/jp/ - Otaku Culture

Finished Newton to Ringo no Ki. Well, this was a mindbogglingly boring experience.

Neither the plot concerning time travel nor the past's struggles with its generic main villain who solely exists to be a bad guy, or bland character drama stemming from people not talking to each other enough are very good. All the characters are very forgettable. Side routes are just an excuse to have H-scenes for non-main heroines and their plot usually involves the protagonist stopping to do what he’s supposed to be doing and choosing to stay with a girl he suddenly decides to like on the spot (future be damned), which he arbitrarily doesn’t do in Alice’s route despite ALREADY achieving his main goal of fixing the future as clearly evidenced by the science magazine, no doubt for contrived drama points because the last route has to have contrived drama. Alice's route is quite literally the same as Haru or Emmy's routes but with extra drama. Alice herself as a character, despite being the main heroine doesn’t receive enough limelight or character development either due to not exactly being an active participant in the plot because the protagonist’s cadre decides to keep her in the dark about time travel and their endeavors to not fuck up the past more, and the romance is very sudden in her route as well.

There's also some very arbitrary use of time travel mechanics and outright plot holes. It’s evident the writer didn’t bother enough to keep things consistent. For example right from the start the protagonist and his childhood friend use a science magazine they brought from the future to keep account of how much their actions in the past are affecting the future since its contents change retroactively depending on how much they’re fixing the shit they caused, and another letter later in the story uses a similar function. Apparently in this universe, for some reason only written material brought from the future changes retroactively in respect to past’s changes, nothing else does and there's no explanation for it. Another much bigger plot hole is Lavi’s time travel hijinks. After her first time travel to save her mother she explains and shows that a new Lavi keeps existing and the original time traveler who returns loses their place, because there will be the one that didn’t time travel who experienced the new past vs. the other one who did and returned to present. Alright so far but then she travels a SECOND TIME at the end of her route to help Shuuji, which somehow DOESN’T result in a third Lavi who time traveled the first time to save her mother, but didn’t a second time (i.e. the Lavi in her own route). I guess that Lavi just magically poofed away?

Lavi in general was a criminally missed big opportunity of a more interesting character because she actually fucking does something in the story, her route is the only one that has some relevance to main plot and where the drama at the end makes a semblance of sense without being a totally contrived asspull like fucking plague rats or Emmy being Alice's sister out of nowhere, even managing to evoke an ounce of emotion out of me. It’s also the only side route that you’re forced to play through. Plus there’s her mysterious mother who even the other characters theorize about, but the person in question is left completely unexplained and only exists to provide a convenient vital plot item. I actually expected some kind of an additional surprise true route afterwards back in the future wrapping some of this shit up, but no. Especially since the game even bothered to give contemporary clothing for all the past characters, which makes me wonder if the devs in early development also intended to have an extended last arc taking placing in the future.

But perhaps I’m complaining too much about a lightweight bakage where Isaac Newton is replaced with a generic twintail genius loli? Well no. I could forgive the game if it indeed was mainly a comedy like the silly premise makes it out to be, but the boring plot-holed serious main story starring generic characters always takes the main seat and not even the few rare bits of average humor salvage it, so I couldn't recommend this game to anyone looking for a good plot, good humor or a good charage. Only good thing about this game were the semi-funny insert "song" videos in each route.