Little Busters! - Saya Tokido Route & Character Discussion

[Naoki_Saten]

Time for Part 2

Relationship with the Little Busters in Saya’s route

Friendship is the central topic of Little Busters. But in this route, friendship took a back seat. A seat waaay back in a bus falling off a cliff.

Riki is surprisingly dismissive of his friends this time around. The common route events are happening, but Riki is sometimes reluctant to join in. Instead, his thoughts are with Saya all the time. Just Saya. Just Saya. JUST SAYA.

He’s distancing himself mentally - and later physically from the fun everyday events with the Little Busters. Not just that, Riki is also becoming awfully dismissive of his friends. And the one to take the full brunt of it is Masato. There’s a scene I found downright painful where Riki takes Masato along as a bodyguard - which his bro got him to pay with cutlets for - and Riki thinks that Masato wouldn’t even notice if he got abducted from right under his nose and just go eat cutlets without him.

There is one major exception, though. One person Riki does not mentally distance himself from, someone Riki’s feelings don’t change for. You could even say that this person is partly responsible for Riki’s crush on Saya. She is Riki’s “type”, so to speak. In Riki’s eyes, Saya has the traits of the best person imaginable - cool, beautiful, does crazy things and is an invincible superhuman. Yes, she’s just like Kyousuke! By the way, didn’t Riki develop a crush on Kurugaya in her route for similar reasons? Kyousuke is the one friend Riki does not become dismissive of in this route. On the contrary, our little protagonist just up and confesses his love to Kyousuke… to Saya in a funny scene. No wonder that Kyousuke isn’t cast away like the rest of the Little Busters. After all, this is a route about Saya, Riki… and Kyousuke.

However, Riki is not just being a douche, nor does he start thinking solely with his crotch. The way he (mis)treats his friends is… understandable considering his circumstances. You see, Riki is fully buying into Saya’s story. Every night, he’s fighting with his life on the line. He can’t talk about it to his friends because that would put them in danger. Even though he meets his friends - who are ignorant of his struggle - every day, he’s living in a completely separate world. Their everyday lives seem trivial and childish to him, who’s fighting horrors unknown to them. Saya is the only one who knows about his struggle, thus the only one who can understand him. The only one he can talk to. His ever-reliable partner. Some people here have mentioned the suspension bridge effect, but I sometimes wonder if this case may also have traits of… Stockholm Syndrome?

[prototypeOEZ]

And with this route over, after 5 months of on and off playing (especially for the EX routes) and 96 hours of playtime I have finally finished Little Busters! (kinda)

A surprising amount of dislike towards this route but I understand why.

First and formost… Aya’s dad, no justification why he thought it would be a great idea to drag your child into a warzone eh Maeda? The fact that she began to train as a nurse implies that he wished for her to grow up to be a medic like him, but it is still heavily unjustified.

But, despite how messy this route was at first, it’s still one of my favourite routes.

It has some of the best comedy in Little Busters with Riki tackling a shirtless Masato from behind and saying he is trading his underpants with Kyousuke and horrifying Rin.

Saya and Rikis romance was arguably the best chemistry between Riki and a heroine. I really got behind the romance in this route because, like in Kurugaya’s route, Riki’s admiration towards people who take initiative such as Kyousuke and hence falling Saya or Kurugaya who do so too makes a lot more sense for his character. (a funny example of this shown below)

But despite the unbelievable backstory that could have been better foreshadowed in previous scenes in the route prior to the massive infodump that we got, the ending that is obviously Maeda not having a clue how to end the story and just giving us a deliberately confusing and open ending and telling us to fill in the gaps ourselves. The route still really holds up in my eyes with its likable romance, hilarious comedy and Saya’s fun character itself.

Final route rankings for me are: Kurugaya > Refrain > Haruka > Saya > Rin2 > Kanata > Sasemi > Mio > Komari > Kud

[Bread]

Related to the point made by Mr Saten regarding the strange way Riki interacts with the other Busters, but one of the gags that really missed the point with me was one early on with Kengo. I am going to critique a joke, so there is a grain of salt to be had with every event, but it was absurd. Kengo saves Riki from Saya’s attempt to make it look like Riki killed himself by way of hanging. This is all well and good and plays off Masato saving him from a Saya attack prior, however, this time Kengo really should be concerned as to him it looks like one of his best friends just tried to kill himself. Masato misunderstood the situation in a funny way, but with Kengo there’s very little room for question. Or if there was you’d think Kengo would indeedd have pressed Riki. Instead he just sort of laughs it off and gives Riki a slap on the wrist. You’d think given Kengo’s history with suicide that he would care more about this trap, and perhaps then Riki might even have been able to get Kengo’s help. But alas it’s just a joke that fits very strangely into the texture of the narrative and the characters.

