Genre: VN.
Developer/publisher: Mellow/Entergram
Platform: PS4/5,Switch.
Official Site: https://www.entergram.co.jp/tsukiyori/
Platform: PS4/5,Switch.
Official Site: https://www.entergram.co.jp/tsukiyori/
VNDB: https://vndb.org/v36012/
Release date: 21-12-2023.
I don't play much galge but for some reason I was just drawn to this game.
Idk if that is a good or bad thing but I'll go with good.
I suppose the aesthetic of the game really got to me and I was sold!
This was my chill game the last couple of weeks for when I wasn't in the mood for something else
This isn't a particularly long visual novel its a 25ish hours at minimum.
Also this is a review for the console version and not the PC version.
Pro's
- Decent story and likable charactters.
- Gorgeous artwork and fitting BGM.
- Elle is E.M.T aka Elle Maji Tenshi.
Con's
- Lack of CG, there were places were one would be nice but there was none, especially epilogue.
- Technobabbles galore.
- Not many choices, basically a kinetic novel as there's only one choice to decide a route.
Art was pretty good, I guess it was also this that sorta sold me on this VN.
Music is nothing exceptional some good jams, it generally fits the mood.
System is standard VN stuff, not much to mention here, the UI was comfy
and I could save/load without issues this time. I did notice there aren't really
any choices except for one that will decide which route you will end up on.
I suppose this is nice if you just wanna chill and enjoy the story without
having to worry about any bad ends of which there were none.
There are only three heroines so that means three routes, great for when you don't
want to sit through like 6 routes and have to deal with less relevant characters.
Its kinda really obvious from the get go who the main heroine was, at first she didn't really feel
like she was meant to be a love interest but this got better later on especially her own route.
Story has some light sci-fi elements and is set in the not so distant future.
Sou our protagonist doesn't like androids but they're here to help! much to his distaste.
He was involved in an incident which let him to have to work with Yuuhi and Masakazu
after being caught in the act hacking stuff. Now Sou is cursed with helping them around
in finding a SUSpicious individual who the protagonist also happened to bump into.
I actually liked the first half of the game, the second half was more or less SoL fluff
and the more interesting plot had fallen into the background in favor for romance.
I'm meming now but I like how at the start of the game Sou's like I would never simp for androids
but over the course of the game and at the end of the route its literally at your service my queen.
Anyway I liked how Sou got over his fear, he was also pretty proactive so the only disappointment
is that he doesn't have a full sprite like the girls, I think that really would have added to it.
Thankfully he does have a face! so I guess I will take what I can get here... The pacing of the common route was okay and the story was easy to follow, maybe a bit
too easy to guess certain things but there were hints and some foreshadowing
but it was long and basically the whole main story is the common route+Elle
while the other routes deal only with lingering issues of the other heroines.
The girls themselves were all likable and had their quirk, however romance wasn't really
the topic early on, there was plenty of time to get to know everyone till the second half
which is where the romance kind of started to come in.
There weren't really any routes that felt like they were self-contained as all girls were tied
into the scenario pretty well but the sad fact is that the story was mostly about Elle.
Both Yui and Shirabe are but an after thought. 2045, Tsukiyori is also a VN that focuses on
its scenario first and romance second so one may need to be a little patient.
How do I put this? if you played something like witch on the holy night but wanted it
to have actual romance and like hi-tech stuff then Tsukiyori might be for you.
I like to compare these two VN but that is mostly cuz of them having no real choices yet
in terms of story they are not really that similar at all its more or less in design.
I thought Tsukiyori was also lighthearted but it can have its tense moments
and it wasn't too over the top either, it had a good balance of fluff and seriousness.
The bad part is, it had a lot of dry segments, lack of CG and it wasn't always as engaging
so at times I was bored however it did manage to pick itself up so it wasn't too bad.
Most technobabbles went in one ear and out the other, so I guess half this game wasn't for me.
 |
| Me after finishing this visual novel... |
Overall its pretty solid but it wasn't particularly great either.
I liked how I was able to get hooked with ease so Mellow did one job right...
sadly I think the transfer from PC to Console wasn't that great and it may feel lacking
as the 18+ scenes have been removed, thankfully whatever romance there is was cute.
