Hello all, I thought I'd poke in here to share my thoughts, as there isn't really a good place to discuss KS otherwise!
To give a brief background about how I ended up here, I have heard of KS for years now, but have been putting it off for a while since I haven't really interacted with VNs before. And of course, there's the elephant in the living room of "it's a dating sim that came out of 4chan about disabled girls" that naturally raises some mental red flags, even if I was frequently having my worries allayed every time the topic would come up. But eventually, I finally gave it a try after a moment of idleness and thinking that LN's style of text presentation could help me wane off my reading OCD (that compulsion where I feel the need to re-read a line over and over again despite understanding everything I've read. Unfortunately, I learned about the scroll wheel and have therefore failed!)
With that out of the way, the first impression of the game as a whole before I delve into each of the girls' paths: holy cow, I wasn't expecting it to be this deep! Even in the face of people trying to assure me that this game is good, I never thought that the story would be created with such...heart. It is said that a lot of time was spent making sure the story is written with respect, and I can absolutely believe it now that I have experienced it. The beginning had me a little wary with Hisao displaying such dejection and cynicism while in the hospital and scorning his new life, but I eventually was able to piece together that just about anyone would be depressed if their life suddenly came to a crashing halt, and his journey to healing through each path was immensely gratifying to me. Also, the process that Hisao found out that he loves each girl in retrospect was something that I can relate to a lot, and I enjoy discovering that with him as opposed to having a crush on them from the get-go.
If I were to have any criticism as a whole, it'd be..perhaps the lack of interactive choices (except for Rin's route). While at first I did think that there are times when the plot beat would deprive you of making key decisions, I eventually accepted that it needs to happen to keep the narrative flowing in a linear path (lest the devs get caught up with more workload for ever more branching paths), but I still think the game could give some inconsequential options so that the player has more interactions from time to time (Emi and Lilly's path did this to an extent). Relatedly, I'm aware of only two paths (thanks to geekahedron's flowchart that give me something to look at when I complete each path) that have all three (good, bad, neutral) endings, something that I wish existed on all paths (for an example, Emi could have a neutral path if you chose to accept her dismissal of her conditions continously, leading to you being with her but you can't get close to her emotionally, like how she envisoned the relationship to play out). And lastly, this isn't a gamebreaker at all, but just something I kinda wished for as a nice touch, but more cinematics! At the very least, one for good endings, so there's some sense of epilogue.
Anyway, enough rambling from me, I'll list out my thoughts on the individual routes now in the order I've completed them, with their associated spoilers!
Emi
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Perceived theme: Don't let the past shackle you from moving forward.
Probably likely to be a common trend among the people first playing this game, I ended up with Emi first due to wanting to have Hisao at least be healthy. While I don't have much to say in regards in this route, it does set up the tone of the game very well on how it will play out going forward, drawing my focus on Hisao's healing journey from his depressive slump to the emotional Act 3 conflict that is showcased here through the breakdown in the kitchen that had me heavily invested in the outcome. That being said, if the reveal that the father perished in the accident that cost her her legs was meant to be a major revelation, I must say that I figured this out ever since the Nurse nearly blurted it out fairly early on, and I'm over here grumbling for Hisao to connect the dots. That being said, having achieved the happy ending, I'm left wanting more.
Rin
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Perceived theme: Be yourself.
Rin's route is a unique journey that eventually shifted my perspective of this game from a novelty to something I actively wanted to share my experiences with other people. The abundance of options to steer the scene, story, and dialogue options allowed me to be immersed in the perception of choice. At the same time, this route is also defined by Hisao having a defined more personality than possibly any other route, leading to him to clash with Rin in a way that I almost wish I could be at the helm of. Yet, despite this feeling of being railroaded, it occurred to me about halfway through that these options that I described to a friend as "all vaguely heading in the same direction" could be a parallel to how Rin experiences the world: to have all these options but in the end, all she can do to express it is through art. Although that didn't really play out that way in the end, I still thought it was very nifty for a while. The memorable moment for me in this route was:
"I think I have to change."
