Just finished last night- I had been almost done with it in the morning before work, but had to stop because I had already pushed how late I can start getting ready. I had like 5 minutes left :\
So I liked this route a lot better than Kotori’s route. It felt more like a story than a bunch of interesting events, and I thought it did a better job generally with getting its themes across. I really liked the dynamic between Sakuya and Kotarou - Sakuya reluctantly nurturing an almost mirror image of his past self that had led to deep regrets against Kotarou who ends up needing to begrudgingly respect the mentor who will always feel a few steps out of reach.
In this route I felt like Chihaya as a charachter was fine. I had heard murmurings that she is the worst heroine, and that this route was terrible, so I wasn’t really sure what to expect. I can see why most people say this is Sakuya’s route though - he and Kotarou were the active characters while Chihaya was almost just a static plot device.
I thought she was cute enough, I laughed in a good way with the humor around her, and in general enjoyed her. I think the idea of a rich girl who has never really faced the real world outside of her bubble to the point where she is not even really sure why she is fighting besides “that’s how it has always been” could have really gone somewhere in this complex conspiracy world they are building. But it kind of didn’t. I mean by the end she chooses to leave Gaia and do things on her own but she felt a bit dragged to that conclusion and it didn’t really have any emotional impact.
Chihaya does have my favorite character design though. I really want little wing hair clips like she has for myself.
This is my biggest beef with this route. If you are going to kill a character goddamn do it and stick to it. Touching character death scenes have diminishing returns and I was kind of upset to be crying over the first death march only to have him comeback and fight Kotarou. And then the single cherry blossom at the end? I am kind of partially choosing to ignore the implication that it is possible he was summoned again.
I really wish they had done a separate sprite or at least had a CG for Akane as she descended into madness.
One thing I thought was interesting was the function of the Key in this route. I really like the idea that she contains all of the memories of all the atrocities of mankind, but instead of judging humanity herself she forces a human to bare witness to them and it is up to that human to either give up on humanity or to decide that humanity should continue to fight on. Humans judging humans is a lot more impact than mysterious gods judging humans.
Pani and Gil worked for me too. I find them pretty grating early on when they show up, but the struggle they have where they are just looking for purpose - looking to be useful plays out really well. I especially liked that Pani sacrificed herself quietly and Kotarou doesn’t actually end up saying goodbye or thank you. They said that it was because they were familiars that they were so obsessed with finding a purpose, but needing purpose is a very human notion as well. I really like when stories make me care for characters who I found annoying when I first encountered them.
I also feel like I should take a moment to recognize that Shizuru is a character who I had a tough time not dismissing out right from the promo images I had seen before I played, and even when she first showed up. I should know better with Key girls, but an eyepatch loli with two tone chunibyou eyes was hard for me to take seriously. But I feel like she was one of the best characters in this route. The way she is written having to pick between fighting her friends and not being able to give up what she believes in was really well handled. At this point I am really looking forward to her route and finding out more about her backstory, because if she works this well as a side character I imagine the depth she will have after her own route will enhance things.