Galge Review – Clover Day’s

This game has automatically become everyone’s favorite title for this month even before it’s release, but why? Trying to figure out the reason, I made this review…

Story

Yuuto lived on an orphanage in England, until he was adopted by the Takakura family and moved with them back to Japan. He knew that his new family was very rich and wanted to make of him the next successor, but he was very shocked to know he would get two little sisters. Even though he was not the only child in that family, he was treated with love and respect by everyone.It was not easy at first, as he was still bullied on school for not being able to speak Japanese properly, and he also argued with one of his new little sisters, but it was in times like these that he had the help of Nodoka, his imaginary friend, who had the role of the ideal little sister and always supported him. That lasted until a visitor from another rich family became his friend, which was around the same time one of his sisters started to give him Japanese lessons. Thanks to that, he was finally able to open his heart to others and he never was able to see or speak to Nodoka ever again.

Characters

Takakura Anri is the main heroine. She was the one to teach Yuuto how to speak Japanese properly, but she didn’t stop there and still have study sessions with him every night with the pretext of being “training to succed the family business”, but she just wants to spend as much time as she can together with her brother. For that end, even though she is a year younger than Yuuto and isn’t a genius, she goes to the school library everyday to study the material from his class, just so she becomes able to give him lessons. This is obviously because she is deeply in love with the protagonist and it was probably at first sight, since she didn’t even get angry at him when he made her little sister cry. She always let very clear during everyone’s route just how much she feels for the guy and always get jealous when Yuuto starts to hit on other girls. She is always willing to do ANYTHING for her cool big brother, as she said herself, but tries to hide her feelings, since she thinks it would never be returned. The problem is, she is not very good at doing this, and even Yuuto makes very clear that he always noticed she was head over heels for him.

Takakura Anzu is Anri’s twin sister. She inherited her mother’s blonde hair, but was constantly bullied because of it, which made her become extremely shy and gave her an inferiority complex. She was the first one to notice Yuuto had an imaginary friend, but being a scared brat at the time, Yuuto defense was to shout at her and call her ugly and weird. She could not take anymore and ended cutting her hair very short by herself because, that way, she thought at least she could become friends with her new big brother. Yuuto felt really bad for what he did and, as an apology, he vowed to protect his little sister from any harm, so that she could proudly let her golden hair grow back. As a result, she became extremely attached to him, and loves to hug and sleep with him, which would make her Anri’s number one rival. However, she really just sees him as a brother and nothing more! That is until the middle of her route…

Kagami Hekiru is Yuuto’s first real friend and a super genius. Her father is a famous painter and she inherited this talent, having her works used on expositions since when she was a little child. However, she always had a very odd process of thought, which made her hard to be approached by other kids. For that reason, she immediately became good friends with Yuuto, who also suffered from a similar loneliness. She and her sister made a promise to get married to Yuuto once they get older, and she still takes this very seriously to this day.

Kagami Hikaru is Hekiru’s twin sister. She never had the same talents as her sister, which made her end up being ignored by her father, but not by her sister, who considers her to be her “light”. This made Hikaru worship her sister, but she soon met Yuuto, who also accepted her and became her friend. Influenced by her sister, she developed feelings for the boy and even made herself to hate other men, just so they could never get too closer to her. This was all to keep her body “clean” to when she met with her loved-one again. However, 10 years later, she completely forgot all about it, and her adoration for Hekiru took over, making her become a lesbian…She hates herself for not being as incredible and talented as her sister, and many times she says it’s like she mirrors everything about Hekiru, being just an miserable being while her sister is like a god. That’s why she is just a world-wide famous model who is popular even among girls and has her schedule always full…Such a pathetic human being!

Rindou Tsubame is one of Yuuto’s first friends on school and the one who helped him become used to his other classmates. She is a very lively girl who loves acting. She often speaks with a Kansai dialect but, different from her twin brother, she feels embarrassed about it and tries to hide it.

Yuibashi Izumi is another of Yuuto’s classmate since childhood. At first, she fought against him for Tsubame’s attention, but this eventually developed into friendship and later into love…A pretty obsessive love, I should say, as now is for Yuuto’s attention she is always fighting for. She tries too hard to hide her feelings, but she is even worse than Anri at it, since she is also very naïve and can’t help but to take Yuuto’s hentai-jokes seriously for an instant before she snaps out of it. It’s something like this: “Yes, you can grope my breasts to your heart’s conte…THE HELL THIS IS OK! WHO WOULD WANT TO HAVE HER BREASTS TOUCHED BY THE LIKES OF YOU? I WOULD! I AM RIGHT HERE! PICK ME!!

Routes and Themes

I don’t know why but, while clover symbolizes luck at most places, it seems it stands for twins in Japan, as every heroine in this title have twins…

But wait! there is Izumi, who is an only child, so she…

EEEVVVERRRYYYONNE!