"It's what people must do, sometimes."
The thematic repetition between The Scent of Light and Raison d'Etre... I haven't been hit in the gut this hard since Shawshank Redemption! Especially in the aftermath of the "I have no idea what's wrong with me!"
Lilly
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Perceived theme: ???
Lilly's route remains a complex topic for me to unpack, not just because it is the longest route in the game (I think?). As shown above, I had a difficult time piecing together on what exactly is the overarching theme of her arc. A lot of people that I've managed to catch a glimpse of on YouTube comment sections talk about her view of the future, and while it is a recurring topic in her arc, I just don't see it as a theme. But even before that, my confusion as to her as a character starts right from the cinematic, which is supposed to foreshadow the character interaction. If Emi's cinematic is about her helping Hisao regardless of his own stubbornness and Rin was about how distant she is from reality and Hisao, Lilly's cinematic gave me no idea on how to interpret the animation during my first watch through and occasional refreshers as I progress down her path. It was only upon completion did I realized that the scene was meant as is, with Lilly reminiscing about her connection to Hisao after she learned that she would eventually be leaving him one day, which is...bittersweet, but the realization came too late in the path for it to make sense before that twist. (Some part of it still confuses me, though, like why is there a part where we see Akira being replaced by her?)
And speaking of the twist, the character arc's conflict was a very powerful one, although the things that Hisao thinks about in hindsight are a little lost on me. The story would occasionally say that he felt like, despite promising to slow down, the relationship kept going faster and faster. While this makes sense in the context of Lilly rushing through their relationship before she has to leave, I personally wasn't able to pick up the sense that the relationship is going any faster than normal. Sure, you could make an argument that she pretty much urged him for sex twice in the summer home, but I am willing to handwave that as getting caught up in the emotions. After that, I just don't see this uptick in pace. Additionally, there was a line that mentions that she was being evasive about questions regarding her future, and I must say I don't remember this happening at all. Especially since she is the character with clarity on becoming an English teacher in the future, so I'm not sure what this evasiveness refers to.
The last story criticsm that I want to raise is that up until the reveal of the twist, I thought that Lilly was expressing her pent-up anger as a response to Hisao being extraordinarily accommodating to her, but every time she tries to help him (or express worries about his heart condition), he'd dismiss it and wall her off to make it his own problem. While this evidently wasn't the conflict in the end, I do think that Hisao not opening up to Lilly about his condition until the very last scene was...strange. I thought he would ease into her when she told him that he didn't need to apologize for his condition in that wheatfield confession, but alas, that didn't happen.
And on the lighter note among all those complaints is a couple of minor nitpicks I have: Lilly's route brings up the passage of time on a semi-regular occurrence. While this does wonders for my internal chronology, it does make me wonder to myself, "How can they bond this much as shown if they only know each other for like a month?" and on such, which is a tad disruptive to the greater immersion compared to the other routes that tend to refrence to floating ambiguity of final exams and summer breaks (even if you were to think about it and realize that Hisao joining in June would mean that summer break isn't that far away). Lastly, I thought there could be more playing into the found-family aspect between Lilly and Hanako, even if that would make things a tad awkward after the fact, as Hanako is a romancible character.
Anyway! I've been negative long enough for this route, so I'll close by saying that I don't dislike this route, though. After the twist reveal of Lilly planning to return to Scotland ever since she came back from her initial parents' visitation, I have been dying to play the route again to see if I can pick up anything I missed that alludes to her treating Hisao with more finality. The wheatfield confession choked me up, and the rollercoaster leading up to the last scenes had me dreading if I hit a bad/neutral ending somewhere along the way. And this route being the only one where Hisao's condition/medical side-effect is a recurring setback makes it very unique.
Shizune
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Perceived theme: Embrace the happiness in your life.
