Everything that happened in the route fit together, made sense as a progression, and resolved in a satisfying way. Ashe’s route was my favorite by a wide margin: it led with a natural progression of the main characters’ relationship by means of a plot which was both unique and engaging, and it concluded with a conflict which seemed inevitable given the characters’ backgrounds and life goals, and which was handled expertly.
The attention to detail with facial expressions made the overall experience special, especially for the common route, when I was hanging on every line and watching every changing expression with glee.
For me, the obviously enormous effort put into WagaHigh’s scripting really paid off. The unbelievable scripting imbues the characters with incredible vitality: by the end of the common route, I felt like I knew those people inside and out. The translation, while staying readable and avoiding the trap of going overly literal, generally keeps thoughts in order so that they match well with the voiced lines and the changing expressions. Moreover, everything is carefully scripted so that the change in expression is aligned with the voiced line, so that the changing mood is reflected both in the voice and the sprite. Short lines have fewer, of course, but lines with four expressions are common. WagaHigh is on a whole other level: individual lines probably have on average three separate expressions appearing over the course of the line. Most games consider it a job done well to give you a new expression for the speaking sprite with every line, and for those rare lines that need some extra punch, they might even switch up mid-line. I’ve never seen a game with as much thought and care put into the scripting as I saw here, and it was incredibly consistent throughout. WagaHigh’s biggest draw, and its most distinguishing feature, is that it is a beautifully scripted game. It’s a modern bishoujo game with apparently a decent art budget: as long as you don’t mind its particular aesthetic (big boobs), you’re probably not going to be disappointed on this front. Nothing extraordinarily memorable here, but no disappointment either. The sprites are varied (more on that later), the CGs look good, and the SD art is typically endearing and entertaining.
That said, I admit I’m not especially discerning in this area. Mihiro, especially, is well beyond the realm of believability and getting into the realm of, “What the heck were they thinking?” So let’s start off talking about art: aside from thinking the heroines are a little top-heavy, I think it looks pretty good. This particular one has two hooks: 1) the main character is a manga writer (not illustrator just writer) creating a minor weekly-serialized romcom, DereDere Scramble, in collaboration with an illustrator who turns out to be one of the heroines, and 2) the heroines have massive breasts.Īnd I mean massive. I seem to be reviewing a lot of straightforward moege lately.