Ten years ago, Essi's mother died in a questionable accident. She left a USB flash drive with a locked folder called "X-note". Unable to understand the purpose of it, Essi continued living her life as a normal junior high school student. However, Essi is hardly normal, for she possesses power beyond normal human.Essi's quiet life was interfered by a sudden visit of a young man named Yuon. He invited her to investigate a murder case and a mysterious disappearance in Xen Institute, a school that had a deep relation with Essi's mother. Tempted by the possibility of unlocking "X-note" and solving her mother's mysterious death, Essi decided to take his request. But what awaits her there is much more than what she could possibly imagine…X-Note is Zeiva Inc's second commercial Visual Novel, which, unlike Other Age: Second Encounter, is written in the format of an Otome Game. Here you follow the story of Essi as she pursues the truth of her mother's death. The game spans for 30 days, of which you can train Essi's psychic abilities, explore the school, collect notes, and make choices to determine her fate.
This game provides examples of:
Abandoned Playground: Where Essi trains her psychic abilities. Also where she meets Rexus.
Bland Name Product: The computers at Xen Institute appears to operate on Doors 8, as a shout out to Microsoft Windows.
Most of the time, Essi and her guy of choice meet up at Dudebucks.
Character Select Forcing: It is a lot easier to end up in Yuon's path compared to the other two Love Interests. The path names in Chapter 4 are even named "Yuon-Oure" and "Yuon-Anon". This seems to be because Oure and Anon's paths are meant to be completed after Yuon's.
Chess Motifs: As explained in supplimental material:
Dark and Troubled Past: When it comes down to it, Anon is probably lucky to not remember his past. Or that he has killed his best friend (and several others) in his attempt to protect him.
Death Seeker: Anon.Even the game begins with his younger self jumping into a river.
Everyone Went To School Together: Scid, Emma, and Acia. Loil is the only exception, and he was a part of the founders because of the funding he provided.
For the Evulz: It's obvious Loil has had the most fun of all the characters in game.
Fun with Acronyms: At the end of her Friday 13th date with the boy of her choice, Essi gets a pointless find that Mirage actually stands for Miraculously Incredibly Ridiculously Absolutely Greatest Enigma. This is also how Essi finds out the password for X-Note. It's the abbreviation of the founders of Xen Institute: Scid, Emma, Acia, and Loil.
Gameplay and Story Segregation: Averted; the mini-games that are played on the side are actually needed in order to progress the game's story, Essi's level of psychic power determines how well she is able to do some token-item reading (and she herself feels stronger as she progresses in her self-training), and it's necessary to have almost maxed-out stats in all of them to obtain the Good Endings.
Gentle Giant: Essi is surprised to find out that a person of Rexus's built can be so soft-hearted and timid.
Guide Dang It: Chapter 4 can be somewhat annoying to play through without the guide to how the game mechanics work, in that the mini-games that you play during the course of the game determine whose path you are allowed to end up pursuing. Also, failing to max out one of the categories by the end of the chapter causes you to receive a Bad Ending.
And in Yuon's path, it's only possible to get the happy ending if you went through the Yuon-Oure path in chapter 3.
Hair Color Dissonance: Essi's hair seems to be a shade of dark green, but everyone sees her hair as black.
Hey, You!: Anon never, ever calls Essi by name. If you haven't seen his Good Ending.
Hidden Depths: Every guy has one. Essi learns them in their respective routes.
I Am A Monster: Anon seems to be very convinced that he is this.
I Will Wait For You: A variation in Oure's Good Ending. Essi faithfully waits for him to wake up from his coma, and the fans can only hope he actually wakes up in the end...
Ill Girl: Gender-flipped with Oure having diabetes.
Non Standard Game Over: Available at the end of Chapter 2, though it takes some effort from the player to obtain, and ends with Essi deciding that she isn't cut out to continue her investigation; she willingly leaves the school and relents that she will never know the mysteries surrounding her mother's death.
Playful Hacker: Anon once cheerfully admits to Essi that he digs information for fun. Well, he's not being entirely truthful, but still...
Running Gag: It's a given that every time Anon does something good, he just have to mention the love hotel later and get a punch from Essi before he even finishes the sentence.
Unstoppable Rage: In Anon's Bad Ending, Essi kills Loil with her psyche out of anger.
Updated Rerelease: Zeiva Inc. ended up releasing X-Note 2.0, which includes more features to make the game more comfortable to play through, including a save/load option, a text back button, and a skip option for the ending movies. Many of the game's grammatical and graphical errors were fixed as well. It can be downloaded and upgraded for free to those who purchased the first version, and it's now the standard version of the game to play.
Anon: I thought we're the eloping couple of psychics!
What Happened to the Mouse?: In the fourth chapter of Yuon-Oure path, Anon disappears without leaving a trace. Essi remarks that even after she asks around about him, no one claims to know him, as if he's never been there in the first place. Also happens to Oure in Yuon-Anon path. Makes you wonder what happens to them...
Fridge Horror once you realize that without Essi's love for them, Oure would die and Anon would give up his search of identity and choose death.
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