Save in the name of true robots: first impressions of Muv-Luv

Part 1: Extra

My personal rule is that unless there's a hard route order the childhood friend gets dibs, so I went for Sumika first. Such an amazing ahoge. I thought I'd like Meiya more, but she ended up stealing my heart. Certainly, the cutest girl in the whole world. Doing Meiya’s route afterwards was almost too much to bear…

Meiya’s route was quite nice, though. She's a very lovely girl.

Ayamine and Sakaki's routes showed me just how much this VN had to offer besides the two girls on the cover. Their stories have a more “grounded”, realistic feel in comparison to Sumika and Meiya’s. Tamase’s felt like it was set apart from the other ones the farthest. I also felt like it was the weakest. Around this time I played like 4 VNs that had her VA in them in a row, which is funny because I don't think I had come across her before this…she's in SubaHibi nevermind.

Anyways, I loved the ridiculous, over-the-top situations, I loved the romance—overall, it's an extremely solid experience. The soundtrack is very good, the routes are varied, the characters are charming, the gags are funny. I'd be hard-pressed to find something to complain about. Muv-Luv Extra is, in my opinion, the platonic ideal of a galge. A childhood friend, a transfer student, a class rep, a character from Initial D—wait.

I wonder if the friend I sent this to didn't think it was an edit.

I can't say I wasn't excited for when (and how) the robots would show up, but if the game ended here, I’d have gone home happy.

Honestly, I almost wish it had.

Part 2: Unlimited

My main bet on how the robots thing would unfold was that it'd be some sort of Zegapain situation (mostly because of Valgern-On), so I ended up being quite surprised(I guess I was right on aliens being involved, at least?)

From here on, a pattern that would stretch all the way to Alternative began, where I’d say “oh my god this game is genius” and then get thrown into such a poorly paced segment that I'd get whiplash. If Takeru remained voice-acted for the rest of the game instead of just in that one bit, it would be something I talked about in VN discussions forevermore. I was rather disappointed when that wasn't the case. Like come on! It gives it so much more weight! The UI changed too so why not that! Ahem.

Pretty much everything I liked in Extra wasn't present here. The variety in the heroine’s routes were substituted by the same dialogue five times over with the names and slight details changed(I thought I'd go crazy by the third time around). The tight pacing gave way to a sluggish story. My dislike for military settings didn't help. A lot of things just left a bad taste in my mouth, and every h-scene other than Meiya’s sucked. Don't get me started on those fugly pilot suits. I miss Sumika so much I could cry.

If I could go back in time, I'd tell myself to skip the other routes and just play Meiya's then do the “true” end and move on to Alternative.

Despite my bad experience with Unlimited, though, I went on to Alternative with high expectations. Surely those were just growing pains, and peak is right around the corner…whether that was true or not, though, is a story for another day.