I wish the kiss cg's were better since I have seen much better, the quality of Yui and Shirabe
is unacceptable to me in 2024 especially compared to some recent otome games I have played.
I'm glad atleast Elle was great but yea not a good look.
If you wanna get this do it for the plot and Elle but don't expect too much either
like it might be worth it for Elle's route but not full price for other routes.
If you're still on the fence, it has a 4ish hour trial/demo which I found
more than enough to give a player a taste of what it is all about.
Only bad part is the trial can't carry over save data so...
I had to skip a bit to get back to where the demo ended.
Will write a bit about the characters after jump like usual, there will be spoilers
but there won't be a whole digest, the game/route is too long for that.
Yui.
CV: Fujisawa Reika.
student and Sou has to put up with it cuz he found out about how she isn't this perfect girl.
In her free time she is an internet idol, kinda like a vtuber? she is also involved with
Shinonome and he is not so nice to her, he'd like her to disappear. Much like Souta
Yui also has hacking skillz which is why she was a nuisance to Shinonome.
I ended up choosing Yui on my first playthrough mostly because of the fact
she was so adorable, maybe a little mischievous (in a good way).
You may think Yui ain't like the other two girls but her situation wasn't too different, still
Sou fell for her in a genuine way despite other things being involved.
Plot was about the library girl Rui which turned out to be a real ghost, this actually
was pretty obvious to me back in the common route so that wasn't much of a surprise.
So what was is more or less about Yui herself, she isn't the original Yui
but a perfect copy of that Yui. Hench her desire for perfection...
I never really understood why Saitou froze leading him to get toppled
and be stopped but her origins are probably related to it.
The sister of the Rui ends up being kidnapped so they try to rescue, its then
the solar flare happens which leads to Yui being able to meet the Rui again. Its then Yui
realizes she is the clone of the ghost girl Rui which is why she was able to see her even.
Rui has no regrets as she is about to disappear since she already fulfilled her
dream by helping Yui design the wafuku outfit for the school festival.
Of course Rui's sister also said her piece since she has basically lived in Rui's shadow
since her mom only really seemed to look up to her while being mostly ignored.
Still... she doesn't really hate Rui that much and is glad to be able to come to peace with things.
Rui asks Yui and her sister to take caare of their mothers... after all this Yui is also able
to come to terms with who she is and even is she is a clone, she is still her mother's daughter.
Yui says her dream right now is for them both to go to study at a police school
and join a cybercrime division... while also getting married and maybe have a kid or two.
its easy to tell the writers were cooking when they wrote it up cuz damn.
I didn't write a whole lot and just summarized some key facts of what was up
since it will help me remember it better. Its not as short as what I wrote down.
~
Shirabe.
CV: Yuzuhara Miu.
she was kinda hard to read but she has a hidden agenda and is after Shinonome
or more like she wants revenge for what he did to her parents. She is also frequently
seen with Saitou and they have been a team, Saitou is her only lead on her path of revenge. Unfortunately Saitou always calls her betch-chan which is well earned cuz she literally is one.
Shirabe also dislikes ghosts and will get all tsundere about it... which is because of something
that happened when she was at catholic school, she overheard weird rumors about a curse
or some shit which just rolled from there and it hasn't left the back of her mind.
Other than that Shirabe is the resident half-android baby girl who can hold her own quite well.
Shirabe ends up finding a diary with memories of her parents and it all just boils over
its like they were alive again, Sou overs her a shoulder to cry on. They also return
eachothers feelings and they like eachother, Sou's also no longer afraid of android muscle.
to come to terms with the past as well as the present. She used to be quite good at playing
the Piano and couldn't help but tryingn to play one when the chance arised.
With it of course came another surge of nostalgic feelings and she wondered
if despite everything he still likes her to which Shou answered of course.
Shirabe is incredibly afraid of having the people she cares about being taken from her
which is understandable since her parents were murdered which is why she seeked revenge.
Anyway to help the master of the bar Shirabe frequents they infiltrated a nightclub, she had
to dress up as a sexy bunny girl. UwU Needless to say she didn't enjoy it but had to put up with it
eventually they caught someone red-handed but later down the line the master still got hurt.
Despite Saitou being out of the picture that he still had lingering influences among youths
and gangs etc. This lit a fire in Shirabe and she is extra motivated to root them all up.
