Shuffle VN

Seeing how I was the only one to play and finish the Shuffle visual novel, this post will be just be. This post will obviously contain spoilers.

Just going to get this out of the way at the start. I liked the anime better. The visual novel had no subtly. While the anime you had twists the visual novel just came straight out at the start and told you. Going in the order I played them.

Asa Path: The Asa path was pretty much exactly like the anime, which didn't surprise me considering the anime WAS that route. The VN didn't even try to hide the fact Asa was the child of a homunculus. We find out within the first hour of playing. The rest of the VN is you hanging out with Asa and ignoring the fact that, if she doesn't use her magic she'll die. She is just a ticking time bomb of magical energy, slowly building up and sooner or later she won't be able to contain it all. So, the only logical choice is to attempt to kill yourself and force her to use it, right?

Kaede Path: I thought this would be my favorite path, because I am a big fan of yanderes. Lo and behold my surprise when it turns out that the yandere was ONLY in the anime. In the VN she keeps her "I'm happy, if Rin is happy" attitude to the very end, which is sweet and all, but it doesn't hold a candle to a good yandere. They go through the big revelation of her hating Rin's guts when they were young and now she devotes her entire life to him to make up for it. She is much more open about it in the VN though, she says multiple times that her reason for living is to serve Rin.

Sia Path: Her path was a bit more fun than I thought it would be. Because the path was solely dedicated to her instead of just cramming her story into the Asa path, like the anime did,we got to see more of her split personality. She basically had two paths to herself because of this. You could either have Sia or Reverse Sia, who is named Kikyou at the end. The ending was sadder then I expect with Sia going and completely killing her personality off so Kikyou could be with Rin, she does this no matter which personality you go with. Kikyou feels bad about it and basically force her to see she is wrong and now they switch personalities back and forth when they're with Rin so they both can be with him. Wow that sounds a lot worse when I summarize it then it actually was.

Nerine Path: Everything in her path was also in the Anime. Her path is shorter then the other girls and didn't really interest me that much. Her path was a giant sob story about how she absorbed a clone her father made of her to keep her life and how she never actually met Rin when they were little. Her clone had gone to the world of the humans, met Rin and talked about him to Nerine none-stop. After being absorbed into her she gained all the memories and apparently a great singing voice. The end is that Rin tells her that even if she only came here to fulfill her clone's dream he still loved her for her. She realizes that she can be happy without feeling guilty about her life and lives happily ever after.

Primula Path: I liked this path and thought it would have been better without the H-scenes. They shoved every fetish they could find into her path. She was a loli, dressed up as a maid/catgirl, wore that one piece swimsuit Japanese kids seem to wear for school, she called him her brother and they even had her pee herself in the middle of an H-scene. I'm ignoring that last one. At one point Rin breaks his arm saving a cat from a tree and Primula uses her magic to heal him. It is found out that because she is shown to have mastered her magic she now has to go back to the world of the demons and can never come back. Instead of letting Rin find a way to get her to stay she decides to wipe his mind of everything about her. She does this while they're having sex. I found it hilarious that in the middle of the H-scene Rin starts screaming "I can't remember your name!" By morning his mind is completely blank of all things Primula and he goes about his daily life feeling as if something is missing. Rin's friends manage to convince the kings to a game and if they win Primula gets to stay. The game was that if Rin remembered Primula on his own before she left then she would get to stay with him. Because PLOT MAGIC he did, they had a nice happy hug and she stayed. All because the power of love.

All the paths followed the same exact script. Walk in on them half naked, H-scene, date, some twist, H-scene, solution, end. I still say I like the anime better, but that does not mean the VN wasn't good. It is worth it, if you're bored and have nothing to do for a few hours. The first play through will take about 10-15 hours, but after that you can skip read text and cut out no less then a third of the game.

I think I'll play Swan Song next.