Saku Saku: Love Blooms with the Cherry Blossoms
I did the Ann route. This one was also about 10 hours.
Ann is the president of the student council that the protagonist is eventually browbeaten into joining, and it's through the student council that he gains daily exposure to each of the girls that he can date. Ann is a fun, flirtatious girl. She's even a very strong tease...in the common route and the other three routes. She remains so in her own route, but it's made clear fairly shortly that Ann becomes a blushing wreck if her bluff gets called. Probably once in every three or four of her flirt attempts, the protagonist, Yuma, will actually
In-game, there is no specific route order recommendation. Looking online as I was playing through, I did see a reader one to do Mio - Yuri - Konami - Ann. After having played through the four routes, this actually makes sense. Mio's is generally the weakest, but it's also the least complicated, and helps to further develop characterisation a little bit in each person. Yuri's route doesn't really open up the greater setting much, but has generally stronger writing and more interesting character interaction. Konami's route has very good writing, and it'd be hard to follow that up with the more vanilla routes.
Ann's route opens up the story a lot more, and also has some very strong writing to it.
I did the Ann route. This one was also about 10 hours.
Ann is the president of the student council that the protagonist is eventually browbeaten into joining, and it's through the student council that he gains daily exposure to each of the girls that he can date. Ann is a fun, flirtatious girl. She's even a very strong tease...in the common route and the other three routes. She remains so in her own route, but it's made clear fairly shortly that Ann becomes a blushing wreck if her bluff gets called. Probably once in every three or four of her flirt attempts, the protagonist, Yuma, will actually
In-game, there is no specific route order recommendation. Looking online as I was playing through, I did see a reader one to do Mio - Yuri - Konami - Ann. After having played through the four routes, this actually makes sense. Mio's is generally the weakest, but it's also the least complicated, and helps to further develop characterisation a little bit in each person. Yuri's route doesn't really open up the greater setting much, but has generally stronger writing and more interesting character interaction. Konami's route has very good writing, and it'd be hard to follow that up with the more vanilla routes.
Ann's route opens up the story a lot more, and also has some very strong writing to it.
There are some supernatural elements that are known very early even in the common route, and get a little bit of play in the other three routes. Ann's route completely blows open the more normal parts of the setting. Ann is a daughter of a human and a soul reaper (or shinigami), so she herself is half-human, half-soul reaper. How this ends up playing out is she is literally two different personalities with two different forms inhabiting a single body, with the other girl being Elle. Though it's really properly more a split personality, it's believably written as being two entirely separate identities and egos. They share much of the same memories and development, but only Elle has the soul reaper powers. Soul reapers in this setting are also psychopomps, who take on some of the memories of those they reap, and Ann, despite being the human half, still gets these memories.
How the two separate girls react to the memories they acquire drives a lot of the story, as well as their separation and reconciliation, and both coming to love the protagonist. For example, Elle becomes a little moody since she is the one literally reaping souls. Ann, meanwhile, goes to the protagonist's school and becomes the student council president, since one of the souls Elle reaped was a former student council president at the school, with strong attachments to her alma mater. Since Ann and Elle are still two separate identities, there's also a little bit of a debate over whether it's two girls competing for the same guy or not. But really, the love (tri)angle gets downplayed for the whole joining of the two egos as they learn to truly be comfortable with each other.
How the two separate girls react to the memories they acquire drives a lot of the story, as well as their separation and reconciliation, and both coming to love the protagonist. For example, Elle becomes a little moody since she is the one literally reaping souls. Ann, meanwhile, goes to the protagonist's school and becomes the student council president, since one of the souls Elle reaped was a former student council president at the school, with strong attachments to her alma mater. Since Ann and Elle are still two separate identities, there's also a little bit of a debate over whether it's two girls competing for the same guy or not. But really, the love (tri)angle gets downplayed for the whole joining of the two egos as they learn to truly be comfortable with each other.