child and we can really change her personality and family (much more flirtatious, forward, etc.), the latter of which is accomplished by ruining Nerine's father's marriage to give Nerine a different mother (well IS it ruining if they never get married in the first place? Damn you time travel) while the former is delaying her father's marriage so she is born later. To label it up by route that would make Red Nerine and Kid Nerine bad routes. The threesome route is only accomplished by Rin cheating on Nerine so I don't like that either because simply I don't feel anything about that route and he has no incentive to cheat. Blue Nerine's route wasn't that bad and it did have its sweet moments though.

 

And there are probably other routes that I think are terrible but I can't think of right now, I will say off the top of my head that I didn't like Nemu's route in Da Capo or Kiri's route in Canvas.The former because it makes me believe the MC and Sakura are idiots

turn off that damn tree or something rather than doing something like burning her memories. Plus all it did was make me hate Sakura because she was causing this problem (from my understanding)

 and the latter due to how flat and predictable it was. Mare's route is also there but I just think that due to the common reason of it being wasted potential but overall I didn't have too many problems with it.

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I really can't say what route is the worst but if I had to field a contender I would say Karin's route in To Heart 2. Any potential sweet moment or anything like that was reduced into nothing thanks to her playing the blackmail card. Repeatedly. And tricking someone to join your club when they help you (even if the story handwaves this as a common occurrence) and blackmailing someone due to an accident into stay in your club is simply wrong.

 

Wow, I felt Karin's whole blackmail thing was very tongue in cheek and lighthearted and the protagonist really went there by choice anyway... On the other hand I wanted to kill the protagonist in Sasara's route. That's probably the worst route ever for me but mostly because I was translating it myself which meant that I spent 100x longer doing it than just reading through it would have taken.

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I know this might upset a few people, but Chihaya's route was just utterly disappointing. Keep in mind, I'm more likely to hate a promising story that turned out bad than outright horrible writing that didn't catch my interest. I really liked Chihaya in the common route, so the sheer lack of focus on her character during her actual route was nothing short of appalling. And between that, the plot, and the godawful pacing, this turned out to be the biggest headache I've ever had to deal with in a VN.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Id say kohaku in shinikiss because well the ending makes not just her route but the entire bloody game null and void its basically a huge middle finger to anyone who played the game. I regret playing the game and regret it more that i cant get the time i wasted on the game back. I praise vns in general even if they seem kinda dull or bad but shinikiss gets nothing but hatred from me.

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I played Grisaia no Kajitsu since the unrated version is out.  :P

 

So far I did 4 of the routes but I really hated Michiru's route. Seriously, half the route was just Yuuji treating her like a worthless b**** and I didn't see a lot of affection between them except on the sex scenes, heck even with those.... they weren't as passionate as like Yuuji with Sachi, Amane, or Machina. 

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  • 1 year later...
On 4/22/2015 at 4:15 AM, Nosebleed said:

Oh I forgot one, Suzuha's route in Steins;Gate

 

Let me tell you I love Steins;Gate and I love Suzuha, but her route was the worst one in the entire game. It's the shortest, features the least amount of content and to be honest it didn't even feel like a real "Suzuha route", it was just sort of a "here's this random event with Suzuha in it" and then it ends on a really vague note.

 

Since it was the first route I went for in Steins;Gate, it really left a bad aftertaste in my mouth and I really think Suzuha's character deserved much better.

Sorry for necromancing but, I'm currently reading this route right now, and from the very "beginning" of the route, I already knew what I'm in for, and when the route repeated the dialogue and text a second time in an "Endless Eight" fashion, I didn't really have a problem with it. It was honestly quite disturbing, and yet served very well as a "Bad End". I didn't know it was supposed to be a "route", so I don't really care about the length of it. I feel it's an effective alternative to what could have happened if you give into selfish desires.

I love Suzuha as well, which is why this felt like an especially important route to make her eventual departure much more disheartening, knowing that there's no other option aside from sending the D-mail. It gives Suzuha's ultimate fate much more impact in hindsight.

Edited by LemiusK
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9 minutes ago, Nandemonai said:

Those are not really routes.  They're endings.  Most of the "routes" in Steins;Gate are short "what if?" endings, like that one.  There are two "normal" endings, and one True Route.  The rest are like Suzuha's end.

Okay, then that is disappointing, I agree. I wouldn't mind if Suzuha's ending was the only one that's short, but a big appeal about visual novels for me is the multiple routes you can pick based on your choices, so you can pick a girl's route you'd like to go on and stuff. I hope the two "normal endings" won't be as short as those other character endings, or that would really be disappointing.

Anyway, in spite of the short length of the other endings, I still stand by what I said about the significance of the Suzuha ending. It also explored a very important question about the Time Leap Machine's capability to travel in an infinite loop: what does happen with continuous use? Would you be a god of some sort? Or would there be side effects...? Hopefully, the other endings would be just as insightful or meaningful as well.

Edited by LemiusK
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Stein's Gate is basically one giant railroad through the whole story.  At certain points in the story, Okarin will be about to make a major change to the timeline, but you will have the option to make the call, or not.  One of the choices will lead to one of the character endings.  The two main endings are, well, the identities of the characters involved are technically a spoiler, so I'll just say this:  When the train is pulling into the station, which one you're closer to (based on who you have / haven't been messaging and how nice / nasty you've been) will determine which of the two normal endings you see.

The true ending basically requires a walkthrough.  I have no idea how people figured it out initially.  It involves

Okarin getting to the station, deciding he doesn't like the way things ended up, and then taking a detour to Crazy Go Nuts University.

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16 minutes ago, Nandemonai said:

Stein's Gate is basically one giant railroad through the whole story.  At certain points in the story, Okarin will be about to make a major change to the timeline, but you will have the option to make the call, or not.  One of the choices will lead to one of the character endings.  The two main endings are, well, the identities of the characters involved are technically a spoiler, so I'll just say this:  When the train is pulling into the station, which one you're closer to (based on who you have / haven't been messaging and how nice / nasty you've been) will determine which of the two normal endings you see.

The true ending basically requires a walkthrough.  I have no idea how people figured it out initially.  It involves

  Reveal hidden contents

Okarin getting to the station, deciding he doesn't like the way things ended up, and then taking a detour to Crazy Go Nuts University.

 

I've read the walkthrough chart, and it seems that there are certain "True End" flags you need to raise by messaging Kurisu the correct email (or rather, selecting the correct email reply). For example, in Chapter 4, when you receive the email where Kurisu asks if you have written the report. Select "scientist" to trigger the first true end flag. There are multiple parts to this process, it seems. Haven't read the entire walkthrough yet, so I don't know what raising all of the six flags would do.

Anyway, I guess it's not too bad that it's a giant railroad. That means that I will have very little reason to replay the game except the parts that lead to different endings, so I guess that gives me time to play other VNs, I guess. It's a small comfort, but it's better than nothing.

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