I was actually extremely hyped for Kick the Can in the anime.
I remember both Biz and myself being sad about that.
I wasn’t around last May 13th, so reading all this analysis of the common route was pretty fun. I don’t think I’ve run into the kick the can event in my reread of Little Busters yet, unfortunately, and I first read it so long ago that I don’t remember it very well. My expectations have been set high!
I have extremely terrible memories so I don’t even remember if I got the “kick the can” scene… Maybe I did, maybe I didn’t, but if I did, I guess it didn’t strike me as very important…
Well I’m watching a LP of it so I proooobably never got it. It’s pretty fun!
So today I was snooping around and discovered the original Little Busters website. Then I found this:
http://key.visualarts.gr.jp/product/little/site/special.htm
It would appear that Kyousuke’s Q&A was actually conceived before the game was released. As far as I can tell, it appears that Japanese net users were asked to submit questions online that Kyousuke would answer in-character, which were then later included as we saw them in the game.
Pretty amazing! Did anybody else know about this? I’d love to see them do more stuff like this in the future.
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So I read the Little Busters in Japanese ver. even though my japanese skill is not good enough to read LB. But it was my habit to play any VN in Japanese. So I can learn kanji from it’s game. 
So I already read the prologue. In simple way I saw the prologue was a simple high-school youth, but I truly enjoyed the prologue. My first laugh part is when Masato was given too much title being end with 「クズ」. Lol, I have never laugh too loud because of VN. Also, I love Kurugaya’s miscellaneous prank. I kind into to her 
But, in the end I love the opening they gave to the readers. Simple but you can feel the emotion of the VN
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Well well, It’s time to continue with this.
Let’s start with rin1 since it isn’t that much. It was ok I think, there isn’t really that much in there, the highlight is the mystery surrounding lenon and the secret of the world, since is rin1 there is not enough information, but I keeps you wondering for a while unless you forget anything quickly[/spoiler]. Besides that when you finish this route I remember it says that “you make a bad choice which you should change”, but you never make any choice regarding what I assume is Rin leaving Riki so , a little of a personal opinion that was not ok.
Ok now the common route, about content there isn’t that much since is an introduction to the game i guess but it can be considered as a good introduction with small details that are really interesting, personally speaking I hardly ever use skip during the common route so i played it a lot of times paying attention to those details, as small as they could be.
Kengo visiting a graveyard, something that I saw while playing my first route and didn’t understand for sometime before playing more routes or even getting to rin2; Riki trying to stop Kengo’s and Masato’s fight, which changed it a little after beating some routes; and different changes in some scenarios or even new scenarios based it in your choices or how many routes you had cleared, such as playing kick the can or the puppet show.
In this route you can also find interesting things to keep you busy such as the minigames, like making on time for class or serving meals ; also events like fighting an strange creature, which is entertaining and a little surprising in the end, or getting to Masato’s route. Last but not least the baseball game, it is really difficult to win it in the first try, since you have 8 players, but I heard some people did it, I actually can’t believe it, personally speaking I always tried to win it and waste sometimes trying to get stats , but i lost it like 1 or 2 times. You are free to play it as much as you want ,if you save first, or just play it once, you can feel the satisfaction after the little busters emerge victorious all thanks to your training.
So finally I can say that yeah the common route is really fine, I’m not sure if it can be done in a better way, but this route is pretty good, also the opening in the first morning was a good detail instead of putting it at the beginning of the game, I always listened to it, then continue the game[/spoiler], I mix up a little of my opinions, but do not pay attention to that, the route is ok so play and enjoy it and pay attention to the details.
Thank you, very much.
I have many fond memories of the common route. Of course I read it when I was already attached to the characters through the anime, but nonetheless the simple routine of spending time with these characters and continuously getting new ones added to the mix is so enjoyable. Every new character adds to the dynamic of the group as a whole, which can even be felt as a player through the gameplay of the baseball minigame.
The characters are the star of this VN and this common route does an amazing job selling them. It’s a tad unfortunate that the character routes by and large leave the group dynamics of the full Little Busters by the wayside, but it does help to come back to this common route and always read some new scenes you didn’t before inbetween playthroughs.
