Expect massive spoilers down below and no screenshots since I don't have my Vita on me. Most of this was typed very quickly, so there are probably going to be lots of errors.
I have no idea how to start this post properly, sorry.
Sosuke's route was great. I loved the entire festival scene, it was hilarious. Sosuke acted like a robot in that scene, but afterwards he seemed to act a lot more normal. His romance with Ichiko was quite decent. Even though he was like the others where he met her once as a kid, I don't remember him falling in love with her until he met her again as an adult. I played this one a few days ago, so I've sort of forgotten all that I wanted to say. (I mainly want to talk about the True End and Hanate's route!)
It turns out that the photographer was the cat mask murderer, which I'm pretty sure I predicted early on. Usually characters like him have some kind of tragic backstory that explains their actions, but nope, he just likes killing people because he's messed up. I'm glad he didn't turn out to be Ichiko's brother, very glad indeed.
Yuzuki's route was even better than Sosuke's, and probably the best in the entire game. I expected him to be an angry tsundere for 90% of the route, but he actually was quite sweet from the beginning. The plot to romance ratio was perfect here, I think. I expected Ichiko to find her brother in this one, but she doesn't find him in any of the routes except his own. Karasuma was also a character I expected to be shady or a revenant, but I actually liked him and the plot about his wife and Yuzuki. All of it was very interesting.
After originally playing Toa's route, I was very satisfied with the ending. It seemed quite happy. I thought that his route was one of those ones that was going to have nothing to do with the actual plot. The "true ending" I had heard about through walkthroughs I expected to be an ending where Ichiko ends up with nobody, but all of the major plot points were explained. It turns out that I was incorrect about all of that.
The true ending, Toa's true endings, it was so depressing. I don't think I'll be able to play his route again without feeling sad. It was good, I loved it all, but it ruined Toa's route for me. Perhaps I should just pretend that it happened in an alternate universe.
When Yua said that she was the revenant, I believed her. I was beginning to wonder why this ending was set after Toa's route instead of Yuzuki, who I originally thought was the game's poster boy. But then it was revealed that Toa was the revenant and he was going to die soon. That was something I certainly did not see coming.
Also, I did not expect Yua and Toa to be related. At first I thought that they might have been secret lovers or something. Actually, there was a line in one of the endings that hinted a little tiny bit that Yua and Hino might've had something going on. It was really subtle, but I sort of ship them now because of it.
A-TO's final concert was just sad. Also, Yasu turned out to be feeding information back to the Ensepulcher's, so I suppose he did end up being a villain after all. Gamaki playing the piano was nice. She often seems not very nice, but I ended up liking her by the end of the game.
I really wish there was a fandisc, because this ending needs an after story. I sort of imagine Ichiko and Yua becoming really good friends, like sisters. Maybe Ichiko could even move to Okunezato permanently? (I think Yua would be in prison though, because she did murder Sosuke's dad)
As much as I loved this "true" ending, I honestly wish that it didn't exist. Toa's route was one of my favourites but that ending just makes everything sad.
The final route of the game I thought was going to be full length, but it was mostly a backstory dump with only three CGs.
I honestly really like Hanate, but a few things about him creeped me out. There was a line that went something like "as Ichiko went into middle school, my feelings for her became more than just brotherly", which was super weird. Also, when he took a child Ichiko into his van he just felt like a paedo. A lot of his scenes with her when she was young made me think "stranger danger!". Even if he did it to protect her, he still kidnapped Ichiko.
All of that weird stuff I just shoved aside, and in the end I enjoyed the route. It still needed more CGs though. There wasn't really much of a story, it was just 90% flashbacks and 10% actual plot, but oh well. You could tell that Hanate wasn't going to be her real brother from the start though, because the writers need some excuse to make his incest plot less disgusting and more valid. I expected him to be a bit more yandere, but I suppose we already got that with Isora. Brother characters are always enjoyable for me as long as I forget that it's all incest.
The ending was another sad one though. I honestly wanted Hanate and Ichiko to run away and be happy, but nope, he had to die. But that purple flower at the end means that he might come back, doesn't it??
7'Scarlet was a bloody good game, honestly. It has its flaws, but I still can't understand a lot of the "meh" reviews it got. It's a shame that there's probably not much extra content for it besides this game, there's no fandisc and probably no drama CDs besides those free ones you get from the limited edition copies. But this game must be popular enough if they decided to localise it, so maybe there's hope for more content one day? It's hard to make sequels to these kinds of games, because the plot gets closed in the first game and all you can really do after that is add more fluffy scenes.
I can understand why Aksys paired it with the two Psychedelica games in their "Summer of Mysteries" event. At first I thought it was just because they released at the same time and they all had mystery related plots, but it turns out that they seem to have similar themes, as well as depressing endings. I'm pretty sure they use the same fonts for the dialogue too.
One day I'll probably replay some of these routes, but mystery plots are never as fun the second time round. At least I'll be able to catch all of the foreshadowing that went over my head before. Maybe I'll try and get a platinum trophy or some of the bad endings. Usually I just try and get the good ones because I'm too lazy to skip through entire routes multiple times. I know you're supposed to make save points so you don't have to do that, but I never realise that until the very end. (Plus my Vita is running out of space, so I have to conserve memory)
My thought dump is over. I don't know how to conclude this post, sorry. It probably would've been better to do proper reviews on each route individually, but I've mentioned in previous posts why I won't do that anymore.
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