White Album 2

Playtime: 68.5 Hours

Finished all 3 main parts (Opening, Closing, Coda) but under slightly limited conditions. For the closing chapter, I only finished the Chiaki and Setsuna routes, though I did watch the entirety of the Mari route (several times...) and played through about half of Koharu's route. In the Coda, I've only done the Setsuna True ending, and I've also done the corresponding afterstory ending too. The opening chapter is completely kinetic so I didn't miss anything important there, though there is an option unlocked after finishing the Closing chapter that I can pick if I play through it again. There's a chance that I'll go back to this again someday, but I'm not interested in doing this all over again for now, since it's so long.

Playthrough was done with a legitimate physical copy of WA2 Extended Edition, found here. I used the English translation patch from Todokanoi TL for both the base game and the afterstory.

White Album 2 is very different from most of the other VNs that I've played through when it comes to the themes of the story. I usually gravitate towards games where romance is somewhat secondary to the plot or subjects; like Wings, which is about gliding, ASFoS, which is about stargazing, or Muv-Luv, which is about an alien apocalypse. Unlike those examples, WA2 is entirely focused on romance and relationships, particularly the tension within a love triangle that predictably drives all of the drama within the story. By the way, this is an eroge - but the scenes are few in number and usually only present near the end of the route; sex scenes make sense in the context of this game but they aren't really a focus. Just like a number of other Leaf games, they feel a bit shoehorned in for marketing purposes.

This game is divided into 3 parts (opening chapter, closing chapter, coda) that provide a longitudinal perspective on the relationships over a very wide span of time (approximately 6 years, if I remember correctly), allowing the story to provide a deeper look on exactly how the relationships change, unlike many other games which typically use the confession as the climax and end soon after. A downside is that each of the sections seems to have been written as separate, almost standalone narratives, each with a complete arc of its own. A lot of the events and plot points feel recycled over the course of the game as a result, dragging out the playtime, which I'll elaborate on in the next sections.

The opening chapter is relatively simple, and feels like any number of other VNs taking place in high school until the end, where everything starts to go down. It starts to represent Kazusa as the soul of jealousy and Setsuna kind of as the opposite, though this isn't entirely consistent throughout the remainder of the game. The writing in this section also foreshadows a number of the pacing issues that are exacerbated further in the later sections of the game; a lot of the parts with Kazusa being tsun and offstandish are done to death (to the point where I almost dropped it); meanwhile, any development with Setsuna is very purposefully cut short in the most coincidental, irrational ways. It's very clear that even at this stage of the VN, the writing is entirely done via a method of finding a cause for a predetermined consequence, and it suffers hard for it. None of the last-minute missed call events read as much other than BS since they're handled poorly in the story, and it doesn't get any better in the other 2 sections (in fact, it probably gets worse).

The closing chapter pretty much starts right out the gate by showing that it would be just as repetitive as the opening chapter. Years after the opening chapter, Kitahara is still in a relationship with Setsuna despite somehow barely talking since the end of the opening chapter??? Which makes absolutely no sense. The characters and plot continue to waffle around endlessly in purgatory; I don't think it's really necessary to continue the same rant again. Also, Kazusa is gone, so the game doesn't take any time to try deepening her character beyond the bipolar personality showcased in the opening chapter. However, outside of this endless drama, there is a trio of new characters, all of which have more interesting arcs than Kazusa to be honest. This part of the game works very well as a standalone experience, and is probably my favorite section overall; each of the possible routes (Chiaki, Koharu, Mari, Setsuna) are nice and compact, and have satisfying arcs and endings. Also, Mari is the best so I have a natural bias.

The coda is the final section and ties the entire experience together from the perspective of the original love triangle. Despite the name sounding like it's an epilogue, it's actually longer than the opening and close to the length of the closing chapter. This route offers the final options to side with either Kazusa or Setsuna; since I felt that there was no attempt over the course of the previous sections to develop Kazusa, I didn't care for her at all - which definitely added a huge sense of disassociation between player (me) and character (Haruki). The entire coda is written with the expectation that the Kazusa/Setsuna decision would be difficult, but I didn't feel that way at all. Unfortunately, all of the problems from the opening chapter come back in even fuller force, something like 70% of the coda is exclusively spent with Kazusa regardless of your decisions, and Setsuna is again barely present in the story, with the absolute worst excuses in writing for it being the case. The coda chapter is again drawn out for far too long, and is again another copy-paste job, down to the climax of Setsuna's route, which is just a repeat of the events in the opening chapter (with a more optimistic ending). While I didn't hate it, I found it to be unnecessary; with more concise writing, Kazusa have been given a route in the closing chapter and the story could have concluded much faster. I was satisfied with the ending, when I eventually got to it - but this section felt like quite a disaster otherwise. For reference, after slowly playing through the opening/closing chapters with some breaks, I quit early in the coda for half a year because of how samey the writing was, only returning to finish it as a challenge to complete the game by the end of the year.

The characters are kind of a mixed bag, but most of them are OK. My biggest issue was probably with Kazusa, who I didn't care about in the slightest, which is kind of a problem when she plays such a central role in the plot (like Kotori in Wings). Setsuna is much better from beginning to end in my opinion, despite the fact that the plot tries so hard to write her out of the story. Setsuna's family is also generally likeable as well, but they get almost no screentime, even though they should be very integral to Haruki's relationship with her. Chiaki, Koharu, and Mari - the three closing chapter exclusive heroines - are all pretty great as well. They don't get routes or character development quite to the level of Setsuna, but their character and motivations are clear, the romance in their routes feels believable, and they all develop greatly as characters. Chiaki learns to love, Koharu learns how to be more flexible about individual situations, and Mari stops tethering herself completely to her work (although not completely). Mari is the best IMO.

I've saved comments about the art and music for last since they're generally unremarkable. I wouldn't them consider them bad in the slightest, but the artstyle isn't quite as beautiful as many other VNs that I've played, like the Utawarerumono trilogy or games by Sprite. A few scenes look a bit strange because hands are hard to draw, but it's not quite to the point of being particularly concerning or distracting. The fact that the entire game maxes out at 720p resolution definitely has a major effect though, especially when playing on a very large monitor. Music is also generally good, but somewhat forgettable. I don't really know if the piano playing in the soundtrack is as good as it is represented in the narrative, but the game usually cuts it off quickly anyway. I will say that the 2 vocal tracks, Todokanoi Koi and whatever the coda ED track is, are quite good. Though I feel like the voice sounds very different from Setsuna's usual voice in-game, which strikes me as a little bit strange.

Ultimately, despite all of my issues with the game, I still enjoyed it quite a bit. I wouldn't consider it among my favorites (not even remotely close), but I really like a number of the characters and the subject itself still makes an intriguing and memorable story, even if it doesn't really hit the mark. Most of the story feels like the events were copy-pasted, or as if the writers decided to include every single potential event they drafted without ever considering cutting out some of them out to avoid repetition. All of that makes it a very hard sell for me to play through again. I might be more interested in playing the other individual closing chapter routes though, which are shorter and have a properly concise arc. Or at least replay Mari's route over again a few more times.