7scarlet masterlist

[alias_sqbr]

7'scarlet(*) is a mystery m/f romance game written by Tomio Kanazawa, the producer of the Twin-Peaks-esque Deadly Premonition, for Otomate, makers of Hakuoki, Psychdelica of the Black Butterfly etc. The protagonist, Ichiko, is investigating the disappearance of her brother in a small country town.

(*)Note: the Steam trailer is a bit spoilery

Sosuke, Isora, Hino, Ichiko, Yuzuki, Toa:


My Reaction Posts:

• Common Route, Hino and Isora good endings
  
• Toa good ending
  
• Sosuke good ending
  
• Yuzuki good ending
  
• True Route
  
• Secret Ending Major content notes for this one, which I go into at the start of the post.

My review:

I overall quite enjoyed this, some of the plot was a bit silly or repetitive, and the heroine is a bit of a blank slate everyone loves Just Because. But I got romance feels and enjoyed trying to figure out the mystery, and it is a lot more good-hearted and compassionate than most murder mysteries. Except the final Secret End, which was squicky and blah and imo is fine to just skip.

• Hino Kagutsuchi: Devoted childhood bff, mildly Nice Guy. Cute friends to lovers romance.
  
• Isora Amari: A cheerfully flirty younger guy. Relatively fluffy yandere/obsessive.
  
• Toa: Sweet, sad, shy guy. It was pretty cute. He gets more self confident over the route but it doesn't do the Becoming A Real Man thing, he remains sweet and a bit awkward. It was enjoyably ungendered compared to the previous two needing to be The Man all the time.
  
• Sosuke: Broadly your typical uptight paternalistic nerdy Glasses Guy, but less tropey and more like an actual person who happens to have those traits. Also while he's more paternalistic than I like it felt less gendered than with Isora and Hino since he's kinda like that with everyone.
  
• Yamazaki: The tsundere boss. I went very quickly from "How are they going to make this asshole loveable" to "Oh no this is exactly the kind of asshole I like". He never stops being a bit of a jerk, but he's the right mix of passionate, angsty, wryly self-deprecating, and awkwardly sweet to appeal to me, and they make a cute couple.
  
• True Route: It was a little more ridiculous than I could quite stretch myself to be fully earnest about, but otherwise is a good-hearted, bittersweet coda to the game that tied up a number of loose ends. It does have a central romance, but I was more invested in the platonic relationships, which were really sweet.
  
• Secret Route: It's almost all exposition, explaining a lot of extra mystery stuff, but there is also a romance and it is...yeah. QUITE SOMETHING. I kinda shipped it! But also nnng, squick city. The answers it gives to the remaining mysteries weren't super satisfying. Overall I think the True Route makes a better place to stop, or before that with Yuzuki if you like your endings 100% happy and don't mind some loose ends.