

The Ao route itself is also fairly underwhelming as a mystery because of the messed up pacing. My main reasoning for having Ao’s route early is that it both pairs up super well with Shiroha’s route imo, and it helps the Tsumugi route out quite a bit. Just my 2 cents.Īfter thinking about it for a while, I can certainly see Ao’s route being a decent final route. I’m sure there are people who are turned off by a route with unanswered questions and would enjoy it more if they could understand what’s going on better, but personally, that ruins a lot of the enjoyment of the overall story, even if it might make the individual route stronger. I very much enjoy that kind of journey in VNs.

By the time you’ve read the other 3 routes, the hints overlap enough that you can piece together your own theories so when you get to Ao’s, it ends up being a confirmation of how much you guessed correctly. I read Ao’s route last, and I’m glad I did. But in my view, that mystery of not fully understanding what’s going on is what makes the routes more interesting and drives me to read the next route. It really surprised me that Key decided to reveal so much information in her route despite not being locked, so it’s definitely true that it makes the other routes make more sense. I’m going to have to disagree with the route order, specifically in terms of Ao’s placement.