Anyway, I played the trial version months ago and felt I could hate this game. I was so worried about this, that I even bothered this nice gentleman by making him promise to play it first so he could tell me if it was good or not. But since he was too busy, while I was “the-opposite-of-being-busy”, I decided to play this for once and put an end to it!One of the reasons I believed I would probably hate this game was Hikaru. While I still can’t fully forgive her for the silly reason to why she treats Yuuto like trash (quite literally! As she compares him with the trash he was throwing), I found her “threesome route” with Hekiru to be really nice! I thought she would always try to get in the way of Yuuto and Hekiru’s relationship while saying some disgusting things, but it turned out she actually rooted for them and even helped the protagonist.The other reason, however, did not change, as Nogisaka Shion – Yuuto’s maid – is still a violent girl who is mega strong just because she is cute and is able to be intimidating for the characters but is not even close to be scary for players (At least, not for me). Not even God knows the extent of my hate for characters like her (only the Devil is able to measure this), but when she bluntly says her master is only good for making money, she ruined every possibility to make me respect her as an adult or as a human being!This is not something you would say for your lover, not even as a joke! Specially in the position she is. From this point on, I simply couldn’t respect this character anymore. This was a big minus for me, since the game constantly tries to sell Shion as the ideal mother figure, but my concept for this doesn’t include a greed person who soon resorts to violence.The other problem was Yuuto’s foster father Takakura Yoshiyomi. I wanted to like him, since he took over an unknown boy and treated him with the same love he gives to his blood-related daughters. This is something admirable to do! Respectable father figures are a rarity for Galges, after all, they are not cute! But, as it turns out, he is not just a digusting dad, but also a hetare on his relationship with Shion. Doesn’t matter how I look, they don’t form a good couple, and this had a big effect on my overall enjoyment for this game.What I didn’t expect was how Izumi developed on her route! I fell in love with how amusing her antics with Yuuto were, but I soon “stood up” from this love, as I saw she became a completely different character. The girl who was obsessively in love for the protagonist for over a decade, turns into a violent girl and a liar overnight! I couldn’t call this “character development” for how suddenly it was, without mentioning it was out-of-character.Talking about “out-of-character”, this can also be used to describe the protagonist. Yuuto seemed like such an interesting character full of qualities and faults, but once we get to his “current form”, we find a stereotype protagonist who is a simple-minded pervert…Well, most of times, since there are some events and routes he acts completely different. For example: On Izumi’s route, he is always hitting on other girls, and fantasizing about Ero-stuff with them. While, on the other hand, the Yuuto from Anzu’s route is a gentleman who remains loyal to her and even resists when Anri tries really hard to seduce him.Why is that? Is it because Anzu is much nicer than Izumi? Yes! Probably! But I don’t think this is the real problem. I believe the fault is on the multiple writers. Having more than one writer for the same story is not as easy as it seems, even if it’s just two, and this game has four! (Seo Jun, Miyazo, Hozumi Kei and Soranoshita Hajime), which could have lead to the many inconsistencies in the characters, since each one has their own ideas of how a character should act so, it’s possible the writer who worked on Izumi’s route was not the same one who wrote her lines during the normal route (Or maybe, they just had no idea what to do with her, once she became Yuuto’s lover).You can also notice this mess in the writing by analyzing the protagonist, who is an orphan, a gaijin, a paranoiac person, a ex-student council president, a ex-member of the drama club and the heir of a big company. But most of those elements are only slightly touched upon during the flashback events, and just a few are further developed later.Talking about the flashback events, there are a lot of these here, which reminds me of the time when NekoNeko Soft games were a bit more complex. The crazy part about this is that, different from the NekoNeko titles, this game starts at the present period to later throw you back to events in the past many times, and choices to decide which route you will take happens only during said flashbacks. Which means…Something worth of praise is how they deal with rejection and unanswered feelings. Here, you can see many occasions where the girls have their heart broken by seeing how happy and decided the protagonist is about his love. This is so nice! It’s hard to see things like that being treated seriously on those games. But here you don’t feel that indifference nor that convenience, which makes the characters way more interesting and convincing!

Graphics

The graphics are really beautiful! They are cute, detailed and full of vivid colors. This isn’t for nothing, since veteran artists from ALcot worked together once more, and they have teamed up just enough times to become used to each other’s styles. So much that it becomes almost impossible to make them apart. Except for Chikotamu, who is an experienced freelancer who worked for many different brands. It’s clear he is not at the same level as his co-workers, being just a “helper” at best.The measures are also less “explosive”. There are big boobed girls, but their busts don’t seem to be about to burst out from their clothes. There are more assorted measures for girls, which also makes them more different from each other.

Sounds

Really nice music! Both for vocal tracks used in openings and endings, as well as for the background music. Those are really pleasant to hear and use a lot of piano and violin to it, and I love it!The voices, how anyone could expect, are really great! I love everyone working on this game! Well, except for some male extras, but nobody cares for men on those games, right?

Conclusion

Since the development on every route is nothing that can impress, I have no other choice than to consider this a “charage”, but is ONE HELL OF A CHARAGE! Even with all the things I didn’t like, this was still a very nice game to play overall! My favorite for this month is still Hello Lady, there’s no doubt about that! But this one is not to be tossed out!