Okay sooo i played through the game with several choices getting familiar with all the northern boys and enjoying what we have so far. I see many good things and some that somehow bug me.
Firstly i would like to express my admiration towards the whole project. :D It is very ambitious and i see immense potential in it. Obviously i would love this vn to be completed and i would love to experience the story it wants to tell.
The design of the characters, the background, the setting these are all brilliant in my opinion. Good atmosphere is key to a good vn and the way you set everything up instantly gives a very strong atmosphere. I am not sure yet what you will go for in terms of secondary genre, but you have a solid base for the mysterious, thrilling, maybe even the horroristic and psychotic directions.
This variety of potential outcomes is my biggest worry and one of the biggest selling points for me so far. I mean we just have to look at the cast of characters. It is impressiiive and while i want to know all of them i am worrying whether the creators will be able to handle the load. I sense that most of the characters have things to tell, that they are not empty shells with pretty visual design. Passion bleeds from them, passion of the creators, but just like Devon fears for Rune, i fear for the the passionate creators behind the ambitious project that they might spread themselves too thin. This might be an entirely irrational thought, but it has been in my head since i completed several routes.
Also as i have mentioned earlier there are a lot of different things going on here. I wont spoil anything for the potential readers, but there are some mysterious things happening in the game and while they bring a little bit of life and dynamism to the story, these effects feel momentary. Like something strange thrilling thing happens, the tone is set up well for the scene to work, everyone acts accordingly and then it just passes. The story goes back to a more chill slice of life tone for a while and then all of a sudden something unexpected happens again, but this time the event gives a much different vibe to the previous one. It almost feels disconnected, because the difference in tone is so different. That is why i wrote that this vn could turn out to be anything in terms of it's secondary genre (the primary being the romantic, slice of life of course) and i fear that because of the many different characters and many different sub-tones the story could lose focus.
This is again not a complaint really, because we are really early on in the story, it is only a worry of mine. There is so many ways to go forward from this diverse exposition that i just hope every piece will consistently click into place as the story goes on. As i mentioned the athmosphere is really strong, mainly because of the great descriptive writing, so thats why i think the sudden changes in tone hit me more, maybe only i experienced it this way though.
Also it is clear that there is passion for music in this vn and that reflects on the actual soundtrack and the scenes as well. I think there is a part where the mc even says that it is nice to listen to other people talk about their passion. I totally agree with that and based on my experiences i could expand it to: It is nice to read a vn that indirectly talks about the passion of the writer.
So yeah there wont be a major problem with the musical part, i am sure. There is one scene though where the mc is still on the bus and one tune is repeating very frequently. That one bugged me a little, but everything else was quality work. Plus when i heard that the one piano piece the mc knew was Gymnopédie No.1. i was so happy for some reason. I dont know it just fit very well into the scene and also i love Satie :P
I have never written a comment this long to any vn before. But thats just the testament to the fact that i feel huge potential in this and i want this vn to become one of the best on the site. It very well could become that. I'll be definitely following the journey and if the coming weeks are going favourably for me then i will definitely venture to patreon as well to show my affection in monetary ways too.