#you can see a little bernkastel in the background

[eyeglassez]

wtc x mgrr

[lyendith]

Trianthology − School Love Adventure part 1

Back to that other game! It’s hard to find the time (especially since I’m not used to reading an entire VN in Japanese) but I’ll try to move forward a little bit and at least get to the third story before the end of the month.

But first, I have to apologize − contrary to what I said it seems like the first story “Country Girl” wasn’t written by Ryūkishi07, but by Tanaka Romeo so… mea culpa.

So I picked up from where I stopped, when Keiko was hospitalized, read a bit ahead and… then the story stopped in the middle and we got back to Alice and her rabbit. Yes, that’s where the 07th Expansion weirdness is starting to kick in − instead of finishing this story, we get thrown right away in the middle of the second one: a romcom parody called School Love Adventure (Although It’s Kinda Silly to Call It That) (yes, that’s the full title). And shit only gets weirder from there.

The point-of-view character is your usual antisocial First-Person Smartass© of an MC called Amara Ibito, with his one male pal Karasuma Hidaka and his female pal Manabe Yukari. Of course he also has a shy childhood friend called Akazawa Noriha. Of course there’s a school legend about love (although a little bit twisted) and of course a whole bunch of girls are gonna go after him, with each encounter getting more ridiculous. Even the interface looks like your average dating sim − the text box now has its own buttons, meaning you have a menu in your menu so you can play while you play!

And in this game, you have choices! And if you pick the wrong choice… the camera zooms back to the point of view of someone playing the game, calling it crappy and turning it off, and it's a game over. There seems to be two kinds of "bad endings" − either the MC falls in love with a girl and they live happily ever after, or he decides to ditch everything and live his life as a slob playing games forever. Thankfully, if you click "continue" the game brings you back right before the choice even if you haven't saved.

By the end, there’s a weird twist, or hint of a twist. First the MC wonders if he's in the freaking Truman Show because there's no way so many girls would be after him, and as I kept deliberately picking game over options (because any options but the first ones lead to happy bad endings), things started to get a little clearer… In several endings, we got a glimpse of the player's face which was none other than Mikihiko from the "Country Girl" story. And in case it wouldn't be obvious enough, one of this story's girls namedrops one of the characters from Country Girl out of nowhere, to the bafflement of the MC − and mine. And just as things start to get really weird, we get back to the Metaworld before switching to the third story, Vespio 2438, a space opera.

I have no idea how they're gonna connect that to the first two stories, but now this game's got my full attention.

Regarding SLA, while the fact that new (Ryuukishi-drawn) girls appear out of nowhere every minute only to give you bad endings seems like a potshot at clichéd romcom games, I really dig said girls' designs, so I kinda hope they're not one-off jokes… but I doubt it, as they're clearly meant to be shallow clichés − you got the serious stuco president, the passionate sports club captain, the cool distant beauty, the Cute Clumsy Girl who's Late for School with a Toast of Tardiness, the Ojou, and the girl who's in an arranged marriage with the MC. Oh, and there's a Rika/Bernkastel expy among those girls, because of course there is.

But even putting aside all the meta-meta-shit, SLA part 1 was actually really fun to read for its sheer absurdity, and I laughed more than once.

Well then, see you next time to start Vespio, and I’ll leave you with a bunch of random pretty pics!

Kujou Yukina (with posters of Shannon and Terumi from Hotarubi in the background)

Kirihara Hinata

Takatori Fuuka

Miumiya Hinako

Kuonji Miho

Dlanor trying to make ends meet between two executions.

Shion and Satoshi in the poster behind. D’awww.

Black Ops Duty: Call of Battlefield. Or something.

Not pictured: the girl who comes to abduct you in a helicopter at the end. No, really.