After playing through the game and getting endings 1 through 3, these are my thoughts on the experience.
Pros:
Backgrounds were beautiful and music fit the atmosphere and mood of story well.
All of the big story beats connected together to weave a cohesive story that all came together in an understandable way.
The mini-games were a touch nice, and the I liked the addition of the CGs. It gave me more immersion throughout my reading experience.
Cons:
The bodies of the character sprites were drawn well, but their faces and hands looked odd in comparison.
The plot twist in ending 1, I felt, came out of nowhere and left me feeling dissatisfied. I did like the other endings, though.
The car mini-game would freeze up, making me unable to move the car, and the timer for the foods and beverages in the second mini-game felt too long to where I couldn't serve many customers, only serving half of what I was supposed to.
It would have been more helpful to know what the customer wanted from the get-go instead of wasting time to figure out what they wanted, only to not have enough time to serve everyone, as the customers left just as quickly as they came. Either that, or interacting with the customer and getting rid of the timer would have helped make the gameplay experience more fun, in my opinion.
Minor Problems:
There were some grammar mistakes that could be tightened up, and sometimes a character would say something, but it seemed like somebody else was supposed to say it, unless it was a misunderstanding on my end.
Since there were no highlights or color changes to the buttons I could click on, I thought that they sometimes didn't work, especially for the "Start" button at first. However, the sound effects definitely helped when things were running smoothly.
I chose to walk away from the cat, and I mentioned how I saw that cat to Haruka later in the school day. Yet, she talked about how I gave the cat a bowtie when I didn't. Other choices matched up with their dialogue.
My biggest issue was that when I would reach an ending, I would have to manually close out of the window and start up the game again to go and play through the different endings.
I was clicking on everything and pressing different keys on the keyboard, thinking I had to click or press on something to get back to the main menu, but that didn't happen. The lack of clarity there was frustrating because I didn't know what to do at first, and I was scared of losing my progress if I completely closed out of the game. Luckily, I didn't lose my progress. It was just a confusing and minor inconvenience.
Final Thoughts:
The plot beats were well thought-out, and the story followed through on its foreshadowing with a twist ending! Although the dialogue felt stilted and over-explanatory at times, the dialogue gave me enough information to understand the story as well as bringing humor and life to the characters too.
The vulnerable moments between characters sometimes felt forced or contrived in the sense that each story beat felt rushed and shoved in a scene, only to move on to the next major story beat without any build-up to the vulnerable moment or any follow-ups after such an emotional conversation.
Sometimes I felt like the choices didn't matter and were there just to be there.
Regardless of all of these criticisms, I was genuinely invested in the story and wanted more when I reached the true ending. It touched on heavy subjects well, and I liked the lighthearted tone of the game and the theme of the importance of friendship and standing up for others.
It was a sweet and wholesome story that handled serious subject matters well. The story hid darker moments just as well too that made them more impactful by contrast when they were finally shown to the light.
All in all, I give this visual novel a 6.5/10. Good job!