After experiencing Emi and Rin back-to-back, I thought that I could take this chance to break up the Lilly-Hanako pair so that I could get a brief breather. This also allows me to tackle the accidental spoiler that I accidentally ran into, so I can get it over with. Indeed, I spoiled myself with the main conflict of this arc as I ended up reading Misha's character description on Wikipedia during my usual post-path completion debrief, leading me to find out about her suicidal inclinations. And also a YouTube comment that talks about how you shouldn't comfort Misha, even if I have no clue what they meant at the time.
So with that in mind, you'd think that I would guarantee myself to carry on my streak of Good Endings. Unfortunately, it was not to be. When the time came to make the choice...a mix of factors that range from me trying to convince myself that I'd pick the choice that I'd naturally choose had I not been spoiled, and perhaps a bit of my inner contrarian tendencies, led me to comfort Misha. In hindsight, the option wasn't quite as opaque as it seemed, as the lead-up to the option was already nudging towards that direction with her trying to kiss Hisao and all. But the alternative was to refuse to help her, and that was...the worst of the two...right? The outcome of that ending was something I want to describe as abrupt, but I'll describe it more below with the rest of this path.
So, about Shizune's path itself as a whole... I do think it was interesting, although I must admit that I couldn't connect with it as much as the others. The reasoning behind this is something I still have to put my finger on. It's not that I dislike the character though, since there are times when Shizune gives me the vibes of Haruhi Suzumiya in her bossy, competitive drive to maximize the rewards and her method of driving Hisao out of his depressive rut by brute forcing it is a unique take among the other girls and that is something to be valued. And the route itself has several interesting moments such as picking up upon Misha's increasingly strained attempt to keep up the facade, the tense moment that grappled me with worry that Misha would Kenji Picnic herself off the roof for the Bad Ending, and we finally picking up lore information on the tensions between Lilly and Shizune. This route also gave us more Kenji, for the better or worse and we get to see a side of his character that we don't see elsewhere. Additionally, this being the only route that actually spans the whole rest of the school year instead of Somewhere Around Summer Break is something that I wish more routes did to allow for a greater passage of time, although it is true that you need to make up more events to fill that time up and...I still have yet to determine if this route did that effectively.
But aside from that, I'm not sure if I have that much to talk about, which might come as a detriment when it comes to seeing if a story is memorable. The thing that stands out to me at this time would be the Bad Ending, which I achieved through that convoluted mental process laid up above. It just felt...strangely out of left field? It began a little with the shared chapter Spiral where this described event escapes my memory:
[...] I lied to Shizune through my teeth that nothing was wrong. Or, to be more exact, I lied through my hands. And at the exact same time, I was carrying on an entirely different conversation with Misha. That conversation, understandably, could upset Shizune. But there was no way that she could have heard it. Even Misha's hands, usually signing all her thoughts, were completely still. Even if they weren't, I was standing in front of her, blocking them from Shizune's view. The only way that Shizune could listen in on that conversation would be if she could read lips. Pretty much the first thing I'd asked about when taking sign language was about lip reading, just out of curiosity. It's not easy, nor is it perfect... so I'd never considered it until now. It would make sense, and the room for misunderstandings while reading lips wouldn't help.
When did this occur? The first thing that comes to mind is the rooftop scene at Look Aside (the Bad Ending parallel to Look Ahead), where Misha discusses her past with Shizune and expresses remorse for crossing the line with Hisao. But even if Shizune were to eavesdrop on the conversation (which she admits to doing), Hisao didn't lie nor did he carry a different discussion with Misha so this can't be that scene. So I don't know what this refers to at the moment.
