Little Busters! English Edition

Little Busters! is a masterpiece, not quite like anything else I've experienced in the medium. The story itself is immaculate and it's my personal favorite Key work. The characters are standouts in quality even among the VN's peers, yes even the male ensemble. But what sets this galge apart from the rest is all of the character routes pre-Refrain. Every route I read somehow felt better than the last (except for one which was just kinda obtuse and confusing without knowledge of the ending). They also miraculously manage to avoid the problem I tend to find with most Key works, that being of contrived emotion. While there are certainly some outlandish tragedies, they never really stole the focus away from the most important aspect of a nakige, that being how it explores how each heroine is affected, and ultimately overcomes said tragedies. The common route is as funny and engaging as one should come to expect from Key, perhaps even brought to a new height with the inclusion of actually somewhat fun minigames. And none of this is to mention how wonderful Refrain is as a finale. It may be a bit bog-standard for a VN finale but it certainly doesn't fail to deliver emotionally. I could keep praising this VN but I'm sure you get the picture by now. If there would be one thing for me to complain about, its the dip in quality with the included ecstasy routes. The contrivance crawls its way back in these, but its not to say that they aren't good routes by themselves. If you've ever read a VN before, especially one made by Key, I would wholeheartedly recommend picking up what I would consider to be Maeda's magnum opus.

One of my favorite visual novels but I am surprised that I stumbled upon a gamebreaking bug where you get locked out of Saya's route and there are other instances of people having issues with trying to read the extra chapters. The steam edition is going to be 10 years old and I'm surprised this hasn't been fixed at all. At least there are no problems with the core experience.

*** so good i feel bad about buying it on sale. probably the best story ive read about friendship. please do avoid any spoilers to this if you are interested.