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straightforwardly) wrote2022-11-05 09:15 pm
straightforwardly) wrote2022-11-05 09:15 pm
241 | Kindred Spirits on the Roof thoughts
Me realizing it’s been nearly a year since the last time I posted… whoops.
Anyways! This week, I’ve been playing Kindred Spirits on the Roof, and today I finished it! I was told this was a visual novel, but the choices are more cosmetic than anything—like, apparently you can unlock more extra content with them, but that’s about it? There’s only one story and one route that you follow to a single end, so it felt more like a kinetic novel to me in the end.
I actually played the first six minutes of it in August 2021, according to Steam, before setting it down and wandering away. Either I wasn’t in the right mood, or the beginning was really that much weaker than the rest—I can’t say, as I didn’t go back to redo those six minutes, lol. Still, while I have criticisms, overall I enjoyed it.
I think I’m going to break down my thoughts by just talking about each of the canon couples, in more or less the order each relationship was introduced in.
Sachi/Megumi
I loved both of these characters on their own! And they both had amazing dynamics with Yuna in their own different ways, and I actually shipped both of them with her! Who I didn’t ship them with was each other. There was a lot of talk about love, but their feelings for each other never felt real to me. Like the two of them were playacting a romance rather than actually being in one.
Maki/Miki
Maki charmed me almost instantly. I loved her architecture nerdery, her coming from a family of mostly boys and how that informed her character, her unexpected physical strength. That scene where she reacts with violent rage when she catches Miki’s classmates talking about her behind her back was not the reaction I expected, but also didn’t surprise me—it made sense for her character in the moment when it happened. I would’ve loved to have more of her as a character on her own.
Unfortunately, I also didn’t buy her romance. I bought Maki having feelings for Miki, but more in a puppy crush sense than in true deep love. And while I warmed up to Miki as a character as the story went on, I could never buy her feeling any connection to Maki greater than the general kindness with which she treated everyone.
Sasa/Umi
I liked these two! They were really cute, and I was relieved when they showed up on the scene, mostly because after the first two strikes, I’d been worrying that none of the canon couples would work for me. And I liked how their story was actually about a trio of friends, with two of them falling into a romance. On that note, I liked Nena a lot—her constant sleepiness and unexpected perceptiveness were traits that contrasted well with each other.
Though Sasa and Umi’s first romantic/sexual fumblings were unexpectedly offputting? I can’t say how much of that was them and how much of it was me not liking how those scenes were written in this game in general, though.
Tsukuyo/Kiri
So, before I complain, I will say that I loved Kiri’s reaction to realizing that her feelings for Tsukuyo were romantic, particularly because I enjoyed how that came hand in hand with her wondering if that meant she was queer. There were a lot of “first time having these sorts of feelings (and it’s for another girl)” characters in this game, but she was the only one who reacted in this sort of way, and it really worked for me.
What didn’t work for me was her romantic partner. Like, her realizing she was queer because she fell in love with one of her teachers? That works for me. Having that teacher being the endgame romance… less so.
If you’re going to give me a (modern day) teacher willingly starting a relationship with one of her students and see it as a romantic thing, you… probably won’t succeed, because personal squicks, but at the very least you’re going to have to give me more reasons for the teacher’s feelings than “she looks really pretty in the sunlight!” and more hesitance to start a relationship once those feelings have been realized than the half-hearted, “I accept! Oh no, it’s a bad thing she’s my student… but I can’t say no to this<3” type of vibe it actually had.
Then making the teacher in question look like an actual child on top of that… yeah, no, that’s too many squicks in one basket, making this my least favorite of the couples.
Youka/Aki
They were great! Youka is a character type that I’m not usually into, but these two were so unexpectedly and yet amazingly compatible that I ended up enjoying their scenes and cheering on their romance all the way. Also, I’m choosing to read D/s dynamics into their relationship. I mean, Youka literally calls Aki her goddess!
Aki in particular is just fascinating as a character. I feel like she might actually be the most deeply faceted character of the cast. I love how when she’s initially introduced, it seems like it’s going to be meeting of opposites, with her being the strict disciplinarian type, but instead it turns out that in some ways she’s bolder and more disregarding of conventions than Youka is—but because of her demeanor and how disciplined she is with herself, it’s easier for people to not realize. And I liked how, against a cast full of characters who’d “never really thought about” love, she knows that she’s attracted to women from the start.
