Title: ONE.
Developer: Novamicus
Release Date: 22nd December 2023
Age Rating: 15+
Length: ~15 Hours
Links: Official Website, VNDB
Thoughts
Like many people who enjoy visual novels, Key’s early releases were some of my first forrays into the genre. I have fond memories of titles like Kanon, Air, Clannad, Little Busters & planetarian from well over a decade ago (damn I feel old…) and I still own the PC memorial editions of the above titles, which were amongst my first Japan-imported games.
Therefore it should be no real surprise that when the remake of One~Kagayaku Kisetsu e~ – the 1998 title from Tactics made by the people who later founded Key – was announced that I immediately jumped at the opportunity to finally play this classic. Was it worth revisiting or, as is the trend lately, is this another poorly made “remake” of a game that did not stand the test of time?
ONE. was the latter category for me – I’m not sure whether the game has just aged poorly but the writing and characters are just not up to the standard of modern titles. I can appreciate what the game means in the context of the history of VNs but I personally could not get into the title at all. You can see some flashes of inspiration but most of the game is just kind of a half-hearted mess.
My main problem was that the protagonist was an insufferable asshole – he’s just cruel to those around him for fun. He bullies his childhood friend Mizuka constantly and his actions towards classmate Rumi (he does things like cutting her hair during class because he’s “bored”) are pretty nasty too. It made it difficult for me as a reader to care about what was happening to him.
Moving onto the heroine routes and they all have the same problem as Navel/Basil’s Sorechiru – they rely on a singular poorly executed plot device so become predictable. Said plot device is also never really explored so it’s super underwhelming. In a more modern iteration of this story there would be a true route that explains everything but you don’t get that here.
Mizuka
Mizuka is the typical kind and caring childhood friend, who of course comes to wake the protagonist up in the morning. She has a more strict personality due to the bs she has to put up with. Her route is horrendous. Even considering the graphic content was removed due to the remake being all ages, there’s still some heavily implied gross stuff left behind that makes it truly impossible to enjoy this route in any capacity. Mizuka deserves better.
Rumi
Rumi is the tsundere transfer student who happens to (literally) run into the protagonist on her first day. The whole joke is that she’s super polite and popular with everyone but protagonist Kouhei who she’s sharp with. But he honestly deserves it. Their back and forth can be bemusing at times but it’s hard to take her route seriously when it’s about bullying and we’ve had to sit and watch Kouhei torment her the entire common route.
Akane
Akane is the mysterious classmate who can be found standing in an empty field on rainy days waiting for something. She’s super stoic but Kouhei loves to pester her too. Akane’s route was arguably the best in the game and did at least show some promise but was still not that great really. Akane was a decent character and she had some cute interactions when her softer side came out.
Mio
Mio is an underclassman who meets Kouhei by accidentaly tripping and spilling her lunch on him. She is mute and carries around a notebook to communicate with others, and is a cheerful girl who is a member of the school’s theater club. Mio as a character is adorable and is surprisingly a character with a disability who is not written too badly (unlike someone else we will get to). Her route was lackluster though, which just seems par for the course of this game.
Mayu
Mayu is a girl that Kouhei and Mizuka find in the park one day burying her dead pet ferret. She then latches onto the pair and they sneak her into their class as a kind of mascot character. Mayu is the reason that the remake is all-ages, as she’s a child. And no it’s not just looks but she does not have the mental capacity of the other characters (she can only write in hiragana for gods’ sake). I felt gross reading her route in this title so I don’t even want to think about what the original was like.
Misaki
The final heroine is Misaki, the mysterious upperclassman who can be found on the school’s roof in the afternoon staring into the sunset despite the fact she is blind. I hated Misaki’s route – there were parts that were fine but on the whole it was not a good depiction of how disability should be handled in fiction.
There is one scene in particular where Kouhei turns the lights off in the library and goes through some “Eureka!” moment where he realises that this must be what Misaki deals with all the time so OMG She’s so strong, etc. This is so unbelievably patronising, and really reduces her to only her condition. To me it feels like inspiration porn – she’s used to make the able-bodied reader’s little kokoro warm and fuzzy by being inspired by how STRONG and BRAVE she is for… existing. It’s a really harmful view of disability and has absolutely no place. It makes no sense because Mio’s route doesn’t focus on her disability so it’s not like you could make the argument of “oh it was just the times back then”.
The Amakano/Amaemi cameo was appreciated though
Moving onto something positive and the production values of this title were very high. Especially with the very nicely done Live 2D sprites. The new artwork looked great – I reiterate my claim that Nexton have some of the best graphics/colouring staff in the industry. The new SD CGs by my love Marotaro were also ADORABLE.
The sound department was also pretty great. I really enjoyed the remastered soundtrack – 輝く季節へ / To The Radiant Season in particular is a banger. The new opening and ending songs from fhana are also wonderful.
Being an older game this has an obscene number of choices but a nice quality of life update is adding hints that show you if a choice relates to a character by adding a lil picture of them to it.
Conclusion
My Score: 4/10
ONE. has its place in visual novel development history and did show some potential at times but is sadly let down by a terrible protagonist and truly baffling route direction. It suffers from predictable story progression but, unlike Sorechiru which shares this issue, has mediocre character writing to patch this up.
While I’m glad that I finally got to play this classic, I think it was better left as an old relic. Nexton need to stop funneling their money into this and focus on Azarashi Soft/Baseson instead, or at least give it to Archive for an Unravel Trigger sequel!
Thanks for reading!
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