Oh my, that was one hell of a ride. Spoilers ahead.

Reina

The route says Reina but really this is MC route.

It was a rather nice surprise because it means despite Reina has nothing to do with MC’s past (recent or 10 years ago), the story is very much relevant to the whole story. This is also probably the only one he properly finishes his remaining regrets about him leaving his previous school.

I do like it but the end result of having not much development on Reina is a bit regrettable. Maybe it’ll be recovered on GT?

Akane

I wasn’t expecting much on Akane’s route but it ended up pretty well for me. Unlike Reina, Akane’s route is actually about her and with side quest of MC finding his new goal.

Overall relatively simple and I did find it interesting.

Ria

And lastly of course her. And wow this route sure hit hard. And fast. There’s a few hints about her condition beforehand in Sylvi route like how she guessed Ria’s not going to last much longer.

Along the route they threw around quite a few more hints like how she has bad eyesights during konbini visit and movie rewatch time, and of course the part Mina touches Ria’s head. I failed to figure out that Ria’s hairs are Sylvi’s though.

Her falling to the lake was really unfortunate though. I barely started GT so I don’t know how it’ll go but I think it’s safe to say that’s the main cause of (acceleration of) her worsening condition.

The MC did a very good job fulfilling my expectation of relighting Ria’s will to live* during the New Year eve. The end result is still a relatively young death but it looked like she enjoyed life to the fullest. Balancing out her terrible luck with health, she did get blessed with some really good friends and talent.

The “pre-order” thing Ria mentioned about MC getting his baby was pretty interesting.

Another fascinating thing is how the tale surrounding the lake on how someone sent letter in a bottle to their past actually being reused to imply the one who sent the ring box with gold loveriche mark are MC, Sylvi, and Ria themselves. That’s pretty smart and nicely answers the question of the owner. Well, not really but I’d say it’s sufficient (small paradox about the box’s original owner aside, of course).

Death sure sucks, but it’s just the fact of life (for now) and she lived her life to her fullest and thus I’m happy for her.

* there’s specific term for this but I can’t remember.

Extra bits

Thanks to people telling me about extra prologue in Sylvi route, I nearly missed a mildly interesting bit about Maria. It’s too convenient but hey, whatever. It’s a nice touch but the discoverability is rather poor. I’m not sure if I’d have noticed it if I haven’t been told beforehand. I may realize it by checking the CG completion rate and noticing I’m missing some but even then it’ll probably take me a while to figure out what I missed.

I wasn’t sure about whether or now Ria will actually die within the story because the existence fandisc. But I didn’t know the fandisc isn’t after story but more of alternative story if MC didn’t end up with anyone. Oh well.

Up next

So, the original plan was to finish this and then switch over to Kakenuke before continuing to GT. Now I’ve seen the ending, I just can’t leave this here like this. I’m going straight ahead to GT. I’m curious what they’ll do to Ria as well. So far she seems to be still pretty alive after new year.