Matsuri/Miyu
I really enjoyed how these two were actually an established couple who’d been together for a long time—it felt really refreshing against the backdrops of all these getting together romances. And I just also really liked these two as a couple! I could really buy them as two people genuinely in love and wanting to be with each other forever, but also suffering from relationship issues that match well with them being teenagers in their first serious relationship.
I’m more Team Miyu when it came to the root of their conflict in this route, but it’s not like Matsuri’s position is incomprehensible, and I liked how, despite Miyu being positioned as the “responsible” one of two, she’s not immune to the same teenaged immaturity that she and Matsuri fall prey to. And I enjoyed seeing them learning how to solve the issue in a mature way, with communication and compromise. They go through some real growth as a couple, imo, and I was here for that.
Yuna/Hina
Yuna is such, such, such a great main character. Her attitude in the beginning really works with the later revealed trauma in her backstory, and I loved watching her growth across the game and how she comes to be appreciated for the same traits that had her mocked when she’d been in middle school. And there was just something so satisfying about those moments when she came across a chaotic situation and immediately took charge with a proactive, decisive plan of attack for handling it.
I also liked Hina! She charmed me with that quiet, bluntly honest attitude, and I loved the brightness of her smile.
But.
I just could not handle this as a romantic pairing.
Part of it is Hina herself: she and Yuna might only be a year apart in age, but she looks so much younger than Yuna does that it makes me uncomfortable. I liked her, but I struggled with buying her being the age the game says she is. I also just… couldn’t buy there being serious romantic feelings between the two of them? Their relationship genuinely felt like a sisterly one to me. I could maybe see a puppy crush from Hina at the most, though even that’s a struggle, but not from Yuna, as much as the game tried to claim otherwise. Only the existence of Tsukuyo/Kiri saves this romance from being my least favorite, but it’s a close call.
What makes that even more frustrating is the existence of Ano. Who has a great dynamic with Yuna! And whose interactions with her throughout the game would’ve also made an excellent building block for romance! And one of the twists is that she can actually see the ghosts, though not as clearly as Yuna can, which also would’ve tied into the “will you let ghosts (that you can’t see and didn’t know existed) possess our bodies so they could use them to have sex with each other” subplot so so so much better than how it played out with Hina!
I’m just. Yuna has one important platonic relationship in her life and one initially platonic relationship that she later realizes is love, and imo the game would’ve been one hundred thousand percent stronger if the characters who filled those roles had been switched.
Anyways! This week, I’ve been playing Kindred Spirits on the Roof, and today I finished it! I was told this was a visual novel, but the choices are more cosmetic than anything—like, apparently you can unlock more extra content with them, but that’s about it? There’s only one story and one route that you follow to a single end, so it felt more like a kinetic novel to me in the end.
I actually played the first six minutes of it in August 2021, according to Steam, before setting it down and wandering away. Either I wasn’t in the right mood, or the beginning was really that much weaker than the rest—I can’t say, as I didn’t go back to redo those six minutes, lol. Still, while I have criticisms, overall I enjoyed it.
I think I’m going to break down my thoughts by just talking about each of the canon couples, in more or less the order each relationship was introduced in.
Sachi/Megumi
I loved both of these characters on their own! And they both had amazing dynamics with Yuna in their own different ways, and I actually shipped both of them with her! Who I didn’t ship them with was each other. There was a lot of talk about love, but their feelings for each other never felt real to me. Like the two of them were playacting a romance rather than actually being in one.
Maki/Miki
Maki charmed me almost instantly. I loved her architecture nerdery, her coming from a family of mostly boys and how that informed her character, her unexpected physical strength. That scene where she reacts with violent rage when she catches Miki’s classmates talking about her behind her back was not the reaction I expected, but also didn’t surprise me—it made sense for her character in the moment when it happened. I would’ve loved to have more of her as a character on her own.
Unfortunately, I also didn’t buy her romance. I bought Maki having feelings for Miki, but more in a puppy crush sense than in true deep love. And while I warmed up to Miki as a character as the story went on, I could never buy her feeling any connection to Maki greater than the general kindness with which she treated everyone.
Sasa/Umi
I liked these two! They were really cute, and I was relieved when they showed up on the scene, mostly because after the first two strikes, I’d been worrying that none of the canon couples would work for me. And I liked how their story was actually about a trio of friends, with two of them falling into a romance. On that note, I liked Nena a lot—her constant sleepiness and unexpected perceptiveness were traits that contrasted well with each other.
