[DJLowrider]

Final Route Review: Daisy

So you’ve done all the routes you could find. You re-did a few of them a couple times to get all your CGs and variations on some scenes. You’ve looked high and low and everywhere in between and yet except for a couple brief cameos you just can’t find the route for the last of the new heroines for Essence+, Daisy. Well, there’s a reason for this, and that’s because Daisy’s route is 100% inaccessible until you’ve finished every other route in the game. Yup, those of you hoping to skip some of the lesser routes in the game are out of luck. You can’t get Daisy’s story until you’ve done everything else. Don’t despair too much, though. Your patience will be rewarded in spades.

Daisy is a complete mystery until you actually play her route. The only times you come across her in other routes is when she’s working at the game center Rin & the others frequent and your conversations with her are hardly long enough or significant enough to tell you anything about her. Honestly there isn’t much I can say about her, for that matter, that doesn’t involve simply talking about her route and what happens on it. So for now I will spare you all the wall 'o text and instead give the access path as well as some general thoughts on the route.

Here’s how to access Daisy’s route:

Spoiler for How to access Daisy's route:

1. As mentioned above, you must complete every other route in the game first. Daisy’s route is inaccessible otherwise.
2. Start normally and take whatever options you want until you reach the cafeteria conversation with Asa and Kareha about picking who you’re most interested in. Take the fourth option, saying you’re not interested in Sia, Nerine or Kaede.
3. The next day you’ll spot Sia and Daisy at the sport track outside. Take the top option to go over and talk to them.
4. Continue normally, not showing particular leanings towards any other girl.
5. The next option you come to after the choice of how Primula should go about learning cooking should be a new one, take the top option here. (Note: I need to re-play the route sometime and get the specifics of this decision point.)
6. When talking to Daisy in the cafeteria, take the top option to continue listening to her.
7. Congratulations, you’re on Daisy’s route. Enjoy!

Daisy's route represents a major departure from the standard Shuffle! storyline. Instead of simply being a following of the various events that happen in Rin's day-to-day life, there is an underlying plot with a fair bit of intrigue involved. In truth, Daisy's route consists of two stories that run parallel to each other until much later on when everything finally comes together. Daisy's route is also where we're properly introduced to Ruri=Matsuri, as she makes cameo appearances in a couple other routes but never hangs around long enough to leave us with any kind of impression of what she's like.

Daisy herself is fairly unique in comparison to the rest of the heroines, and I must say represents a welcome divergence from the rest of the girls who simply fawn over Rin.

Spoiler for Daisy's personality:

First off, Daisy is more or less an admitted otaku. She lives alone, has a massive manga collection, schedules herself around anime she wants to catch on TV and is especially enamored of video games. Secondly, she comments a couple of times that she has some strong hikikkomori tendencies, though she is trying to break herself out of that between having a part-time job at the game center as well as getting Rin and Sia involved in the broadcast club at Verbena. Last, but certainly not least, Daisy is very much a tsunderekko. It takes her a fair while to warm up to Rin and even when she does the "tsun" part still comes out occasionally.

Daisy's route is really quite a treat considering you have to play every other route in the game to get to it. It's rather well written and really departs heavily from the standard Shuffle! progression of events. In fact, I daresay it feels like Navel created this route to almost be a pitch at a new anime for the franchise. There's definitely enough content to the route for at least an OVA series, possibly even a 1-cour series (12-13 episodes). Now please note, I'm not saying this is going to happen, simply that the structure of the route and its story seems to lend itself to being adapted for animation purposes. Given the relative popularity of the franchise, the anime, as well as Navel's apparent renewed interest in the profitability of the franchise it wouldn't terribly surprise me if something like this did happen. For now, though, it's all simply wishful thinking.

Daisy's route is worth the effort it takes to access it. The story is fun, interesting and engaging, the new characters introduced in it bring some welcome fresh blood to the mix and the ending and epilogue for it are pretty epic compared to all the other endings in the game. Route gets a 10/10 from me and Daisy is #3 in my heroine hierarchy. She's not quite as awesome as Sakura or Asa, but she's far and away better and more interesting than all the other girls.

If people do want the story of Daisy's route spoiled I will do as much of a write-up of it as I can, but for now the route reviews are finished. I hope everyone's enjoyed reading them. I know I've mostly enjoyed writing them up. Essence+ didn't deliver everything I'd hoped it would, but it was still an enjoyable game and did breathe some new life into the franchise. I'll now sit back and look forward to the newly announced Sia/Kikyou game and hope it expands more on Kikyou's personality and chemistry with Rin. I'll also hope maybe some of the other God-race girls are involved in it as well. Especially Ruri. I said it before and I'll say it again, that girl needs her own route. What can I say? I was a fan of Tomoyo in CLANNAD and Ruri's character design and personality are practically a carbon copy of her with a few changes and embellishments, making her very relevant to my interests.