/jp/ - Otaku Culture

Finished Nanatsuiro Drops.

The premise is pretty simple: the protagonist accidentally drinks something that turns him into a plush toy at every sundown, so he has to get the main heroine's help in finding 7 magical doodads that allow another character to prepare a medicine that restores him to normal, all the while hiding his identity from muggles to prevent his change from becoming permanent.

My biggest beef with the game is that the setting was ridiculously underdeveloped. It’s not like I was expecting a thick plot considering the initial premise and overall lighthearted atmosphere, both of which I liked, but the game still somehow managed to land below my expectations in that regard: nothing in the setting gets fleshed out or explained apart from the bare minimum required for the plot to work. I mean come on, you just don’t mention there’s a magical realm and then never show any of it, or at the very least do something to establish it further. The スピニア (mahou shoujo of the setting) don’t receive any sort of explanation for why they even exist as a job or what they do apart from the fact that they collect star droplets that appear in regular world, while the latter are also just plot coupons that happen to be required for the protagonist’s medicine for him to return to normal. I guess we’re meant to assume they’re used for making all sorts of magical things, but whatever these things happen to be, are never mentioned even once as far as I recall. Unless I completely blacked out while reading. The competing otherworldly schools two of the heroines technically represent only get mentioned by name, and that’s it. At one point the other magical girl heroine Nona is surprised that apparently the other school’s スピニア grow wings for flying, but it’s not like the player can even give the slightest shit, because that’s literally the only part in the entire game where it’s even mentioned that there’s something different between said schools that are mentioned by name only.

Plot advancements in general and the whole stardrop catching business where most of the magic happens often felt lackluster as well, because every time the characters come up against a wall, there exists a convenient magical book that always just tells them the right spell for the occasion. The same plot advancement crutch gets used almost constantly, from small problems to big endgame drama issues. That, or the teacher preparing another medicine. Why does it always have to be books that solve or explain everything? Is it an Unison Shift trademark? Or I might just be an overly pedantic retard for even complaining about these sort of things that you’re probably not supposed to think about, but regardless: considering the magic stuff is the main thing that constantly pushes the plot forward I really wished the game would’ve fleshed out everything more, even in a lighthearted manner. Because just watching the characters chase after generic plot coupons isn’t very entertaining. Even the supposed competition between two of the heroines hardly has any presence in the plot, apart from seldom being a drama catalyst for other being the better magical equivalent of a janitor, I guess.

Side heroine routes felt kind of wonky because the game is so heavily focused on Sumomo that she even butts into their routes for additional drama: Nadeshiko feeling guilt for falling for the same guy as her best friend, and Nona thinking that the protagonist likes Sumomo instead + being sad for getting absolutely trashed by the latter’s inherent talent. Nona herself was alright and the only of the three heroines who hails from the other realm, however as previously mentioned, the game doesn’t really ever bring up the otherworldly stuff or background info so her character is basically just a proud heroine archetype you’ve probably seen countless times already. No backstory apart from the fact that she’s an otherworlder who takes the competition and representing her school quite seriously. A big missed opportunity for establishing both her character and the setting more. Nadeshiko was even worse: her entire character through the game boils down to just “muh Sumomo”, and she doesn’t really manage to stand out as a heroine of her own at all. I kept expecting her trait of constantly breaking things to be foreshadowing for something later on, especially since it’s repeated several times but never really played as a joke, but no, apparently it was just me overthinking things. Side heroine routes in general suffered from being mostly drama-driven for aforementioned reasons, where the proper confession / start of relationship was shoved towards the very, very end, so it’s not like you can really enjoy them for ichaicha either. Sumomo route was much better in this regard because the relationship actually starts relatively early after the common route, not that it was any less drama-focused.

cont.