So what do I expect coming back to it? A homey feeling, really. The Little Busters are a group of people that have trouble really finding friends to connect with elsewhere, which in the end is kinda what these online communities are all about, isn’t it. I expect that now after all the time I’ve spent here, and on Rokkenjima, and in other circles, it’ll feel more relatable than ever to me.
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I’m about two and a half hours into Little Busters now, and one thing that’s really stood out to me is this one little line Kyousuke says:
Wow, this hits close to home. Right before this, one of the guys mentioned that Kyousuke would be graduating a year before the rest of them. Right now, I’m the same age as Kyousuke and also in my last year of high school. Just as I assume the Little Busters will by the end of the game, I recently had to watch my best friend graduate and move on. I can relate to Kyousuke and his desire to enjoy his youth before he gets a job as a salaryman. I’m looking forward to seeing how their last year together as a group turns out.
It can’t last forever, so let’s enjoy it while we can!
Only two hours in and I can tell this game is gonna hit me right where it hurts.
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I’ve only just reached the opening sequence and I’m already tearing up when Kyousuke suggests they start playing baseball. I don’t know if this is nostalgia hitting me, or if this is tears of joy for seeing LB finally on Steam… but either way it is a good feeling.
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I was tearing up once I saw the main menu playing Born into this World and then again once I heard “KYOUSUKE GA KAITEKITAZOOO!!!”
I think “revisiting an old friend” is a great way to explain going back to the common route. This is actually my third or so time going through it, but it still cracks me up.
Also, as a side note, definitely be sure to make the choice to scan the QR code in the hallway and browse Kyousuke’s q&a site. There are a lot of questions to get through, but they had me rolling.
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Oh man, I can’t count just how many times I’ve heard that line.
Heck I can’t count how many times I’ve played just the intro (everything before the opening). Everything after that has only been a one-time thing for me
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Alright, I’m here to tackle this monolith of a novel, nay, an experience! I have made it my mission hype track starts up to give my impressions and analyze this story as best I can, leaving no stone unturned, no character overlooked, I will discover all of the meaning I can within these electronic pages!
I’ve been informed that the so-called ‘common route’ is quite long. As such i will be breaking up my thoughts into several posts rather than creating one long essay. With that said, my first post will be:
The title screen!
Now I hear you asking yourselves, yes, I hear you muttering “gee why not just jump straight into the game? why sit there for 31 minutes listening to the music and looking through option menus and empty galleries?” Well the answer is simple, Nothing is designed by accident. A designer creates a title screen to be the first impression a reader gets, it should set the tone, it should inform the reader about what they are about to experience, and by the end of the story it should encompass the entire experience. There is certainly meaning in the title screen, and this is what I see:
The very first thing that should catch the viewer’s eye is the image of the five children running together, they are framed both by the title at the top and the selections at the bottom of the screen, as well as by the tree branches extending out in the top left and right corners. This indicates to me that we are somewhere outside, somewhere natural. The trees appear to be sheltering us The characters themselves are very distinct, drawn as a rough pencil sketch, the colour scheme and the simplicity of the shading in particular give off an impression that a child has drawn this, or at the very least an amateur. The children are helping each other along, the grasping of the hand is important, signifying the bond that these two characters in particular have with each other. The group values being together and wants to make sure that no one is left behind.
The title, Little Busters! stands proudly at the top left of the screen, these words are coloured in both light and dark blue, implying motion or progress, similarly the Japanese text (I’m afraid I can’t read it myself if anyone knows what it reads please let me know) is coloured from light to dark orange. The dog (oops) cat which playfully stands wrapped in the middle of the text appears to have perhaps or a bow or a bandage attached to its tail, symbolizing a playfulness that i’m sure we will see in these children going forward (although I was under the impression that the characters of this game were a fair bit older). I also could see (if it is a bandage) it being indicative of an ability for someone innocent to move past great trauma from long ago, but of course that’s just speculation at this point. The primary colour scheme of the title are orange and blue, and this colour is also prevalent in the selection titles, with the white/orange combo normally and a blue/white combo if you mouse over it. I looked into the symbolism of these colours in Japanese culture and from what I can tell Orange symbolizes ‘love and happiness’ whereas blue is ‘safety and protection’ or ‘heaven. spirituality and immortality’.
