a2~a due~ Review

 

"Con Amore. Play it with love."

It's been years since rocker girl Sona Song last talked to her father, a famous classical music conductor. So she's shocked, and a bit annoyed, when he leaves his orchestra to her after he dies. Though Sona just wants to slack off, she's soon visited by Yin Le Hao, her father's musical protégé from China. Hao doesn't speak any English, but he's determined to whip the orchestra into shape no matter what.

Features

• ~30,000 words
• 3 endings (Love, Friendship, and ???)
• 9 CGs and chibi arts
• theme song by the talented Gerald Ko
• lots of extras (music and Chinese glossary, bonus chapter, music box, etc.)
• unlockable “translation mode” for all Chinese dialogue
  

Sona Song

Sona is a highly independent punk-rocker girl who inherits her fathers orchestra after his death, much to her displeasure. The only reason she keeps it is for the money which she will only receive after each concert assuming she attends every practise without fail.

Hao Yin Le 

The only romanceable guy in the game Hao is very passionate about his conducting to the point where he forces high expectations onto those he works with, becoming seemingly agitated when they fail. He has tremendous respect for Sona's father whom he knew in China. Hao doesn't speak a word on English.

I can honestly say that when I first started this game I was unsure if I'd actually bother to finish it. I didn't like Sona much and Hao was hard to connect to but I'm really glad I carried on; it became so much better. Sona quickly started to grow on me and I couldn't help but like her more and more as the story developed – Hao too. It was made clear (at least in my opinion) that you aren't suppose to like Hao's character right away – that's why the language barrier is there... Well that and I think there's a 'love will conquer all' type message in there too.

The love ending left me wanting; It's wasn't really romantic in my opinion more... comical - in fact I found the friendship end more satisfying – there just seemed to be more closure. As for the ??? ending... well all I have to say to that is you really have to try it out, it's weird and funny all at the same time!

I found a lot of the sound effect to be rather obnoxious but other than that, I liked the novel quite a lot. There's sad moments that made me choke up and there's hysterical moments where I nearly spit my drink all over my monitor. My favourite thing about this game however, was probably the adorable chubby sketches in-between each chapter. Would I recommend this game? As long as your aren't looking for some to romantic; yeah. 

 

You can download the novel over at Lemma Soft Forums