Review: Snow Sakura (18+)

I wrote this a long time ago and never edited it or even uploaded it. Just edited most of it so I thought "What the hell? Why not post it?" Here it is my first review. I've gotten better it writing them.

Snow Sakura is a Romance Visual Novel developed by D.O. and distributed by G-Collection.
Meet Yuuji Tachibana, a normal high school student who got his life turned upside down when his parents leave him and move to Hawaii. Yuuji moves to Yuukito town to live with his crazy uncle Takeaki and his rude and crude cousin Saki. Yuuji makes some friends while he lives there to. The loveable idiot and pervert Sumiyoshi, The cutesy girl who has a crush on him, Misaki, Misaki's childhood friend and stalker, Hiyama, The cool calm head girl, Rei and his ditzy and clumsy history teacher and Misaki's older sister, Misato. During the snow sakura festival Yuuji remembers a girl who talked to him about the tree from is memories. Well Yuuji remember who it was or will they drop that plot point faster them a speeding bullet? Will Yuuji find his one true love? Will Sumiyoshi and Takeaki stop being awesome? Find out now!

Well let’s start out with the main cast of characters. So first we have the protagonist:

Yuuji Tachibana: The character who we will be playing as in this VN. Yuuji is....well for the lack of a better word crappy. He's not a good protagonist and his personality changes constantly. First he's the generic anime protagonist. Then he's the brooding protagonist. Then he's all sappy and annoying. Not much more I can say about him though since he has no real personality to speak of.

Next will be the girls you can end up with:

Saki Tachibana: What is it with Japan and putting a relative as one of the main love interests? Saki is Yuuji's cousin. She has a loud personality and is very rude but that's what I love about her. She was my favorite character in this VN but that's not saying much. During her route you find out that she's not really a tomboy but a "cute girl" which I thought was handled well.

Misaki Souya: She says she's been in love with Yuuji since they first meet which was when he was young (it's a little iffy since it changes during a certain route but I think officially this is cannon). Misaki starts out all nice and loving a caring but don't let that fool you! That’s how she traps players into doing her route! It turns out that she is a bitch. I hated her route. At a certain point in it she wants you to stop hanging out with your friends and only pay attention to her. Thankfully Yuuji has commonsense and doesn't agree to it... I think.

Kozue Hiyama: Misaki's childhood friend and stalker. Possibly has a lesbian love for her even though she denies it. Hiyama has next to no personality aside from doubting Yuuji and not wanting to hurt Misaki's feelings. If you didn't do Misaki's route yet then you also see her true side in this one. Misaki finds out that Yuuji and Hiyama are dating and yells at her on the roof leaving Hiyama crying and lying on her side on the roof, but if you think that's the conflict in the route then your also wrong because the creator though they should draw it out even more.... I don't really like her but I don't hate her. She's just kind of there.

Rei Kisaragi: Yuuji's upper classman and Saki's best friend. Rei starts out as the cool upper classman character but then derails and turns into the weak self-doubting character. Beware! Don't do this route if you hate this kind of character! I don't hate this type personally but it almost made me. He route was sloooooooooooow and drawn out. I didn't even know that I was at the end of her route till it ended. It was generic for her type of character. She's smart and the school wants her to go to a high ranking collage but her father wants her to follow the family heritage but she doesn't want to do any of that blah blah blah. Rei, like Hiyama, was just there most of the time. She didn't stand out and kinda disappears at most points till the end.

Misato Souya: Another why Japan character. Miasto is Misaki's sister, Yuuji's history teacher and the holder of worst route in this VN. Misato is ditzy and bubbly and I don't like her too much. She's not a bad character but there's just something I don't like about her. Not only that but Yuuji started to rape her at one point (because nothing says I love you like rape) ... till it turned into a normal H-scene. Fuck you. You can tell that the writer was running out of ideas. He took the conflict from Saki's route and changed it a tiny bit and took Hiyama's conflict (the one I wasn't going to tell you). Unlike Rei and Hiyama she completely disappears if you don't pick her route.

