it was great! i love a lot of the characters and the way that the gameplay functions, particularly in the adventure mode segments, though the mech combat was good too.

a lot of the friendships were really well done, shoutout to everyone's friendship with miwako. the universal friendshaped girl that loves everyone except for megumi who is sus as fuck and not friendshaped at all because she keeps talking to gates.

and also shot her friends.

the romance writing was a lot of he was a boy she was a girl can i make it any more obvious, with the exception of nenji and tomi who surprised me a lot with how much i cared about them. holds them. my hets. okino and hijiyama existed. love okino, could do without hijiyama, but it's at least less onesided than most of the others.

it is also really satisfying the way that all the sci fi mysteries and individual plotlines patchworked themselves together to fit into one coherent narrative. we're introduced to juro's story first but it's chronologically last with the exception of gouto's i believe.

every day I thank god on my hands and knees that my blorbo was like the only girl not shuffled into het romance and babies

I hate gouto so much I couldn't even pretend to write ryoko caring about him if my life depended on it

lmfaooo i don't mind gouto as a character but the fact that their relationship is supposed to be "ambiguously romantic" is so baffling to me. there is no chemistry there, they're like. coworkers at best.

it's especially funny bc

so the dating in middle school thing. closes my eyes. that was ryoko fake dating him

because her parents were getting on her ass for spending too much time with ei so she went alright I'll just pick some friendless rando I don't care about and date him for a while to get them to leave me alone

and once they did, she just unceremoniously dumped him without ever explaining herself

oh my GOD

that's amazing

she is such a little freak <3