#blue impact

Visual novel elements What is pretty unique about this game is that the visual novel parts of the game often let you pick which character you want to play as. At first you can only play as the protagonist Shou, but after that you can also pick Anri, Kurisu (…should I just call him Chris?) and eventually Kai. Because of this, it's also possible to pair up almost every character with whoever you want. Later two other characters, Shion and Sena also join the team.

Even though there are a lot of romance options, the game is very story-heavy and pretty much all romance is optional. I do think it's impossible to unlock all romance scenes in a single playthrough because even if you re-load your saves, some scenes later in the game won't unlock if your character hasn't previously interacted with them. To unlock all CGs, you probably need to re-play the game many times which might get a bit… tedious, so I recommend just picking a pairing you like in advance.

I do personally think it's not necessary to unlock all these scenes because most of them are short and the r18 scenes also aren't voiced. I'm not sure if that's always the case, but I applied the 18+ patch and those were the only scenes that weren't voiced (the game's all ages, but they did release an official patch which adds NSFW scenes).

Which reminds me... because the system is rather old, there really aren't a lot of save slots either. When you load your saves, they often make you replay the entire scene rather than the exact location you saved at. It wasn't a big problem, but it just surprised me a little bit.

RPG-like elements Like other older BL visual novels such as Ouji-sama Lv1 and Teikoku Sensenki, this game combines the usual visual novel gameplay with RPG elements. Occasionally you'll be able to walk around the school, but it's only limited to a few specific areas. Almost all enemies in the game are random encounters, making it impossible to avoid them unless you run away. I do recommend fighting them because they drop useful items and it's also easy to level up. Especially during the second part of the game, you'll spend a lot more time walking around and fighting enemies, so these items and experience points will be useful later.

The game doesn't really explain how the gems, elements, or even items work, but to be honest the gameplay was not super difficult so I didn't have much trouble finishing the game, even if I admittedly had no idea what I was doing sometimes. Also, most boss battles aren't ridiculously hard and they usually only know a few different attacks.

Plot and overall impression The game mostly focuses on battling the black winged characters and discovering why there's a conflict between the white winged clan and the black winged clan. There are not that many big plot twists, but it's a pretty fun fantasy story and I enjoyed playing it! Sometimes I was a bit confused if the main characters even knew they were part of the white winged clan, because they suddenly grew wings but didn't always… seem surprised by it?

There are several side characters in this game who have pretty well-developed personalities too, so I had fun trying all kinds of choices and talking to different characters. I'm also a big fan of older BL game artstyles, which is another reason why I wanted to try playing this game. When I looked at the artbook and some of the extra content the company released, I learned that all the art was originally hand-drawn and later scanned to turn them into the game CGs, which I thought was really cool.

I also had a bit of trouble with the in-game music because the noDVD patch somehow removed all of the background music. So if you can, I recommend not using this patch (you can either insert the DVD disc or use a tool like Daemon Tools to mount the ISO file before you play), because the soundtrack is also pretty good!

Kohaku no Hitomi The game also has a shorter sequel game, which takes place after the events of the main game. It's split into two different chapters, with the first one focusing on a new character called Kaoru, who's the child of the family that used to live next to Shou's family.

Chapter 1: This part mostly consists of the RPG-like gameplay style, until you beat the final boss. The battle system is mostly the same, but it does look a bit different this time. Instead of the pixel art they used in the first game, this time they used sprites for the main characters and the enemies. You can also only use 3 characters at the time, but you can switch them out anytime. All characters still gain experience points even if they're not in the team you're using. I must admit, the first part of this game is a bit... grindy, you have to visit 6 different areas and the level of the enemies increases quite drastically sometimes.

Chapter 2: After fighting the final boss of the story, the characters all return to their school. This part of the game is just normal visual novel gameplay and you can choose which characters you want to hang out with during the school festival. The plot isn't super serious, but I thought it was pretty fun! This time it's pretty easy to unlock all kinds of different scenes with all the characters, so it's easier to check out different pairings. There's some pretty funny scenes, for example the characters reenacting Romeo and Juliet, or a scene in which you can pick which character crossdresses.

In my opinion playing the second game is completely optional, the new character did have a lot of backstory but it's also nothing too different than what the characters in the first game experienced. The second part of the game was my favorite because there's a lot of funny scenes I enjoyed. There was actually also supposed to be a third Angel's Feather game, but unfortunately the staff left the company and no information about it was ever posted again.