Rewrite

Just finished Rewrite.

Length: 70-80 hours

Rating: 7/10

The ninth offering from visual novel giant Key, Rewrite was released in June 2011, with a fan disc called Harvest Festa released in July 2012.  After experiencing the excellence of Little Busters!, I was anxiously awaiting the full translation of this VN. 

Rewrite follows the traditional visual novel route.  There is a common route which branches off (hah, branches off.. sorry, Rewrite humor) into five routes centering on each of the girls.  After completing every character arc, another arc opens up (Moon), followed by the final arc (Terra). 

This is the first Key game where Itarou Hinoue fully took the reigns as project head and lead character designer.  To write the overall story, she enlisted the help of Romeo Tanaka, famous for his work on Cross†Channel.  Ryukishi07 (Higurashi/Umineko no naku Koro ni) and Yuto Tonokawa (Little Busters!) also provided routes.  The breakdown is as follows:

Overall/Kotori/Akane/Moon/Terra: Romeo Tanaka

Chihaya/Shizuru: Yuto Tonokawa

Lucia: Ryukishi07

The story takes place in Kazamatsuri City.  In a world where natural resources are shrinking by the second, Kazamatsuri is an experiment to try and make the world a little more eco-friendly.  Greenery is everywhere, and everything is recycled.  Kotarou has reached a point in his school life where he realizes that he has no close friends.  He's kept everyone at a comfortable distance.  In an effort to improve himself and make some lasting memories, he reforms the now defunct Occult Research Club.  Convincing a few of those around him to join, the club researches strange sightings and incidents in the Kazamatsuri area, which for some reason is rife with UMA (unidentified mysterious animal) sightings .

The problems I had with Rewrite's story really didn't become apparent until Terra.  The common arc is a pretty standard Key slice of life, followed by solid girl arcs.  As far as enjoyment, I loved Shizuru's arc.  I'm such a hopeless romantic, and Tonokawa has a way with writing sweet, uncomplicated stories that can pull on my heartstrings.  Shizuru's arc is heartbreaking and very melancholy, and Shizuru herself is such a sweetheart I couldn't help but love her.  Akane's route is also very well done.  Lucia, and Kotori's routes are great as well.  In my opinion, Chihaya's arc is definitely the weakest.  I had heard Ryukishi07 worked on this game, but I knew for certain about 20% through Lucia's arc that it was him writing the scenario.

Sweetheart.

In any case, by the time I reached about the first third of Terra, everything was getting way too convoluted.  The Terra route itself took me more than 14 hours to read in itself, and it drags on you.  There's so much going and you get a feeling that it was just thrown together at the end and it just didn't work.  I was extremely dissatisfied with the the final arc.  It was such a let-down, and is the determining factor for bringing my score down from an 8.

As I mentioned before, the character designs were by Itarou Hinoue.  While no one can deny that her artwork is unique, I definitely think they should have gone with Na-Ga (Little Busters!) again for this game.  While she's come a LONG way since AIR, Hinoue has a serious problem realizing perspective.  Her sprites look fine, but put anything at a distance, or put two characters together in a still scene and it all goes to hell.  She's still drawing noodle legs!

As expected, Key Sounds Label did another fantastic job with the music for Rewrite.  These games are known for their excellent soundtracks, and this game delivers in spades.  All of the tracks are done well, and I'm sure I'll be listening to this OST far into the future.  The opening songs "Philosophyz" by NanosizeMir and "Rewrite" by Psychic Lover were alright, but I didn't particularly like them.  The ending themes are the true gems of the vocal tracks.  "Love Letter" and "Itsuwaranai Kimi e," both by Nagi Yanagi are enough to get me teary-eyed.  "Watari no Uta" and "Canoe," both by Aoi Tada, are also two great ending songs.

The voice work deserves special mention.  Some big names worked on this VN, including Kitamura Eri (Akane) and Hanazawa Kana (Kagari).  Both give performances we'd expect from these veteran seiyuu.  However, I think the grand prize for voicework goes to Saito Chiwa (Kotori).  Kotori's route is so enjoyable simply because of how Saito voices her.  She has a very expressive voice dynamic, to say the least, and Kotori is such a great character that they mesh very well.

In the end, I would recommend Rewrite, but only as far as the girl arcs and Moon, which are definitely worth a look.  Only completionists should look much further than that.  You may not like the ending.  This was definitely weaker than their last outing, and I hope they bring it up a notch for their next game.

"I'm just one small human.  I did what little I could to live.  That's all."