Song of Memories

It's Friday night, you're cuddled into your comfy chair with a blanket, and your PS4 controller. A friend texts you and asks: "What you're up to?" Why, dear friend, I'm hanging out with some zombies that have really giant knockers. Yes, this happened. Yes, my friend reacted in a way that you would expect. It was hilarious.

I will tell you up front, this game was a bit too Bishojo for me. The amount of boobs and "oh em gee, you walked in on me naked cliches" were plentiful, and at first, the fan-serviced filled slice of life anime story was really killing it for me. From the opening to every scene thereafter, and "the my best friend is such a perv I look perfectly normal by comparison and therefore the girls like me" moments, I was getting exhausted. When will the apocalypse start? I wondered. Are we there yet? (Considering I played this during the pandemic, I ate those words a bit, but I'll come back to that.)

Then, slowly, the plot trickled in. Stop it! I mean literary plot, not chest size or any other dirty thought currently meandering about. It was laced in, cleverly, between the slice of life harem moments I dreaded so. Just as I was about to give up, it happened. The zombies appeared (all female, naturally, did I mention this is Galge? At least they had a reason for it, and addressed it properly in the story, so that helped). Everything went wrong, and dark - and suddenly! There was a second opening. Which brings me to the meat of my review: The atmosphere change was gold. Pure gold. From frilly, haremy, slice of life until you puke, the game shifted into dark, cold, creepy and despair - and it was an amazing transition. And boy did it hit home - as I was seeing things on the news, then saw them in the game, just as the "Pandemic World" trophy clinked into my collection. It included so many things that before 2020, I would've said that people aren't like this. Turns out, people are, and this game featured them all in their 2D, visual novel glory.

While in the end the stories and endings are still cheesy (and very magical girl like), there was a good story in here somewhere, the music was decent, the rythm game amusing (at least for a while), and some of the romance story lines (and the characters contained within) were really adorable. Except for Fuka, the sister (yes they aren't related, yes, I don't usually care too much about step siblings, blah, blah), but they could at least have tried to not make it feel cringy.