Nylige anmeldelser av Aether

10/10 would be emotionally destroyed again.
Navigating the Orchard kinda blows though.

I keep finding new Princesses to Slay.

A fascinating horror-thriller that delves into how perception affects one's "world", and how even the most horny gremlin otaku has worth and deserves love. If you can deal with certain kinds of Anime Bullsh*t there is a great story beyond it. I just understand when a lot of people can't deal with that.

Just remember to apply You Know What.

I wish I could give a "neutral" ranking for this review, because this game is really hard to rank.

I went into this visual novel based on expectations of a serious follow-up to Robotics;Notes, especially from the intro and the OP. What I spent 70% of my playtime experiencing was a cute, but often uneventful slice of life epilogue, which sometimes had to fight against its need to involve dirty jokes from a father who really should know better. The worst of which honestly is how the conflict in the common route is resolved with Daru being horny. After a while I was expecting it to turn out I had wound up in a joke route - for it to turn out those events are still part of the other endings felt tacky.

Originally I was considering giving a short review of each route when I got to writing this review, but I don't think I need to get into it. The best part of this story is actually towards the end, and it turns so much of the emotional stakes and atmosphere on its head that it feels like a completely separate visual novel. Nae's, Aki's (kinda), and the True ending/route have actual, worthwhile threats, and the character interactions are much more interesting than everything in all the other routes.

What do you rate something that has such whiplash between its promise, delivery, and climax? A 6/10? It's not a bad game, and the good parts are really good. But getting to those points takes real patience and effort. If you're not super invested in SciADV or bounced off of the original R;N, don't bother. For those more invested, I'd rate the end-stuff higher.

At least it's not Our World Is Ended.