[Aspirety]

What’s with all the burgers

But yeah my opinion hasn’t changed all that much. This route is a mess but I love it for what it does well. I’m definitely interested to hear more of @HeliosAlpha’s thoughts though!

[grooven]

Alright so I finally I’ll put my thoughts out for this. I have to say do I love the ambiguity that this route leaves. It feels so reminiscent of everything I’ve read from Key in the past games from ONE (yes I include that) till now. It has that open ended feel where the story can go in so many places. It gives room for you to decide or piece together.

Saya Impression:

I’ll start off by saying first, how much I really enjoyed Saya’s character she’s super fun and compared to the other females, she’s quite different. She’s loud, brash, clumsy and easily embarrassed. While being the obvious prototype for Yuri from Angel Beats, I think she’s less calculated than her and is even more hilarious.
That brings me to how much I really enjoyed the comedy in the route. I think it’s probably because I’m quite fond of Maeda’s humor, but I think it really fleshed out Saya’s charm and her character.

Phase One Impression of the Route (Riki POV):

I really did enjoy the dungeons in here only because there was something in each that had some fun bits planted in. We got to see how much Saya grew on Riki and how they developed from partners to him falling for her. The whole dynamic of the comic Kyousuke loved getting integrated into the plot I thought was pretty fantastic.

I did wonder why Saya went to such extremes with trying to “kill” Riki three times. What level of seriousness she had in this. It seemed a bit far-fetched to me and I wonder if it’s because she knew it was a dream world or was she only just trying out what was in the comic? It seemed a bit extreme. Though I’m not sure if I overlooked this part on her Replay/
Playing this through again, I do have a feeling that she’s done this play through at least once before. I think this because she states that she likes Riki better than Naoe. Though that could have other implications too.
From the first play through I remember wondering was she actually real? Did Riki create this imaginary girl? I loved how it really threw me for a loop (no pun intended.)

Aya’s Story/Flashback

There are a few parts of this narrative that confuse me because it isn’t a straightforward narrative. I had to go back and try to figure out what was happening first. It bounces all over the place and this frustrated me the most about this part. I wish that they could have cut a bunch of the labyrinth and included this as part of the story we could be immersed in from Aya’s POV. That way we could be shown rather than telling us. I feel like it was a missed opportunity.

So we gather that her age is probably at least 14 when she comes back to Japan later on (4 years and then the 10 years). You can see she is older looking in the anime too at the point where there is the landslide and it matches the CG. So we know she wasn’t a child when she died. Something about this scene struck me as very interesting, where she lived in Japan

and then the mountain area behind the school

they look very similar (could be an altered game CG) but it makes me wonder if that the landslide accident happened near the school or it was built after the landslide. That could explain why she has a connection so close to them and why it is at that particular school.

I won’t touch base on the whole, “why did her dad brought her to a warzone,” since I feel it has been covered substantially. I can only have it set in my mind that she was born somewhere else and he didn’t have a safe place for her and didn’t have anyone to leave her with. What I really know is that it was for plot convenience.
So many details are so muddy here like what are they doing back at home in the mountains. What kind or project is her father working on exactly in Japan? It’s these small things that make me want to know the set-up properly.

Phase Two Impression of Replay (Saya POV):

In this part we see the choices Saya makes on purpose to meet with Riki and we see it from her side. Not only that we see changes happen in the world minor and major to the point that the labyrinth has been altered (which also switches up the replay and making it less like, ugh, I have to do this again?) I appreciated seeing a glimpse from Saya’s POV and how the romance is projected on her side because we usually only see it from Riki’s POV.

Finally we end up meeting “Shun” where we see that Saya is just really Aya. She is pretending to be the character Saya Todoki from the comic they both love. He thinks at first she’s a glitch in his world, but then realizes that she isn’t. To me this part was a really fun twist to everything going on on. This makes me understand a bit why the world might be repeating too.

