Key Visual Arts

I would recommend Kotori first and Akane last. Other than that, up to you.

In my playthrough I went: Chihaya > Lucia > Kotori > Shizuru > Akane.

Kotori first/Akane last should be fine, as long as you do Akane last.

The Akane path is the spoiler path then?

I personally think Akane's route segues better into what comes next.

It's not like you can do it from the start anyway, you have to unlock it.

They're all kind of spoiler paths. Chihaya's and Shizuru's probably contain the least spoilers about the setting. To be charitable, they're largely self contained character pieces. To be less so, they're not very good and poorly tied to anything the main writer was doing.

Like most of the Little Busters routes then.

Finished Kotori and Lucia's paths.

Do all the girls have as many issues as those two? Or is Lucia killing 200,000 people because of her problems going to be the worst of it? Still not sure what to think of Lucia, on one hand her path makes it clear she's got some serious problems that got exploited and she would have been used to wipe out the city regardless of her wishes if she refused to do so, on the other hand she killed 200,000 people, presumably including Kotori, Yoshino and Akane among others.

I'm also wondering why Koutarou didn't experience any effects from the deaths of the Key and presumably Kotori like he did in Kotori's path, I suppose I'll find out the full story eventually.

edited 13th Jul '14 12:05:44 PM by TheCuriousFan

Rewrite was such a weird novel to get into, because I was expecting more stuff like Clannad/Little Busters/Kanon, then I started it and it turned out to be actually closer to Fate/Stay Night of all things ( I started with Chihaya's route, which is straight up Ultimate Blade Works).

And then I went to Lucia's route, it turned into Higurashi for a second.

After finishing those two routes, I was starting to feel like there was no overarching plot and each route would be a different genre or something.

edited 13th Jul '14 1:24:58 PM by runoeddie

He didn't experience any effects from the Key dying because the writers apparently couldn't agree on the details. You could fanwank that he just lost his powers because he didn't want them anymore, which is a thing that can happen. Afterward, he just misattributed the cause.

And yeah, the carnage in Lucia's route just kind of being glossed over bugged me. I'm not sure the poison got Kotori. Kotori was probably in the forest, which was presumably out of range.

As far as personal baggage goes, Akane probably has as much as those two while Chihaya and Shizuru should but were written by the actual Key writer and therefore don't seem as concerned.

I'd have to go back and check but IIRC Lucia mentions taking out the power spot and key.

Is it even explicitly contradictory? I don't think the details are ever made clear. The circumstances surrounding each ending were different.

Dismissing explanations as fanwank seems silly to me since you have to construct theories about the premise itself to understand it.

edited 15th Jul '14 5:58:49 AM by UltimatelySubjective

You have to use the 'superhumans can lose their powers if they don't want them' because Kotori's route explicitly states that it's because the Key died. Even if that's the case, the timing really doesn't work. Kotarou didn't go through any huge trauma right that moment that made him change a great deal and he certainly could have used them for at least another hour. Besides, didn't he talk before the Key died like he knew what would happen if it did? There are other inconsistencies as well like the source and nature of his powers.

Well I guess I will have to re-read with timing in mind.

What I do remember is the state of Kotarou in Kotori's route potentially being due to some maliciousness on the Key's part; for the other heroines: in Shizuru's route he uses Shizuru's life force; in Chihaya's route he overuses rewrite so any thing's possible; in Akane's route he does lose his powers. That leaves only Lucia's route, which was the first and least edited.

I had also thought Kotarou would keep (Terra spoilers) the rewrite power itself and blood manipulation at the end of Kotori's route. Of course I'm not sure whether HF explicitly says.

He loses his powers in Akane's route long after the key dies, though.

Well technically Kotarou draws his power from the power spot, not the Key.

Done with the Chihaya path, that was surprisingly happy (at least in comparison to the Lucia path). I was not expecting the Midou assist though.

I found it a nice change of pace before Akane's route.

I'm still not too sure what to think of the stuff about Midou. It's not superfluous... Maybe not properly written in, depending on your viewpoint.

edited 16th Jul '14 6:55:52 AM by UltimatelySubjective

The 3 familiars were cool though.

Chihaya's route is just too shounen for me. It just really doesn't fit the mood Romeo Tanaka set for the VN as a whole.

It totally doesn't fit, it's one reason I'm kinda glad to have chosen to do it first.

On Shizuru's path now, for a guy who was supposedly about to die, Kotarou looks pretty healthy in that cg of him after meeting the T-Rex from Kotori's path.

Shizuru is a pretty fun character. It's too bad I really dislike her route.

And that's Shizuru's path done. Kotarou screwed everything up when he went into the forest after Kotori, didn't he? And why didn't the world get ended in the Chihaya path? The key was around for long enough to wipe everything out if it wanted, what changed between the two paths?

edited 18th Jul '14 3:28:14 AM by TheCuriousFan

Because it was by a different writer. Just ignore it and pretend that Sakuya ate the key in Chihaya's route or something.

I just assumed the world ended after, we just didn't see it.

I mean, it had to, otherwise what's the point of Moon Route if Chihaya's route just solved everything?

edited 18th Jul '14 12:02:03 PM by runoeddie