Let’s remember what most works of Key are: Games. Make poor choices or fail to understand the characters and you’ll get a bad ending. Guide them to a solution and you get a good ending. Explore the game in its entirety while giving your best guidance to all of its characters and you’ll get the true ending.
Of course, when the element of “difficulty” disappears from the equation due to transfering the story to a different medium (or using a walkthrough), the true endings seem too “magical”. Of course it’ll feel like the happy ending has been reached too easily if you get it without putting in any effort. Of course you’ll hate a lazy dude who inherited his parent’s riches while comparing him to someone who earned his money through hard work.
Now back to focusing on the story aspect. I’ll be quoting my own post from the a different topic:
As was stated several times in this topic, “Key Magic” doesn’t solve a problem. It’s all about the character’s development. It’s all about the struggle they’re going through. Because they have become stronger and better people, because they have reached the goal in the best way possible to them, they are rewarded.
Here’s my favorite example about so-called deus ex machina in Key: Kud route in Little Busters, which way too many people fail to appreciate (Kud and Refrain spoilers):
If you haven’t reached Refrain yet and you don’t pay much attention to the dialogue, then it’s easy to consider the ending of the Kud route a deus ex machina. The power of love saves the day, shattering the chain and saving the loli’s life after a telepathic chat all the way from the other end of the world.
Let’s pay attention to the dialogue now. What does Kud lament? Of course, there’s the sadness of never seeing her beloved again. But that’s not her biggest problem. What pains her the most is that she could never become a great person like her mother, that she remained a useless gear. She actually kinda appreciates dying as a sacrifice to comfort her desperate coutrymen, because she would finally become useful that way! That’s messed up! So the goal here is not survival. It’s for this self-deprecating character to overcome her despair, to appreciate herself again and to forgive herself. And Riki manages to do just that. The broken gear becomes a tool of self-liberation.
And now apply your Refrain knowledge: Kud’s survival on itself does not matter here because she’s actually as good as dead for an entirely different reason. What matters is whether or not she can liberate herself from her regrets. After all, the whole imprisonment and sacrifice thing is something she did in order to punish herself and the goal of the route is to make her realize how wrong that is. She survives the imprisonment because her guilt isn’t binding her anymore and she does not wish to be punished. She saved herself and Riki helped her do it. There was never an external force at work.
I personally prefer feels over realism and good ends over bad ends. But even if I didn’t, I’m pretty sure I still wouldn’t dismiss Key Magic as something like a cheap way out. Once you take a closer look at the stories, you realize how greatly it complements them.