Unfortunately they couldn't get through to them so they decide to sneak into
the research facility to wake up Saitou to help talk some sense into them.
Saito is like wait wut but is like well whatever... I guess I'll help? he's got nothing to lose.
His underlings now had a second in command called Yamato who was a bit hardheaded
but eventually Saitou and his partner got through to him that they shouldn't
be targeting humans for no good reason and they're basically become monsters.
After it is over, Saito asks Shirabe to kill him since he has killed Shinonome and he is his copy
as the reason he went loco in the common route was because Shinonome activated that part of his.
Shirabe doesn't kill him because even if she still hates what he did she has already been saved
and so forgives him, since he is merely a copy not the original. They're not the same.
Ayame arrives on the scene and Saitou takes a threatening stance, announces that
the only plan he has is world peace and leaves like tuxedo mask; my job here is done.
Shirabe starts laughing while Yuuhi is in a state of panic... and Ayame is flabbergasted.
After everything is over, Shirabe visits her parents grave and promises to visit again in the future.
In the epilogue Shirabe and Shou be about to get lovey-dovey but it gets fade-to-black, I guess
this is where there was supposed to be an ero-scene but alas console players won't see that much.
and the romance was kinda cute, not as cheesy as Yui's so I liked it a little more.
The plot was kinda eh though, everything felt kinda anti-climactic and they really should
have given us a cg scene in the epilogue, now it just felt rushed and awkward.
Shirabe and Sou barely had any CG's together too... inequal treatment is real here.
~
Elle.
CV: Sairenji Aki.
She likes to cook a lot of dishes like Minestrone and Hayashi rice which made me hungry, lol.
Its very obvious Elle is the main heroine, I kinda wanted to do her first but decided against it.Elle also has this super special umbrella which is like a wi-fi extender except it runs on batteries.
I liked the scene during the test of courage where Elle reassured Sou of his android fears
it was a really cute scene but it also made me sad since no other heroine had a cg scene there.
Elle's real name is Luna, she and saito were prototype's eve/adam respectively.
Adam was Shinonome and Saitou was a copy of him, unfortunately Shinonome
wanted to cause an uprising since he saw himself as being better, Eve/Luna couldn't
see eye to eye with him ever. Even so he was like a brother and did protect her in the end.
Also her father didn't create a backup of Elle since he believed that is how she can be
as close to humans as possible and afterall you cannot backup a life. Elle understood this.
After the ordeal with Saito, Elle ended up crying since she did lose her brother... Ayame realizes
that if the worst come to pass Elle could become an enemy of humanity and so the route of Elle begins.
Eventually Elle confesses her feelings to Sou who returns it, not only did they have the best
kiss CG they also had a lot of cute scenes together while the plot slowly moved forward.
as she wants to reawaken Luna. Elle starts to have dreams so they have them do a checkup.
In it she saw Ayame as a child as well as talk about christmas. Ayame denies it to be real
since there should be no way Elle could know since back then she was on the moon.
While they were out the others prepared a surprise party which turned out to be pretty fun
sadly Elle started feeling a bit hot&bothered so she went outside...
Masakazu went after her because Ayame has specifically hired him to keep an eye on her.
Elle has another flashback of events on the moon about a family, particularly his being killed.
Sou finds out and goes after her, Yuuhi and Shirabe follow him. Yuuhi kinda knew something
was off about her senpai with the Saitou incident but she couldn't place her finger on it what it was.
Thanks to gps tracking they manage to find masakazu who really doesn't want what
happenied to him to happen to people in the future. He doesn't trust androids at all. The best
option available is to disable Elle so she won't go haywire and kill people like his own family.
Everyone decides to raid the research facility to get Elle back and things get dramatic
everything is happening because Ayame went loco and wanted to have a little revolution.
Basically the way things are doesn't suit her so she wants to change, she literally altered
Saito to be some combined version of Eve/Adam's AI and called it CAIN
which is based on the controversial AI Abel who was related to the incident years ago.
Sou and everyone else busts his arse off trying to stop Ayame.
They rescue Elle but Ayame and Cain get away and proceed with their plan...
the catrobo ends up helping them which hosts the conciousness of Saitou.
