Friday, December 20, 2013

School Festival

(Free)

With the school festival just around the corner, the main character finds herself thinking about love and romance. Probably because her best friend has a boyfriend that she keeps talking about. At the end of the school festival is a dance. The couples must traditionally trade his tie for her ribbon. It is also traditionally said that the couples that pair off for the dance will become boyfriend and girlfriend after the dance. Will the main character find romance? Or will she work herself to the bone for the sake of her class project?

This was a cute little game. While it was kind of predictable, the characters were still all likable and I found myself looking forward to getting all the endings. And there were a lot because, besides the three guys that we all know about, there were two unlockable characters.

I liked the art, it was all very nice looking and the settings were atmospheric. The characters were easy to get interested in and, of all five characters, there was only one that did nothing for me. All the others were easy for me to like and moderately easy for me to imagine dating. At least in theory. I also like how you didn't always have to pick the obvious, always agreeable answer to get the guy. In fact, there were several moments when the choice that was needed was openly antagonistic to the guy you were romancing. (My favorite guy was Ichizaki Tetsuya, for anyone that was wondering.)

While all this was good and the writing was rather cute, my absolute favorite thing about this game was the choice that you are presented with every morning after the first day. When you wake up, a question comes up as to where you should go today and then a little map shows up with five different locations - and a little chibi head telling you who is at that location today. This choice reminded me of a merging between a straight up visual novel (which is what this actually is) and a stat raising game (which this certainly is not).

2 comments:

  1. exactly how can you get Ichizaki Tetsuya ? i never get further than the go to the market choice.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I will say, it's not very easy. Try this walkthrough http://ababo.my-neoromance.com/school-festival-walkthrough.html

    Basically, just like with the other guys, you have to balance how often you see him with working on the festival otherwise you won't get the best ending. If, after you've met him once, you keep returning to the market, you should eventually progress to the next conversation.

    ReplyDelete