This is simultaneously perhaps one of the better designed BL VNs I’ve read and also the one I dislike the most, which is impressive, given I’ve also played “Requiescence”. I see a lot of common criticisms of this VN, most of which aren’t things I took issue with, and were a principal reason I finished the VN so I could see if any of them were true. Most aren’t.

People say the BL elements are randomly thrown in and the characters have no chemistry. I’m not sure why, because it’s quite obvious from early on that literally everyone in Tamamori’s vicinity is obsessed with him, and this is the primary reason they stick around him, while Tamamori has a similar obsessive streak when it comes to everyone around him, including virtually every side character. If you read more of the story, you learn that basically all the cast are repressed in one way or another, mostly because Tamamori is dense. In that sense, the sex scenes, once Tamamori makes his feelings clear, make sense in every situation (and in the Professor’s case, the Professor is a stalker and the most physically obsessed with Tamamori of all of them, and that’s obvious even outside his route). Even Kaoru makes sense because of that.

People complain there’s not much to do from a gameplay perspective and there aren’t many options. This is a your mileage may vary situation, and I think it would be less of an issue if the story weren’t so boring and the characters weren’t so uninteresting. I tend to enjoy awful characters. It’s how the writer makes the awful character appealing that matters, and at least in my case, the writers failed to make anyone here appealing. I also don’t think it’s necessarily a case of “they should have cut stuff out”, in part because I think the random tangents give depth to the world and make up for the lack of gameplay. That being said, I also reiterate, all of it is boring. I just acknowledge that the extra stuff people don’t like is probably part of what makes it work for the folks for whom it works.

People complain about the dark stuff, including the assault. A lot of romance (m/f, f/f, and m/m) has dark stuff and messy power dynamics and non-con is common in all romance. That’s not what I have an issue with, either. Especially given this is a supernatural horror game. If you’re mad the supernatural horror game that starts with the protagonist writing a story about a serial killer trapping someone in a basement, followed by said protagonist’s friend being physically and verbally misogynist to a waitress, has dark stuff in it, I’m not sure what you’re expecting out of this.

What I find truly bizarre is that so many people are obsessed with Minakami’s route, insisting it’s the best, when, somehow, Kawase ended up being more appealing than him. This isn’t me stanning Kawase or something, whom I dislike anyway. I just find Minakami’s route repetitive and dull. He’s an empty husk full of obsession over Tamamori, and Tamamori is an uninteresting character, so I’m not sure why the obsession (in fact, the Professor's route convinced me to like Minakami as an LI more than Minakami's route did). The other love interests are all screwed up in one way or another, with Kawase being the most appealing on comparison by dint of I enjoy LIs with his kind of background in m/m romance and he and Tamamori have the most understandable relationship. But also he’s an uninteresting character and the story world is uninteresting, so I don’t find him interesting, either. Hanazawa is almost more boring than Minakami because he is irritating. And his route is frankly uninteresting, though I’ve seen people complain about a threesome in his route. I’m not sure what game they were playing, but there isn’t one in the Steam version. The sex scene was actually the best part of the route, but since I don’t care about either lead, it lost interest for me. The Professor’s VA, like all the VAs, did an excellent job. He also has the most annoying voice of all the LIs, which makes him extra annoying. His sex scene was also about half-decent and one of the better parts of his route. Kaoru's route was forgettable. A lot of people get mad about it. I think it helped that I spoiled myself for it, but I have no attachment to this story, so I don't personally care. The story lets you imagine whatever ending you like. The secret ending existing ruins nothing. Another issue with reviews seems to be most people don't play past route 2, which is understandable: it's a very long and boring game full of uninteresting characters, with an annoying protagonist. I gave up on multiple occasions. But I think more people should give the other routes a chance if they just want to die on the hill of comparing Minakami to Kawase only.

Tamamori is not interesting. He does random, dumb things, and that makes the lack of player control even more annoying. He’s an ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ to everyone he knows, and I just assume everyone is having really good fantasies about him and that is the only reason anyone sticks around.

There’s likely a lot with Japanese literature in particular that is going right over my head, though other folks have gone to great lengths to talk about it, so go to them if you want that. So that didn’t win me over, either. I can appreciate that the writing quality is very high, but the writing itself does not even remotely appeal to me. I could detect in a number of places where the story was clearly being self-aware, and I could appreciate that while acknowledging it didn’t improve the experience at all.

It’s long. It’s boring. The entire cast is unappealing. The art is decent for a visual novel and the voice actors did a great job, but the art is also not appealing enough to be significant, and many of the voice actors play intentionally annoying voices (e.g., the frog man, Naoshi, the Professor) to the point that the quality of the execution is entirely lost on me. The music is fine. It’s not outstanding. I wonder if people are just overwhelmed by the variety of tracks? I mostly found them annoying because opening the game blares the soundtrack at you, and you can’t turn that off.

The most interesting set of lines is where Tamamori learns one of the side characters had his father run off with a male sumo wrestler. That is far more interesting than anything that happens in this visual novel. Where’s that storyline?

I’m also jaded in the sense that I’ve seen a lot of different time loop storylines, and this doesn’t really rate (though it’s the only BL one I’ve read, so it’s got that going for it, I guess? But I’ve read better m/m time loop fanfiction). Being better than “Groundhog Day” or that “Stargate SG-1” episode isn’t a high bar to surmount. But what this isn’t better than is a number of Korean novels about regression and “In Stars and Time”, a game where I wondered if it would be improved if you just sat and watched it like a novel. And this game gave me the answer: no.

In terms of game functionality: this has the best VA of the few VNs I've played. I also like that it auto-stores all the art in a gallery you can go back to view as you please, and even has other info, like some character backstory, VAs, and such. That's all good. This is a decently polished VN in an ocean of rather unpolished ones. I still can't recommend unless you're a completionist of m/m titles and very bored. But if you must, at least play to route 2, and then try for route 4.

Nyahaha