Update Thirty-Nine: 27 August 2017

☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆

Highway Blossoms is a cute, wonderful, genuine love story between Amber, a grieving young woman who travels the country in a motorhome, and Marina, a girl fresh out of high school who is on the hunt for treasure. It fills a niche that achingly needs to be filled - stories about same-sex relationships that aren’t fetishizing, and that are just like heterosexual romances, except for the genders of the protagonists. Amber and Marina’s relationship has its ups and downs, but as the two young women grow closer there is just so much budding love and happiness it is truly a balm for the soul.

That’s not to say there isn’t conflict - Amber and Marina embark on a treasure-hunt expedition where they compete against another motorhome and their inhabitants - their rivals - on who will find the gold first. As the story progresses and as the relationship takes center stage, the conflict isn’t ‘oh no! we’re gay! gay is bad! we’ll get heckled for holding hands in the street!’ but rather Amber is terrified she’s undeserving of Marina’s love because of how broken Amber is as a person, for not being able to take care of her Grandpa well enough. It’s escapist fiction of the best sort, where homophobia doesn’t exist, and it’s like a weight off the shoulders.

The game isn’t perfect - the writing isn’t the type that really gets me in my chest, and unfortunately the well-drawn sprites and the lively kinetic way they move about result in the sprites being scaled-down and looking somewhat pixellated and aliased for the vast majority of the novel, making the art look of lesser quality than it is. But there were times I choked up, and I felt really happy in the end, and because of that I’m wholeheartedly putting this on my Visual Novel Masterpost list.

Next up: I know something you don’t know. Let’s return to Hinamizawa….

See you soon!