Other characters. Some of these character's I liked a lot because they were fun:

Sumiyoshi Itou: Yuuji's self-described best friend and Saki's childhood friend. He's the pervert of the game and likes Misato. He's one of the characters that didn't disappear from the story. Sumiyoshi is one of my favorite characters. He's fun to watch and can be a serious character at the same time. Well written and fun.

Takeaki Tachibana: Yuuji's uncle and Saki's father. Another fun character. Bout it though. He doesn't really help the plot unless you’re doing Saki's route and disappears if you’re not.

Keijiro Tachibana: Yuuji's father. You know the one who abandoned him with his mother. Only appears in video messages. Yuuji hate's him but for some reason everyone else loves him. Only really appears early on and during Saki's route.

Kataoka: Yuuji's english teacher. He's an odd ball that no one really likes much. Bout it really. Serves no purpose to the plot unless you’re doing Misato's route. Also he might have raped Sumiyoshi. Not really clear on it though.



Snow Sakura started out pretty funny and good. I saw this game advertised and thought it looked ok enough to buy it. However I started to dislike it more and more as the plot went on. Once you picked a girl's route the game kinda goes downhill. Saki's route was still funny and I really enjoyed it but it still wasn't the best. Everyone else's route can go to hell. Well I think it's time for some Pro's and Con's.

Cons: Well the game has a serious problem with pacing. For instance in Misaki's route, after the Christmas party Misaki asks to see you at the snow sakura tree. Once there she tells you she loves you and Yuuji says it back. It comes out of nowhere. The only thing that would make you think she likes him is that Hiyama tells you flat out. That's another problem. I don't know if it was the translation or the writers fault but whoever it was didn't know the difference between liking someone and loving someone. They use the word love too freely. I can see Misaki and Saki saying they love him (Misaki probably thought of him a lot when they met that one time as kids and Saki said she's loved him since she meet him) but Rei's only known him for maybe 3 months at best and she says she loves him. Also Yuuji falls into this sometimes. during Misato's route Yuuji comes out and says that he loves her even though they hardly ever had any screen time together before the Christmas party. In Hiyama's route he does this too. It's a little weird. I don't know maybe it's because I've never been in love with someone (I've liked plenty of girls in the past but I would never say I loved them). The art work is terrible. There faces look deformed and during the h-scenes there genitalia look... deformed as well (it could be because it was censored in Japan though). Durring Misato's route they kept using the wrong backgrounds and got lazy with some of them. I hate Misaki a lot. She started out nice but turned into a bitch from out of nowhere. What she did to Hiyama's psyche made me very mad and how she reacted to Saki saying that she liked Yuuji by running away. I didn't like how they made you pick choices but then told you to pick one of the girls. If they were going to do that they why put choices in to begin with? It just seemed pointless to me.

Pro's: Even though I didn't like the pacing some parts of the story were really good. I liked how during Misato's route Misaki didn't try to kill her sister for dating the guy she "loved" and how Sumiyoshi took it very maturely even though he still had feelings for her. In Saki's route I got the feeling that she really did love him throughout the whole thing. The music was nice and serene. The only problem I had with the music was the lazy intro but that’s minor. I liked the Voice Acting (even though I don't speak Japanese) and thought their voices fit.


Snow Sakura is like a trial and error VN. They tried some stuff and it didn't work well and the pacing was bad but it still wasn't that bad of a VN. I wouldn't recommend it though. The bad stuff out ways the good and Misaki is in this game. It not the worst but it's not good either. I guess if you like VN's like this then play it but if you’re new and want to get into them then don't play this.

Rating: 2/5


Next one should be Dengeki Striker

 

Sorry for the spoilers. ALL of my old stuff has them. In my newer stuff I at least warn people before it happens -_-;