Update One Hundred and Seventy: 17 May 2018
Kindred Spirits on the Roof
154 hours, No achievements
8.5/10
☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆
Oh MAN did that take a while. Between getting sick, and going on our trip, and getting my schedule sorted out, I spent a very long time on this game. At the end of the day, though, I’m glad I did.
Kindred Spirits on the Roof is a very sweet, VERY long slice of life visual novel, all about girls girls girls. The main point of view character is Toomi Yuna, a second-year who keeps herself apart from everyone else. She eats her lunch alone on the roof every day so she doesn’t have to talk to anyone. There, she has a fateful encounter with the spirits of two girls who can’t leave their dwelling on the roof. The conceit is this: the two ghosts are in love with each other, but can’t move on until they fulfill their love with one another. They need Yuna to help love bloom around the school, to turn it into a verifiable yuritopia. She does.
I know, I know, the conceit’s kind of goofy, and the game does toy with some… questionable… beats, like a student/teacher relationship and having the two ghosts possess two girls so they can have their first time in living bodies, somehow it manages to never go off the rails. There is a LOT of nuance in the relationships - seven in all - that you see bloom around the school, and what was so refreshing was that all these characters were very genuine. They had their archtypes, but they felt more genuine than a lot of VNs I’ve read. Spending time with all of them was very very sweet and nostalgic. My favorite couple was the cheerful rock’n’roll delinquent and the intense discipline committee member, but they were all easy to care and root for.
One of the things I liked most about it was the art style. Holy fuck, these girls LOOKED like average high schoolers. Their clothes looked like clothes, and the material behaved like clothes! The designs were both plain AND still easily distinguishable from each other, all while being charming and appealing. It felt effortless and cute, like the game. Which there is a LOT of. This game is a little on the pricey side at 35 US American dollars, and it is rarely if ever on sale. Even so, you get a LOT of content for that money, with a long main storyline, a ton of side-scenes, and even more bonus scenes unlocked after the main route is completed. You navigate these using a daily planning calendar that serves well at breaking up the game into nice small chunks so you can pace yourself.
Finally, for those keeping score at home, the intimate scenes are very tastefully done. Each couple gets one at the end of their arc. Be careful, though! The CGs are NSFW, surprisingly so for a game released on Steam. Be warned if playing around other people!
I really enjoyed my time spent with this game, and I’m more than happy to add it to my Visual Novel Masterlist.
Next up: Continuing with the monthly theme, knockin’ out another free game!
See you soon!
YAY for well-done girl VNs - glad it was worth every penny! I realllly dislike student/teacher relationships ngl, but that’s awesome that overall it lived up to your expectations! It looks/sounds quite endearing. :) The fact that they actually look like high schoolers is always a huge plus, it’s funny how many things are set in high school yet everyone doesn’t remotely act or look like it.
Yeah, I was really iffy about it, too, but the way they played it and handled it was as nice as it could get. It just was overall very endearing and sweet. I’m dismayed at the fact that it might be removed from Steam <:c
Yes! I love extravagant character design, but sometimes actually dressing high school students like high school students is refreshing. I was also super impressed that the uniforms were rendered exactly how wearing uniforms looks like. Like, all the girls have almost zero bust-waist-hip definitions because normal non-skintight clothes… don’t show off curves. There’s one character who the other girls talk about as having big boobs, but you can barely tell because her shirt isn’t revealing and is big and baggy. It’s just very real - it’s what women look like wearing t-shirts and sweater vests and cardigans and shit.
Oh, one other thing I liked was how Yuna, the main character, was mad skilled at cooking and how serious it was portrayed. It wasn’t ‘tee hee such a good wife’, it was a serious skill that takes a lot of planning and critical thinking to pull off right.
Oh really? Why would it be removed? That’s a shame. :(
Yep I totally feel you, a variety is just really nice. I’m all for cute outfits/uniforms and not always “realistic” but it’s awesome to see things that could be considered “bland” or “could turn away people from playing our game (from lack of skin-tight clothes..hah). Love me some comfy clothes! Also great about Yuna + cooking, I enjoy seeing that in media SO much! One of my favourite personality traits(?)/hobbies to read about in-depth and showing how difficult it can be and behind-the-scenes.
I saw this review and gotta say it’s super cool that there’s such well-written, relatable + cute VNs like this that also portray girl power that can help “educate” people and enjoy LGBTQ+ stuff including those without much understanding/experience. Reading some other reviews on top of what you said made me smile and become intrigued, and then to see people shift their perspectives and want to read more is fantastic. Your masterlist is wonderful for doing just that, showing just a sliver of how many different VNs are out there for whatever the heck you wanna read about. Am always excited to see more variety when it comes to VNs, will have to keep an eye out for the dev’s other works! Hope you enjoy Red String of Fate. :D
There’s an unfortunate occurance happening right now where games with sexual content - so far only visual novels, and particularly anime-style VNs - are being issued automated emails from Valve for them to remove all ‘pornographic’ content from their games, but with no real explanation of what precisely counts as pornographic. They have two weeks, or the games will be removed from the storefront. Kindred Spirits is one of these games, and Mangagamer had previously worked very closely with Valve to edit the game to fit their standards when it was released on the store a few years ago. This sets a very unfortunate precedent, like declaring all movies (of a certain genre only) to be pornographic if there’s a sex scene in them, no matter why it’s there or how it’s done.
I’m not one to be defending tittygames, but the fact that the guidelines are SO vague, and that other titles like the Witcher games aren’t being issued these kind of notices, really isn’t okay. Actually, literally as I was typing this, I refreshed Steam and this is the first thing I saw. Okay, so THIS is okay, this girl in a skin-tight bodysuit with a boobs n butt pose with gravity-defying tiddies, but emotionally intimate sex scenes literally 30 hours into a game after the culmination of a relationship isn’t? What’s tittilation here, and what’s exploring the humanity of one’s sexuality?
So, unfortunately, if you’d like to try out the game, you may have to pick it up within the next week or so before it’s removed from the store. Steam won’t remove it from your library, though.
Thank you so much for your compliments, and your really cheerful comment, as always. c:
Yay you’re back! I was actually looking to see if I missed any of your posts. Glad you are feeling better!
R-really? That is so sweet!! Thank you! Oh man I’m smiling so hard rn
Wanted to see if kindred spirits was on the masterlist and came across a review without actual playtime :o Glad to see it was liked though, cant wait to replay it again with the new dlc since I have the videos and actual manga of this. Huge damn book it is
Ha! Yeah, this was from before I included the hours actual.
I can imagine it’s a lot! There’s a ton of content in this game. It was so sweet, though c:
Hadn’t seen your updates for, let’s see, 11 days. I thought there was a bug in the system.
Sorry to hear you were sick (!), but going on a trip sounds fun. :)
I can’t escape! I’m a bug when I post too much, a bug when I post too little. It’s my curse!
It was very fun! My girlfriend and I went to Disney World and had a blast. She’s a big Disney fan but even by the end of the trip I caught some of the magic too and was very unhappy to come home (though I did miss the pets).
I’m having a hard time finding a long enough chunk of time to start up Jade Empire, which has contributed to the slowness. I find it really difficult to start games, because I don’t know how they’ll run/how much time/energy/attention they’ll take up. I’m hoping to start it tomorrow!