Naturally, anyone who knows me knows I've been stuck on this visual novel for ages. Nevertheless, the last route's ending song finished just now, I've finally for real, finished the wild adventure known as Grisaia. At times I was indifferent to it, but mostly I found myself enjoying the game's good balance between humor and seriousness, and at times, being very into the seriousness. Erotic sex scenes aside, Grisaia is a visual novel I can pridefully admit to have enjoyed greatly. Don't worry, this will be a spoiler-free review, and I'll try my best to give my honest opinion in a way that won't affect your pre-judgement of each route and all that.
First of all, I would like to mention the anime Steins;gate, if anyone here has seen that. Two-cours anime, the first half was essentially a slice-of-life with wackiness, while the second is when the plot really, really picks up and shit gets serious. Likewise, Grisaia can essentially be divided into two sections. A 'common route' section that you start, and you get no choices or route splits, and normal, slice-of-life things happen. It may be a bit boring, but a lot of essential characterization happens in this common route, so don't skip until first choice or something dumb like that. In a visual-novel sense, it's like the prologue of Fate/stay night, but longer. This is where you'll get to experience a bit of each and every girl and their exteriors. Whether you choose to go in further or not is up to you.
After that, you'll start getting into route splits. This is when it's recommended to find a walkthrough to know what to do. It's not complicated at all, but just so you know which choice goes to bad end, which goes to good end(there's one of each for each girl), yeah. Anyways, regardless of your fetish/sexual preference/favorite girl/anything else, general recommended route progression is Makina(Loli) -> Amane(Big slutty sis) -> Sachi(Maid) -> Michiru(Tsundere wannabe) -> Yumiko(Kuudere-tsundere). Not only are these the route splits you encounter in order, but also I personally feel that if nothing else, this order just works. Loli route is the route that you learn the most about the protagonist, and the more you know about him, the less condescending he'll appear to you(At least, in my opinion). Of the five routes, only tsundere-wannabe doesn't really tie into Yuuji's past. Of course, of the five routes, tsundere-wannabe also happens to be my favorite girl and route as well, but probably just because of how cute she is.
Either way, if you don't plan to play every character's route, then perhaps a one-sentence description for each route might help you decide which route to go for. Loli route is the most action-packed one, and has a pretty good plot as well that breaks away from the school life status quo. Slutty big sister route is mostly flashback reliant, and the sex aside, most of the route focuses on the flashback. In a sense, the main event already happened, and the route itself is just showing the aftermath. Maid route is in my opinion, the most emotional one perhaps, sad and almost made me cry. Tsundere-wannabe route was, strangely enough, or expectedly, the most romantic one, and also a little...wild. Kuudere-tsundere route was the second most romantic, also breaks the school life status quo, and overall a good route to have as the last route of Grisaia.
Visuals, its a standard VN. Some cutscenes get CGs, and the sprites has different expressions and all, but it's not going to be something totally new. That aside, sprites itself were really nicely drawn, lovely, artstyle is great. Backgrounds are good, but not exceptional, although probably because its not really anything to get worked up. Opening is nicely animated, and I never tire of rewatching it again and again(Faylan singing it helps). The EDs of each route(Each route gets a new ED song) aren't that great though, just slideshows of CGs and stuff.
Soundtrackwise, this is...an interesting thing with me. Thing is, when I downloaded the game, somehow, the soundtrack was turned off. And I played a whole route without the soundtrack, and said route(Loli route) works fine. However, some other routes, the OST really helps set a certain mood and all. General consensus is, good OST, keep it on for every route except loli route, which kind of works without, although I don't know how it feels with soundtrack. Without the soundtrack, the scenes feel a lot more down-to-earth and even dreadly, so it's your choice either way. If nothing else though, slutty big sis/Amane route absolutely must be played with soundtrack, once you reach the flashback.
Sex-scenes, generally good. I haven't played too many visual novels with sex scenes so I can't exactly judge, but
it's better than Fate/stay night sex scenes, and that's probably good enough. Slutty big sis route has four sex scenes, Maid and Kuudere-tsundere gets 3 sex scenes, and loli and tsundere-wannabe gets 2 sex scenes.
General consensus, I love Grisaia no Kajitsu. Overall it was an amazing experience, and the cast is lovable, once you get to know them. It has some genuinely funny moments, and some genuinely shocking moments. THe characters are also well-written, from the loli who is shy but then turns out to speak like an old perverted man, to the big sister-type who's caring but very slutty and forward, to the maid who does absolutely everything she's asked to to the point of being worrying, to the tsundere-wannabe who's generally acting the boke but always there to brighten the mood, to the Kuudere-tsundere whose progression from kuu to tsundere is rather well-written in my opinion. Now I sit waiting for Grisaia no Meikyuu and the last Grisaia game to be translated, to learn more about the main character Kazami Yuuji. Should you try Grisaia? Hell yes. Will you like it? Depends, but probably yes. Not the best probably, but it's certainly charming.