Ayama is misguided and Elle can't get through to her but she managed to buy time
for Saitou to take over his original body... or more like it was Shinonome to begin with.
Shinonome never really died, he merely transfered into Saitou... sadly Shinonome
has other plans and Saitou doesn't like it so they all bust their arse off yet again. Saitou regains
partial control and leaves the future to his sister Elle by doing a heroic self-sacrifice.
Elle has also gotten through to Ayame and that she really misunderstood everything that
happened years ago. For some reason during the struggle Elle ends up falling off the building...
Elle asks Sou to take care of Ayame and smiles as she meets her doom.
They all rush to Elle's side while Ayame laments all of her actions that lead to this.
she has never felt more alive than right now. Elle is glad she was able to realize her dream.
Sadly Elle ends up shutting down yet ends up sending a message to Sou from the moon
which was more or less about how he never really hated androids to begin with.
It showed in his actions with her and the other girls, while also making it very obvious
Elle was the self-same android from his past which caused his trauma.
In the epilogue, there's a scenario of everyone having a good time at Elle's tavern
to which she realizes this is her happy dream she is having from the moon.
The after story is all about Elle, it happens 10 years after the events in her route...
they managed to repair her after all that time and she reunites with Sou who together with
his friends made sure a future where androids and humans life together was possible
while also making sure the sights she loved still exist today.
was too whack, it was honestly sad how absent the heroine was from her own route
even if it was about her. This route obviously feels like it was part of the main story
and every other route are but an after thought and not even remotely relevant to this.
The route was also very dramatic but it also really accomplishes everything
the story wanted to be about in the first place so therefor it was not bad at all.
I like Elle, she truly lived and accomplished her dream. The epilogue also reflects the subtitle.
Ugh... I didn't cry that much but I did get a little sad during the ending.
The after story was a much needed epilogue but what makes me sad is that
Yui or Shirabe got nothing of that sort. Ahahah Elle is the true heroine afterall.
E.M.T Elle Maji Tenshi.
~
Fav route in terms of plot:
Yui > Elle > Shirabe.
Fav character:
Elle > Shirabe / Yui.
Final Thoughts?
Its just a nice romance VN with some light sci-fi elements!
One thing I like is despite being a galge, how tame the game is in design! the characters
aren't really as outrageous as some other VN I spotted on the japanese psn/eshop.
If you come here for the story you'll probably not be too disappointed and there's a fair amount
of fluff and romance which leads to a very mellow experience wait... I see what the dev's did there.
I suppose there's a good balance of plot and SoL... but at times I almost forgot what it even was
supposed to be about which is kinda bad. Also there's only one plot relevant route
and that was Elle, I'll go as far and say the whole story was about her.
The other two heroines were just kinda there as options... they also have awful kiss cg's
and the only one who had a decent one was well you guessed it! Elle.
In terms of characters I liked Elle the most and I am not even biased its more or less
because of the story. Yui second since she was quite hilarious. Shirabe was... hmm
she took a while to grow on me but she was likable in her own way but again
both Yui and Shirabe were just kinda there and if I had done Elle first
their routes would have left no impressions on me.
The protagonist was alright, he had spunk but at times he did feel like he was sorta there.
Other than that I liked the chemistry the girls had with each other as well.
Yuuhi and Masakazu were great too, anyone else was just kinda there. I didn't like that
there weren't many choices and I really prefer visual novels with bad ends or alternative
outcomes, however if it can deliver a good story I don't mind it that much which Tsukiyori did do.
The only other bad part I can think about is that some random characters weren't voiced but I guess
they knew where to cut their budget so Guy A or Church guy weren't important.
Other bad parts would be the skip function since the demo save doesn't carry over
I had to spend a little bit to get back to where I was while holding X. Couldn't figure out
if there was a force skip but at the end of the day this was a minor annoyance.
The art was for the most part good but some backgrounds varied, you could easily
tell a lot of different artist worked on those and they all tried their best. Mellow does know
that presentation is important because the splash art for this game got me good.
At the end of the day all I can say is that 2045, Tsukiyori is solid but its not the best ever VN out there.
Its hard to recommend full price but maybe just for Elle? but do try the demo first!
7/10
What's next? I am currently working my way through Utakata no Uchronia so we'll see how that goes.
No comments:
Post a Comment