Hello again guys! Cryzzalis here once more. As I mentioned in my Summer 2016 First Impressions post which you can find here I was going to pick up the Rewrite visual novel due to very similar reason as when I picked up the Grisaia visual novel. Now I’ve yet to finish with the actual game but I’m feeling the need to vent and I figured I could make this a series.

And as such I’ve decided to do so, after each time I finish a route I will be uploading a small post on this blog about my impressions of the route I played and some information about it, I’ll try to be careful not to spoil but there might be some light spoilers in the text so be wary of that. I plan on covering all the female leads routes as well as the Moon and Terra routes which I’ve heard about and I might try to complete the game as a whole meaning completing all the quests and filling the friends list but we’ll see about that last one. I started playing the Rewrite visual novel this Sunday, meaning 4 days ago and while I’ve had a few things today I’ve been mostly spending my days playing that and hence I’ve completed the good endings of the Kotori route and the Chihaya route which is what I will cover in this post.

Common Route

The common route of Rewrite is focused around our protagonist Tennouji Kotarou and how he wishes he had something more in life, because of this he tries to make several new friends which he succeeds with. The common route is mostly based on comedy and interpersonal relationships which I find to be nice as the more lighthearted nature fits the beginning of the game and the part where characters gets introduced, it does have a lot of mystery at its places and the drama is pretty decent too but that doesn’t really get going in earnest until the individual routes kick in. I think my favourite character from the common route (meaning before any of them going any kind of deep development) was Yoshino, he had a hilariously strong case of chuunibyou syndrome and could say the funniest lines because of how that mixes with his personality. Despite that he was always perceptive and friendly in a weird way and always looked out for Kotarou one way or another, I came to like his character quite a bit. Two other characters I really liked, albeit I don’t remember whether this was part of the common route or specifically tailored to the Chihaya route, was Pani and Gil. I seem to recall finding them in the common route but the interaction was so perfect that I can’t see the Chihaya route working quite as well without them. The energetic and weirdly self sufficient duo of sidekicks mide for hilarious and emotional interaction so I really enjoyed the two of them. Another part of the common route that stood out to me was the includement of “Mappie” the map application for Kotarous phone. It allowed you to explore several options and made the game feel a lot less restricted so I found that to be a very nice touch, perhaps this isn’t too unusual in a Visual Novel but being fairly new to the medium having only read 3 and finished 1 as a primary anime watcher I have yet to see it somewhere else.

6.5/10

Kotori Route (Good Ending)

I was extremely disappointed by Kotoris route, it fleshed out her character a bit but the truth is that the ending was terrible and quite honestly I was very displeased with most things in this route, the only parts I enjoyed was the Imamiya part (still wondering who the hell he is!), the part with Kotoris parents as well as the Harvest Festival. The includement of Inoue was nice too but I feel like that had very little to do with the route itself and was more of an easy out to reach another place in the plot, it wasn’t bad, in fact I loved it, but it was tied in very poorly. Another big problem I had with the route was the romance, or rather the lack there of, seemingly this was a bit of the case with Chihayas route as well but nowhere near to the same quantity of a problem as it was in Kotoris route and I can’t help but wonder why, the route (possibly the game?) would’ve been a lot better if you added some kisses and maybe some more emotions, it feels very stale, I think the emotional part got really good in Chihayas route but this one really lacked it.

My problem with the ending was where it ended rather than how, I think the route should’ve kept going for another 5 minutes or so just to end on a satisfactory note so I’m sad it didn’t, I also feel like the conflict that takes place and is the main plot was very poorly touched on and explained in this route, was this the worst possible route to start with? I don’t know as I only played two but it seems likely. I thought Kotori was great before the route began and I was the most interested in her which is why I chose to start with her route but in the end I don’t like the direction the development headed in and have to say that while I think she became a stronger character, My preference lies with her before the development, a lot of story development felt pretty forced in the route so in the end it sort of felt like it was shoehorned into the VN because they were too lazy to remake the common route after realizing that Kotori didn’t need to be there, she was really only a plot device to rationalize Kotarous actions in the very early parts of the game.

Perhaps I’d enjoy this route more if I had some context while playing it but as it was when I did play it I’d like to recommend you not to play this route unless you’re very much into Kotori’s character or want to be a completionist about the game, it’d be nice if someone could give me an impression of how the routes like when you have some backstory for the other routes though.

3/10

Chihaya Route (Good Ending)

So my reason for Chihayas route being next on my list of selections was because I locked up Shizurus route after completing the Kotori one, this made me wonder what routes are locked and which ones are possible from the beginning? and so I looked that up and then I decided that I was the least interested in Akanes route which wasn’t available and then in Chihayas route, but I figured I’ll play Chihayas route to unlock Akanes and I can freely choose depending on how I feel later on. And boy was it marvelous or what? The route was fantastic! It felt just like those daydreams you had as a kid but brought into form with actual quality if that makes sense.

I think what I enjoyed the most about the route was how good it was at tone shifts as well as how strong the characterization was, namely Kotarou, Chihaya, Sakuya and Midou. Kotarous superpower was expanded upon in great detail so the reader understands the limits and risks with using it so if you want that information Chihayas route is a great place to start, I don’t think it’ll affect my decision making though as I tend to project myself on the main character. And while I don’t particularly think Kotarous is a very unique or strong character he’s the type that every boy, guy and man can project himself onto because we’ve all had thoughts and daydreams like this in our years. Chihaya turned into the cute type of Tsundere, the one who isn’t completely honest about her feelings but isn’t abusive either, we already knew this from the common route but the transition from Tsun to Dere felt very smooth and natural with Kotarous actions and honestly I felt really happy about some of the things she said and I felt as if my son (in this case Kotarou) had brought home the best possible bride, sort of how I feel that Yuuji and Sachi are the best couple in Grisaia despite adoring Yumiko myself. Midou was a fantastic antagonist and I loved how his actions had such intense repurcussions in the world and in the psyche of Kotarou, I don’t think he ultimiately was very unique but he was very enjoyable and had a lot of strong and deep dialogue to share. Lastly is Sakuya, Sakuya was completely shrouded in mystery and quite frankly I did not expect much of the truth behind Sakuya. Because of the way Sakuya acts and talks, the story and truth behind him as well as his treatment towards Chihaya it puts him far and above all others and makes him my favourite character by a long shot. What I found so amazing and tearjerking is how heavy Sakuyas influence was on both Chihaya and Kotarou, this in turn lead to me eventually breaking down into tears of joy when Kotarou thanked him for taking care of and raising Chihaya until he came along and how Kotarou looked at him as not only a rival or an ally, but as a goal, and a fathers figure.

I think the story and development in this route was excellent to the point of being comparable to the Grisaia series which by this point I’ll assume you realize how much I like and at certain moments in this route I cried more than I have since the first time I watched Clannad: After Story and as such feel like I can barely praise this enough.

9.5/10

Thank you all for reading my post, this was the first part of my impression series on Rewrite, I hope you found it enjoyable or/and helpful. As always I appreciate constructive criticsism and if you want updates on future posts the follow me on my Twitter if you’d feel so inclined. I will post all of the entries in this blog series on the Rewrite subreddit as well so you can find it there should you be interested. If there’s anything else you’d like to see me discuss send me a message on Twitter or post it in the reddit thread to this post and until next time everyone! Keep dank and moe on.