The music is tranquil, i feel like i could sit here for hours with a hot cup of tea and nod off to it. The track itself is entitled "A World is Born’ which can’t be insignificant. I think that this track can just as easily be taken to represent the player starting the game to experience the story as it can represent the beginning of the relationship of these kids together. I will say there’s something melancholic about the music, it concerns me slightly that the story presented in this story isn’t going to end well.
The option menus and the CG gallery and music selection screens are all clean and simple, and have a lot of deliberate empty space in them. The entire setup indicates to me that this is a story about the memories of a time left behind, the space created by the title screen is for those memories to sit. We are going to spend our time creating and uncovering memories as we go forward, of a pleasant time of childhood. This is a childhood that has sheltered these characters, and most probably one that they have given up in favour of adult duties.
As an added bonus, I have noticed that once you have started a new game and you come back to the title screen, the title will fade away after periods of inactivity and show instead a spectacle of ripples and glowing balls of light. i wonder if this is supposed to be representative of all the characters (lights) affecting one another through their actions, coming together and moving apart as circumstance dictates. Perhaps the characters all want to remain together forever but are being torn apart as they age? It’s fairly unclear at this point but i look forward to seeing what Little Busters can do with this narrative!
EDIT: One other note, when you boot up the game initially it gives you the choice to enter a ‘configuration tool’ which only presents you with two options:
To Quit
or
To Erase all Saved Data
This indicates to me that erasing saved data is incredibly important, I’ve been told there are secret routes and I have no doubt that you have to complete certain routes or select certain choices to unlock everything, but it makes me wonder if there’s a point where certain routes become blocked off due to progression, or if there are some scenes that are forever changed after viewing them for the first time, that sort of thing. Perhaps even the title screen will change after completing all of the routes. I’m very interested to see how far that goes as the novel is turning out to be, to put it simply, ‘feature packed’.
Screenshot added as evidence. IT’S SO OMINOUS AAAAHHHHH
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It’s the title again, in japanese writing - Ritoru Basutaazuu.
Interesting first post, with this style I am highly curious for the rest of yours - especially if I consider mine will probably be rather short-ish, especially in comparison.
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I like to be thorough, heh. I’m interested to see everyone else’s first impressions but I might save that for after I’ve completely finished the common route. Rest assured I am waiting in anticipation for what you have to say!
Nice analysis, looking forward to more!
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Thank you very much! I should be able to get my thoughts on May 13th and/or 14th (depending on how much there is to unpack of the former) within the next few hours! I’m very much going to take my time organizing my thoughts~
I think my comments will be brief and uninteresting by comparison!
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Okay, May 13th, the return of Kyousuke! (did he ever truly leave?)
We begin our story with a lot of loud shouting, I’m going to be honest it might me jump. I had forgotten that this story had voice acting and wasn’t quite prepared for the energy that Masato would bring to the table. I’m probably going to spend my time with this first chapter talking about my impressions of the characters and their design, I didn’t really notice anything super plot-related until May 14th. Anywho, Masato can really work up a storm and his motivational speech is enough to rouse Riki and order them to the cafeteria.
Let’s talk about Riki for a second, he’s the main character, after all.
Described as an ‘Ordinary boy’ he seems to be the typical ‘self-insert’ main character (MC) that we’ve all come to know and love. He tends to be a voice of reason in the midst of the madness created by the other characters, he seems to be about as smart as the average reader, and is voiceless. The only present-day image of Riki we see is the one present in the Status menu, depicting him looking away from the camera with his head down. Plain, serves as a point of view (pov) for the player, and gives off a slight sense of sadness or perhaps submission. The impression I get is that he is going to be dragged into almost anything that is asked of him, giving the player the chance to experience whacky hijinks ™ and that he is also our calm in the storm.
