[Balzac]

Quick install, sealed off the house, shut-in style, assumed proper seating position, and pressed play. The opening, which I hadn't seen before, was a slight hurdle that I couldn't skip for the heck of me. On to the routes, which looked to be on par for the course with fandisks: skip the trunk to get to the main routes. I chose Lucia first, to get the least favorites out of the way, followed by Chihaya, Kotori, Shizuru, Akane and so on. This clear order may have colored my first impression of the game.

Short impressions follow. Might be some spoilers for the English readers who haven't completed the vanilla game yet:

Spoiler for Lucia:

Echoing her vanilla route, very "huh?". Clones? Clones with some sort of active memory system? Return of Brenda, and almost exact conflict as in the original route? FANSERVICE? Well...fanservice might be a given seeing as a lot of folks, both here and in Japan like the girl, but seriously, that bathroom scene was dangerously threading the ecchi bar. And that kiss CG...

Spoiler for Chihaya:

CLOTHES Chihaya! Those are the only new things you got? The premise confirmed it's a pre-Terra route, which means it's a million years in the past! Not too much of a romance between the two, almost seems to be Sakuya-centric were it not for the key scenes strewn throughout. Oh, and TIM-TIM was hilarious. TIM-TIM!

Spoiler for Kotori:

Now THIS is a proper after-story. Also, another confirmation of pre-Terra. Nice comedy, nice little roller-coaster of romance, even though it was a bit unbearable for the conflict to be practically unchanged since the vanilla game. Still, very nice to see some closure.

Spoiler for Sizuru:

Or where they ruined my favorite Rewrite route - slightly. Why they had to use the Oppai world for this "Strange Fantasia" I don't know. Had some excellent comedy, thankfully. "Naidesu SANMA!" Kagari's appearance and apparent motivation was out there, as well as Sizuru's reason for rebelling. Still, what saved this route was the pre-climax comedy, like Akane being revered as a living goddess.

Spoiler for Akane:

Favorite chara, kinda so-so after story. As usual, Akane is loaded with some heavy Japanese, but I managed. Confirmation that all routes don't invalidate Terra was good. The conjured setting was kind of iffy, and were it not for the already established relationships, the alter story feels like some watered down route from a generic game. There were some comedic parts, and that's what made it a bit more bearable. I personally would love a Platinum ticket.

Well, looks like Kotori's was the only one really done nicely - a good balance of comedy and an ongoing story. In addition, I kinda wish, a little, that an Inoue mini-route was included. She's...interesting? On to the last route, and Chibi 'Moth route? Oh, it's the Rewrite route.

Spoiler for Kagari:

At first I thought it was a Pochi route or something. But wait, hold on...what's the premise? Sure, there's a Festa going on, which leads back to the concept of the entire fandisc, but what's Kagari's role in all of it? Before the halfway point, she disappears, and it's not so unsubtle the way the feeling of "repeating" was handled. And it didn't have, or rather, lacked comedic parts, which was weird - though I did see the point of the story in the end. But what about Kagari herself? Quite an explosion of emotion here (arguably, Creamy Kagari was better than Miracle Kagari), but it's like the vanilla game, where she really doesn't have much of a presence. Puzzling.

So with that out of the way, I would just like to express a slight disappointment in finding out that there were no after-Terra stories, of which I was hoping to see a glimpse of. Ah well, at least KoxKo fans were rewarded.

Spoiler for Rewrrite Quest:

What, did you think I was gonna play it? I'm two battles in from the initial and I already feel daunted. Can't play this. Thankfully, it only means missing a movie, which I'm guessing is some sort of mega-finale movie, and a CG. I'm curious, but not enough to slog through a "game". I'm already working full time exploring the world of Warcraft.

EDIT: My friend did tell me what the final CG was, and I'm relieved it wasn't "that" important. A little. Maybe.

Edit 2: @matrixhazard: By saved it might mean the first time, when err...you know...in the church scene...and then the hospital afterward... y'know...(kinda rushed to spoiler)
Further Edit: @Ceral: Eh, I do have a Japanese XP system, it's very old, runs Rewrite like a stuttering drunk, but at least my visual novel experience has been smooth for the past six years.