I do recall when I first played and going, what the hell? I had to wonder why it had restarted and I want to guess it is Kyousuke’s doing and tries to take her out. I’m also amusing that that world keeps stopping and replaying from the elevator part because that’s as far as she got in the comic. But could Saya be playing it over and over because she wants to be with Riki and only Kyousuke is making it more difficult in each round.

Saya this round confesses to Riki and they kiss. I liked the romance in this route because it felt like a steady progression and didn’t feel like it came out of left field. I also have a spot for romances when someone forgets the other person, it gives me all the time. We are also treated to seeing it happen from Riki’s side and then Saya’s side so it really equals out well.

So when they return to the maze and blast their way to the end and reach the bio weapon I had many thoughts on what was going on here once Saya is in the room. Saya’s hands are suddenly covered in blood and this makes me think this is her remembering the accident. She then realizes either that she has died or her “existence/soul” is becoming weaker in the world. And because of this, she knows she isn’t a part of that world where this Riki is, she can’t be with him. I couldn’t quite place what was happening here other than the blood was the truth of what had happened in her real life.

The only thing then left for her to do is to exit the game and to do this she has to pull the trigger and shoot herself (as explained by “Shun” at the beginning of this replay.) She does this painfully.

I have to wonder if this time machine bit Kyousuke brought up and what it really means. It feel it could go all kinds of ways. I wonder if Saya repeating the route so many times made her stronger to earn a world of her own or if she discovered one for herself. A world where she was able to back in time as a kid (like what she had wished to do and do it over).

I think that Saya must have died, but her soul her actual being was trapped. Or she could be in coma even and it could be an ikiryou/ astral projection. I do know that Maeda constantly goes back to “other worlds” and a huge influence for that is the book, Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World. I may have mentioned before but Maeda had read series by James H Brennan, this author has books about astral projection and relation with time travel too. I would like to read these one day.

Also the idea of time travel isn’t exactly brought from nowhere since after completing Refrain we know that Riki was able to alter events, so why couldn’t someone else? The rules of the world aren’t set out for completely. The way Kyousuke was speaking with Riki, it made it seem like Saya was able to achieve happiness in another world.

In the credits we see Aya/Saya in the snow described exactly as she had felt during that mudslide (cold and covered in snow, unable to move.) Once she leaves Riki from Kyousuke’s world, she is transported back to that feeling of where she died, her last memory of being alive, but being filled with all her memories. We do see her meeting up with the original LB (minus Rin) part of what she would dream to be a part of, a group of friends. From there she is greeted by the warmth of green, I see it as a symbol of her attaining happiness. After the credits we see Aya/Saya waking up in a world as kid as she described for her wish and would be able to relive her life and then grow up and meet Riki again and then the Little Busters. I see this as the part of the green she reaches at the end.

(I hope I make sense it was a long day, Ill come back and edit my mistakes)

[stupid]

This route was weird.

The entire dungeon crawler was completly unexpected, and although fun at first just became a drag, Although it was quite different than anything in a Visual Novel so it has lots of impact because of that. Her backstory was well interesting but that ending is confusing. Like real confusing. Was the replay her doing sometime loop but the world still went on each time she died? All of these confusing stuff did end up putting her as my second favorite route, (the gameplay annoyance is what kept it down).

Overall I really like Saya as a character with her stupid ideas and her complete self depression moments. I dont get why she tried to kill Riki and why Riki even associates with her at all after the three times she tried to kill him although this route is obviously supposed to be a fun easter egg.

Riki’s shooting game, Pretty fun except it doesnt track your mouse movement as reliable as possible and can be fustrating but overall is pretty fun, its much easier when you speak a little Japanese like me. Saya’s shooting game is also weird partically because I tried created the same kinda game when I was 12 on flipnote studio on the DSI. I played Riki’s on Hard and Saya’s on normal, both were fun but can be really annoying tring te get throught the dungeon even when you release you use a mouse. Saya’s part of the route turned this fustration to the extreme as you have to walk through each section multiple times its pain, NOT FUN. Her backstory was weird well, out of place it never really made sense to me or when she found the nuclear weapon or anything. Loved how Kyousuke modified sprite was the villain.

This was my final route in Little Busters except I still have muscle sensation left but its just a little route add on. Little Busters was pretty good Refrain and onwards. My final words about little busters is KOMARI’s ROUTE SUCKS. Next time you see me it will be on a white horse gallaping to see you Saya Tokido. Asta Lavista. This is Yoshino Yusuke signing out.