And boy what a storm it is, the novel wastes no time at all getting into a sparring match between Kengo and Masato, who apparently had promised not to fight until Kyousuke had returned (which is a very interesting statement but I’ll get to that in a bit). Let’s take a quick look at these new characters shall we:
what a nerd
just as big a nerd
Once again, I’m going to bring up colours (honestly what did you expect by now) and point out the clothing in particular. Comparing the two side by side they very clearly are represented by the trope Red oni, Blue oni, wherein we have a pair of characters with one being incredibly emotional and prone to following instinct (Masato) and the other being calm cool and collected in all circumstances (Kengo) both characters clearly wear their respective colours although Kengo wears his without any obstruction implying a high level of confidence in his actions, whereas Masato is wearing a black jacket over the top, so perhaps he is embarrassed or self-conscious about this side of him. We are also told that Kengo is abstinent, makes me wonder if this is for religious reasons his design is clearly meant to resemble that of a fighting monk. He is extremely focused and perhaps even has difficulty forming new relationships with others, makes me wonder what kind of stunt Kyousuke pulled to bring him into the crew. Masato on the other hand is kind of a class clown, swinging around his fists (breaking a table if I recall) and randomly selected weapon with little regard for consequences. Speaking of which…
SHE HAS CAT EARS
I was totally taken by surprise. Everything up until this point I was prepared for to some degree, but the moment Rin showed up and grew cat ears out of the side of her skull I knew I was on the wrong side of town. She interrupts the fight on the basis of stopping animal cruelty and kicks Masato’s butt soundly. I really like her a lot, she’s also fairly antisocial it seems but the writer’s commitment to the cat gimmick gives her a lot of life. The fact that she has a herd of stray cats following her everywhere is endearing and good gravy she even has a little catbell in her hair. Visually she has much larger eyes compared to the rest of the cast so far indicating innocence, and the large pink ribbon in the center of her chest denotes a child like attitude. I believe she will have difficulty focusing on more than one thing at a time and honestly i don’t know if i’ll ever be able to take her seriously.
I suppose I should talk a little about the man in charge, Kyousuke
We don’t learn a lot explicitly about him on this day, which is very interesting. He appears to be shrouded in mystery. He wears a buttoned up shirt and tie, denoting him as someone vaguely responsible (at least the most responsible of these five) and we learn that he is a year older than everyone else, so this makes sense. We learn through the latter half of this chapter the story of how Riki lost his parents and he was taken in by these four other children, fighting for great justice and smashing beehives. Kyousuke seems to be the mastermind behind all this and i do hope we get to learn about how he recruited everyone to the team. What peaks my interest particularly is the specific details that Masato and Kengo couldn’t have their duel until Kyousuke returned. Clearly Kyousuke has authority here but beyond that I get the impression that this wasn’t just a ‘I was gone for a day and you can fight once I get back from my walk’ situation but that the period of time was much longer. I couldn’t tell you honestly if it was a period of days or weeks or months since the two Oni’s promise to fight one another (fitting that they are demons needing to be controlled by a master) but I get the impression that Kyousuke has been off doing something important for a long time. But perhaps i’m overthinking it…
So we have our base cast of five characters, tied together by a string that extends back ten whole years. Judging by the way this day ends, with Riki’s wish that these pleasant days ‘could continue forever’ I feel as though my analysis of the title screen was fairly accurate. This is a story of the past, present, and future. Highschool life is often romanticized in Japanese media, and it appears that’s what we’ll be looking at with this story. Looking back at a perfect time with no worries, perhaps trying to forget? To reconcile? It’s not entirely clear, I’ll just have to keep playing to find out! 
Before I sign out, I do want to shoutout the sheer functionality of this release, the Busterpedia, the backlog, the UI of the fighting game which is just hilariously detailed, it’s all very overwhelming, but in a good way! I’m really enjoying the game so far~
EDIT: Ah man, there’s always something I forget in these posts
More evidence that Kengo is tied to religion, this quote is originally from the tale of Paul the Apostle’s conversion, which I wrote about quite a bit in my Planetarian analysis:
…and either is implying that this happened to Kengo in the past, he had a ‘sudden understanding of the truth’ or perhaps this is foreshadowing for when Riki finds out the 'Secret of the World" (something which I am aware of but haven’t uncovered yet). Perhaps it’s even implying that Kengo already understands the Secret of the World, wouldn’t that be fun? It would certain explain his attitude towards pretty much everything, going along with the club’s antics without really committing.
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I’m having to keep a note of the choices I’ve made as I’m playing blind first time out. I don’t know which ones are important so I’m noting them all! Going for 100% completion of everything must be as hard as it was for Steins;Gate!
I like the background art, 'fraid I haven’t got anything very profound to offer up yet though.
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