God Ive been following this game since 2018 I think, I cant believe it is done!!
Ive finished playing the entire routes (while ignoring the bad endings because I can NOT bring myself to do those but their existence is painfully and grately appreciated) in the span of a bit more than a week!
The game was so! WORTH! THE TIME!!! God I cant believe it was that long ago I played legends of the wing ones. So I came to leave my thoughts on it and some, doubts? I guess that I had.
SPOILERS AHEAD !!
So Khalils route HE IS CUTE but as expected from when i played the demo all those years ago, he isnt the route im going for usually but he is the nice, charismatic friendly character, the ones in the romance route that is very clearly giving "teenagers in love" And its so tooth rotting sweet please, on occasion I truly felt as if Maya and Khalil were Gunturs and Aryas unruly children in his route, Arya being the stern dad and Guntur the gentle mom HAHAHHAHA. I mean the accidental sleeping together caused by Guntur + him teasing Arya whenever he got too feisty truly made me go "Ah yes, Mama and Papa"- I do have a slight issue and this is something recurring with the rest of the Love Interests that I find the post credit scenes a bit, lacking? I guess? With the memory of the demo + the actual game and themes I did sort of expect to see or interact with our Love interest and our family together, and maybe seeing them introduced more in the day to day life? Specially in the theme of family, considering this is Mayas SOLE reason for doing this at the beginning the fact that we have barely if any interaction with them after the credits feels a bit, short?
Guntur was, not going to lie one of my favorite, the teasing and banter truly made me want to bite him affectionately and maybe wipe that dumb smirk from his face Hahahaha, I would have LOVED to have some teasing sections with his family and Mayas, I mean they are both such big fans of it!! And having Maya sweat a bit thinking and thanking her parents dont know her boyfriend is/was some very well known felon pfff
Aryas route was one of my favourites, at the beginning when I went and did his route I felt it was a bit forced considering how cold he was to Maya but then again its also very welcomed considering this is WHO Arya is, his confession scene is probably one of my favourites out of all the routes because it had me actually giggling and kicking my feet and making me all nervous and re reading paragraphs, the rewards was SO so sweet.
And of course, Kaiden.............. I think I can summarise it with the fact that at NO point did I seriously consider THE ENDING WE GOT. I was sobbing blowing my nose being like "no...... no way right.........." Did I think "huh how is that going to work considering he is like, you know, dead?" YEAH- I just assumed the power of love and friendship WOULD SOLVE THIS??????????? Again while I do understand why they would not have such a direct happy ending, maybe a short snippet of them actually meeting reincarnated versions of themselves would have not made me cry like a baby/J
I kind of also find it sad how we dont really have also a lot on what happens to Gale in his endings, but thats just minor details. The "chiseling away" at Kaiden made me LAUGH PLS- I wish we could have replayed the usual chore jobs for that since the stats didn't matter anyways in his route pfff. And having the mini work art always being Maya chiselling away at the boulder ahhhahahhahaha
I am also sad to see that the tarot cards shown at the beginning seemed to have been forgotten through the game- I dont expect the MC to be super strong or anything but it does feel lackluster that her main ability shown and explained in such detail at the beginning is so strongly ignored specially because in the few moments shown (winter scenes and death cards) It is SO incredibly helpful actually. AND I do understand that in Kaidens route it is explained she wouldn't be able to draw cards for him due to their connection and while it is a plot point I understand I find it being so underutilised- I mean even a small side quest of her using it with friends/other characters would have been great! Maybe its due how it was so specifically told to us she could only do these readings 3 times a day I was truly expecting this to be some gameplay relevant information. And while I also understand Mayas strength rely on her heart, not much her brain pff at times it felt frustrating when she would get the 3rd Death Card and not think too much of it sometimes? I mean I understand her confusion about the world surrounding her in Bermuda but Tarot is something she has done since she is 17- an ability she uses to make money and that she herself mentioned has never failed her, she even draws her cards multiple times to see the fate of her parents because she cant believe the goddess and has to rely on her own powers to confirm this- which is why I find it strange that sometimes? It feels like she does not have any confidence in her abilities when it comes to trusting her cards or the whispers that try to reach her in warning!
In that regard, while I adore Maya (truly, she is one of the few people being able to have done this and survive SPECIALLY in Kaidens route) sometimes I felt as if, things would have been fine without her and just the 3 boys? I think I got this feeling mainly in the autumn village arc, where, while yes you pick who you choose to stay with and bond with, you see in other peoples route they still manage to solve things in the same/very similar way even without Maya- WHICH makes sense! I mean obviously Khalil would still be able to make his traps without her help he has done this his whole life- however it sort of gave me personally the feeling that sometimes Maya was more of a burden than anything in certain fragments. Which annoys me cause she has strengths! She is the heart of the group, can communicate clearly with spirits and the divine, has good core strength as a stripper and is determines- yet a lot of these qualities dont seem to have specific moments to shine for her? She finds the cave in the winter arc because the spirit are practically screaming and holding her hand to survive but it is not something she herself says "let me try and help here" it sort of always felt like someone else was saving her, which while great! She is just a human girl compared to the rest of her companions, I sort of wished she had her own strong moments.
(the closest thing I felt we had with her was throughout Kaidens route, her fending off alone, doing her chores alone, confronting the demon, making plans, THE MIRROR SCENES!!! We dont really get that in the other bachelors route)
Talking about gameplay! It took me, an embarrassingly long time to realize that the work stats had No impact in the choices of the game, they just helped trigger certain Love Interests extra scenarios. The way I was truly trying to balance all these stats at the beginning pfff.
Something I also found very cute was how princess Cordelia and her lover did get their happy ending!! I mean they must have clearly been Mayas parents reincarnated or maybe an Alternate dimension of them who managed to have a happier ending!! I did wonder tho, why them + some extra NPCs from the spring area had drawn out character designs but the fox demonness that resembled Sarah had no appearance, its a minor detail but after seeing princess Cordelia for the first time I truly thought Mayas friends shown in the beginning would make special cameos through out her route as NPCs - which they sort of did I guess!!
Also! I knew there were 4 LI but the extra gap in the album + the love interest section in the Stats Menu, made me sometimes question if there was a super secret hidden Loverboy I had no idea about pfff.
With this all being said, I am so insanely grateful for having being capable of playing this, and im currently redownloading legend of the winged ones, I missed Reeks his cameo was all I needed to know I had to see my boy one more time fr. I cant wait to follow and play more projects of yours!
Thank you for taking your time reading this and I wish you a wonderful day.