I've played Hayato's route (and have the whole game purchased, ready for updates) and man it was worth the wait! I didn't even think I'd really like Hayato, and I wasn't sure about purchasing the whole thing or waiting for the gods' routes, but I'm really glad I did purchase it after all. I liked it a lot more than I thought I would!
I'm not really in the mood to do an actual review, but well, basically, the art and music are great, and I loved the story and characters, so it's all good!
People already commented on that before, but the character growth is beautifully done, in both Hayato and Nara. I'm amazed!
I also wanted to comment about the endings, so...
----------SPOILERS AHEAD----------
I got four endings - two premature ones, when the group first goes to the festival at the beginning and Nara get's killed, and the one a bit later where she decides she won't go with the kitsunes or Shuye, but rather manage by herself while she's in the Spirit World. Pretty standard premature endings, so nothing here to say.
After that, I got both good endings. And well, basically I HATED the second one, and I LOVED the first one (did them in this order since I figured out the main choice for that and wanted to do the one I thought I won't like first). But this is not a problem in the ending itself - it's just that the "going back home" is the thing I hate the most in fantasy stories about a character going to another world (or time period). Well, maybe second to the "it was all a dream", but oh well. And it's even worse if the world where the character went was a fantasy world (while their homeworld isn't). And EVEN worse when a magical creature from that world gets dragged with them to their non magical world. It makes me so upsed I can't even... So yeah, it's one of my pet peeves, but nothing wrong with it per se. On the other hand, the other good ending was so utterly perfect I don't even have words to describe it. Though I must admit I wouldn't be against a kiss scene at the end, but oh well, it was pretty great enough even without that.
On a side note about the ending, can someone tell me if the normal and bad endings have CGs? I don't always do the bad endings (and hardly ever do the normal ones) in games, and it's even more unusual if they don't have CGs. But since the art is so gorgeous here, I may be tempted to try getting the other endings. I don't really know how to reach them since the choices for the good ones were pretty obvious, but I guess it's about the virtue thing / how do you get along with Hayato, so yeah, I should manage somehow.
Anyway, I had a really great time with this game, and I can't wait for the other routes!
EDIT: my paypal did the weirdest thing and it seems it cancelled my payment (yes, a couple of days after it was done). I don't know how it happened, but I'll fix that up once I get a hold of them - sorry about that