Whatever that implied scene might be, you then have Hisao confronting Misha and, like the Good Ending, convince her to continue being Shizune's friend but that is where the story seems to take a sharp turn. I'm not sure if it is this abrupt in the other routes (have yet to get the will to intentionally hit Bad Ending for the other girls), but Shizune suddenly clams up out of the blue and eventually cut ties with Hisao on the premise that she can see through him and his reassurance that everything is "fine," and that she must distance herself so she doesn't hurt anyone anymore. This is okay in concept, but suffers from the simple fact that this outcome didn't tie in narratively to the choice the player makes. No confrontation or dejectedness from learning that you slept with Misha, just sudden 180 prompted by...something. Of course this is exasperated by the problem of this route being absolutely devoid of interactive choices beyond Act 1 (which I'm willing to include as a part of Shizune's route as it diverges rather significantly from other Act 1s), which ultimately feels like your choice isn't really being acknowledged outside of a mention of it in Look Aside. Speaking of the lack of player driven choices though, I think this could be remedied somewhat by touching on the topic of sign language interpretation, which the route lightly tackled through Hisao sugarcoating the interaction between Lilly and Shizune; this could further play into how Misha tends to translate things almost directly with a disregard for tone.
One last point I want to make about this route is the concept of shared timeline of these paths. I kind of went into the game initially expecting each of the girl's path to be something of a parallel timeline, where your time spent with one girl means development in the other path happens (or didn't happen, in the absence of Hisao) in the background. And indeed, you get some traits that showcase this, such as the shared event of the Track Meet in the Emi-Rin plotline, as well as Lilly's initial Scotland visit and Hanako's birthday slump in Lilly-Hanako's plotline. But I've since been told by my more VN-experience friend that I should really treat each route as a standalone story instead of parallel universes which is...fair enough, but I still prefer the idea of parallel universe for the sake of fun cross-reference and the potential to even allude to "true endings." Of course, I understand how difficult it is during KS' development and I shouldn't take the modern convenience of Cloud-based team-sharing program for granted. How this relates to Shizune's route is Tanabata, which the route has occur at the end of Act 2 and is stated that it is not too long after the Act 1 festival. Problem is, Tanabata is the endgoal for Lilly's route, and as a result makes whole journey remarkably short in hindsight. Realistically, this isn't helped by Tanabata having a vague date that can fall anywhere between July and August, which would force it to be remarkably brief after Hisao's transfer in June. Nevertheless having the endgoal appear in the end of Act 2 was quite jarring (even if the route does indeed last the rest of the school year so it would naturally be earlier on in this route). Also slightly more disruptive to my parallel universe headcanon is a talk to Lilly in the Bad Ending scene of Present Tense despite her supposed to be moved to Scotland by now (which is the allusion to the "true ending" I mentioned earlier)
Hanako
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Perceived theme: ???
Did you guys just like this route cause it stars the only appearance of a tomboy in the entire game? Jokes aside though, this is a fun route. Kind of like Lilly's route, I'm not entirely confident as to what the theme of this story arc is but I enjoyed it all the same. As mentioned of the Shizune section, I really appreciate the concept of parallel timelines for these routes, so the way this route links up with Lilly's route have been immensely satisfying for me (and made me glad that I slipped Shizune after my playthrough of Lilly so the deja vu isn't too strong). In terms of the plot of this character arc, I do like the more parallel healing path taken between him and Hanako. And unlike others (except Shizune, to an extent), the route didn't really have a major conflict as a part of its primary story arc (you could argue the case for her locking herself up on her birthday, but that detail is shared with Lilly's route as well) until possibly the emotional confrontation at the last scene, which was an interesting decision. That being said, there was a bit on that last scene I'm not entirely sure what it's referring to:
[...] This expression... I saw it once before on her face. Just once, when I accidentally surprised her in her room.
Is this referring to His Past, the time Hisao showed Hanako his chest scar in? Because I don't remember any other time he "accidentally surprised her in her room" aside from that scene.
As an aside though, I must say that I'm really surprised how unexpectedly explicit Hanako's sex scene CGs are, considering the others are obscured and even the naked body sprite of Shizune and Lilly have the case of Barbie crotch.
Anyway that's all I can think to say for now. Overall, thank you for the miracle that is this game, Four Leaf Studios!
