In any of my reviews, I break them up into categories (music, art, etc.). Well, for this one, I don’t feel like it, so I’m going to keep it all together. Little Busters! is the most recent Visual Novel from KEY. So far, I am enjoying it greatly. The common route is the beginning of the story, where you meet all the characters and basically determine which character route you will go to after the common route ends. Since the only route aside from common currently translated was Rin’s first route, I decided to focus mostly on Rin, while occasionaly going after other females.
The common route is a bit long, for me about 4 hours of reading. The main point of common is to help you learn about the Little Busters! and the characters in the story. Characters include the stereotypical airhead, big boob girl, childhood friend, and muscle best friend dude, among others. The characters are pretty well written for, rarely ever dissappointing while reading. Masato, the muscle best friend dude, is funny to listen to and he is basically Sunohara (CLANNAD). Kyousuke is the smart childhood friend who always knows what to do yet is mysterious at the same time. Then you have the group of females who I really don’t want to go into detail over becuase they each have a route, and when I do their routes, I will discuss them in detail.
The main heroine for my playthrough was Rin Natsume, Kyousuke’s younger sister. She loves cats and is very shy and has a short temper. Her voice actor is quite cute and does very well when being emotional. The story for her is a nice read but felt a bit lacking around certain parts. Her first route is quite short (1/2 hour) and leaves the reader wanting so much more. You, Riki, are not voiced but the writing makes up for it, but barely. You have narcolepsy (falls asleep randomly) and that basically ends the Rin route.
The music throughout the game is amazing. But then again, it’s a KEY game, they always have good music.
The artwork is also the best of any KEY game so far, getting rid of the CHIN OF DOOM. In the end I was dissappointed with the length and abrupt ending of Rin 1, but was left wanting more, which is all I need to keep on reading.
7/10 for common route because it lacked on certain parts and 8/10 on Rin due to length
Well,
The Rin Route was merely a set up for refrain. Rin and Riki develop a bond in that route.
If you had played the side routes first, then the rin route, then gone back to the common route, you would have noticed that Rin now reacts differently to Riki. You can still see this in the common route, so on your next play through try to pay attention.
It’s not technically a “route” but more of a “bad end”.
The other routes are translated by now I believe, but you’re not gonna make any sense of the main story until they get to Refrain. Even I was like “wow that’s nice and all but what am I reading” until I finally finished everyone’s story path and unlocked the true route, so don’t be dissappointed and enjoy the Key formula – Start with lols and end with qq.
The Chin of Doom ™ appears because of Hinoue’s art – in this game, if I’m not mistaken, she worked together with Na-Ga on the character designs.
You’re probably much farther through the game by now, so i’m just gonna scurry away
Oh yeah, I’m well aware of Hinoue Itaru’s art, though it has gotten so much better since he started. I’ve gotten much farther, almost finished Refrain myself in Japanese, but decided to wait on the English translation to get the most out of it. By now, I could finish Refrain in the original Japanese in at least a few days.