Though Sasa and Umi’s first romantic/sexual fumblings were unexpectedly offputting? I can’t say how much of that was them and how much of it was me not liking how those scenes were written in this game in general, though.
Tsukuyo/Kiri
So, before I complain, I will say that I loved Kiri’s reaction to realizing that her feelings for Tsukuyo were romantic, particularly because I enjoyed how that came hand in hand with her wondering if that meant she was queer. There were a lot of “first time having these sorts of feelings (and it’s for another girl)” characters in this game, but she was the only one who reacted in this sort of way, and it really worked for me.
What didn’t work for me was her romantic partner. Like, her realizing she was queer because she fell in love with one of her teachers? That works for me. Having that teacher being the endgame romance… less so.
If you’re going to give me a (modern day) teacher willingly starting a relationship with one of her students and see it as a romantic thing, you… probably won’t succeed, because personal squicks, but at the very least you’re going to have to give me more reasons for the teacher’s feelings than “she looks really pretty in the sunlight!” and more hesitance to start a relationship once those feelings have been realized than the half-hearted, “I accept! Oh no, it’s a bad thing she’s my student… but I can’t say no to this<3” type of vibe it actually had.
Then making the teacher in question look like an actual child on top of that… yeah, no, that’s too many squicks in one basket, making this my least favorite of the couples.
Youka/Aki
They were great! Youka is a character type that I’m not usually into, but these two were so unexpectedly and yet amazingly compatible that I ended up enjoying their scenes and cheering on their romance all the way. Also, I’m choosing to read D/s dynamics into their relationship. I mean, Youka literally calls Aki her goddess!
Aki in particular is just fascinating as a character. I feel like she might actually be the most deeply faceted character of the cast. I love how when she’s initially introduced, it seems like it’s going to be meeting of opposites, with her being the strict disciplinarian type, but instead it turns out that in some ways she’s bolder and more disregarding of conventions than Youka is—but because of her demeanor and how disciplined she is with herself, it’s easier for people to not realize. And I liked how, against a cast full of characters who’d “never really thought about” love, she knows that she’s attracted to women from the start.
Matsuri/Miyu
I really enjoyed how these two were actually an established couple who’d been together for a long time—it felt really refreshing against the backdrops of all these getting together romances. And I just also really liked these two as a couple! I could really buy them as two people genuinely in love and wanting to be with each other forever, but also suffering from relationship issues that match well with them being teenagers in their first serious relationship.
I’m more Team Miyu when it came to the root of their conflict in this route, but it’s not like Matsuri’s position is incomprehensible, and I liked how, despite Miyu being positioned as the “responsible” one of two, she’s not immune to the same teenaged immaturity that she and Matsuri fall prey to. And I enjoyed seeing them learning how to solve the issue in a mature way, with communication and compromise. They go through some real growth as a couple, imo, and I was here for that.
Yuna/Hina
Yuna is such, such, such a great main character. Her attitude in the beginning really works with the later revealed trauma in her backstory, and I loved watching her growth across the game and how she comes to be appreciated for the same traits that had her mocked when she’d been in middle school. And there was just something so satisfying about those moments when she came across a chaotic situation and immediately took charge with a proactive, decisive plan of attack for handling it.
I also liked Hina! She charmed me with that quiet, bluntly honest attitude, and I loved the brightness of her smile.
But.
I just could not handle this as a romantic pairing.
Part of it is Hina herself: she and Yuna might only be a year apart in age, but she looks so much younger than Yuna does that it makes me uncomfortable. I liked her, but I struggled with buying her being the age the game says she is. I also just… couldn’t buy there being serious romantic feelings between the two of them? Their relationship genuinely felt like a sisterly one to me. I could maybe see a puppy crush from Hina at the most, though even that’s a struggle, but not from Yuna, as much as the game tried to claim otherwise. Only the existence of Tsukuyo/Kiri saves this romance from being my least favorite, but it’s a close call.
What makes that even more frustrating is the existence of Ano. Who has a great dynamic with Yuna! And whose interactions with her throughout the game would’ve also made an excellent building block for romance! And one of the twists is that she can actually see the ghosts, though not as clearly as Yuna can, which also would’ve tied into the “will you let ghosts (that you can’t see and didn’t know existed) possess our bodies so they could use them to have sex with each other” subplot so so so much better than how it played out with Hina!
I’m just. Yuna has one important platonic relationship in her life and one initially platonic relationship that she later realizes is love, and imo the game would’ve been one hundred thousand percent stronger if the characters who filled those roles had been switched.