#fun love

i was initially the most interested in him out of all the guys with all their problems, partly because i like how he looks relatively the most. his issues also weren’t really a problem with lynette being lynette, so i was personally most looking forward to seeing how his route unfolds. my expectation was of course somewhat shaped by the two previous route, but i also knew to not get overly influenced by my instinctive expectations to not get flustered for no reason again. of course, this is only my best effort at it, the reality is that i could not fully rid myself of the context that was created from the first 2 routes… but that in itself is not a bad thing, if properly utilized in the writing.

mumbo jumbo aside, i do love pretty much 70% of this route. the very first part, the steamy scene aha, was a very nice touch - i was surprised and also found it enjoyable… on a meta level anyway (steamy scenes aren’t my favourite cup of tea). it was an interesting twist on an otherwise old trope of prudent x playboy - but of course queen lynette carried it with her beautiful perspective on the whole process. i love how she was refreshingly honest and open-minded about it all - a great message about “common sense” and trying to understand people in general.

what i love about the first 70% was how we have a pov on raul’s side almost every chapter - it felt like the journey was about both raul and lynette slowly falling in love ? putting it this way it’s so trope-like but ah, it was just so nice seeing the guy’s pov. gives a lot of context to future interactions.

i could see that there were a lot of reasons why raul fell in love with lynette - the narrative definitely made it very clear. the process was fairly believable and enjoyable to watch too, as his perspective didn’t just shift overnight. tbh, at the end of the route he’s still the same person as he was except now he has a fulfilling love with lynette. not sure if this is a flaw or that it’s realistic… but the ending or the last 30% is something i’ll have to talk separately about.

of course, queen lynette is queen in the route as always. i love her work ethics, her professionalism……

as i wrote this i realize… i like raul but his dynamics with lynette just didn’t feel as good as in shelby’s and ryuki’s. or am i being influenced by the ending… i must be, right ? out of everyone so far i definitely find raul’s journey of falling in love with lynette the most exciting, perhaps because he started off quite different from lynette. but perhaps because what connects them is raul’s myth obsession and lynette’s myth roots… it does not feel like there’s as much sincere interaction in the other two routes as opposed to plot convenience.

of course, there’s this whole cupid/teacher of love thing going on which makes sense on a meta-within-the-story level but… perhaps raul’s unique personality was just lost once he realizes his love (i don’t count his myth obsession here because while that’s technically part of his identity, it’s just more like an adopted interest than something that defines him). perhaps they could’ve made this shine more as his personality trademark by giving more focus to when he *actually* realizes he’s in love with a mythical goddess - it was explained how he got over it but it went by so fast that his obsession just feels like a cool hobby.

but haiz gotta get to the last part. the last 30%… i’ve got mixed feelings about it. i wanted to say the pacing felt off to me but in retrospect it was pretty well organized and balanced, as far as pacing is concerned. so what’s the problem ? there’s a bit of a twist in raul’s route - i see why they say play his route second before last. the thing is, while it was a fairly nice twist, i saw it coming quite some time away.

it was similar to CxM - the twist wasn’t mindblowing, but i didn’t expect it to be, as long as it delivers the emotions. and it did… but i can’t help feeling that it could have been better with a bit more time in the route, to flesh out the emotions a bit more before rushing for the good ending. even before that, there was this long segment (spoiler) where they had like a mini adventure in a somewhat dangerous place. the thing is, i couldn’t take this game seriously after a lot of things so far so there was basically zero tension on my part (there wasn’t even a sleep-hug CG cmon). unfortunately they also made this part quite long (or maybe it just felt this way because the dynamics between lynette and raul weren’t quite working out for me here) so i had a lot of time to imagine possible explanations. the narrative also left sufficient hints so when the next scene comes along on celestia, i just couldn’t get into it.

it was a pretty scene, also unfortunately the confession scene, and i know by plot it has to happen then, but i lost my immersion completely knowing that something wasn’t right. i briefly convinced myself that maybe that was the end of the route because confession (the lack of some wacky drama to stop them from confessing like the two previous didn’t happen which took me even further out of immersion) but even that couldn’t get me back into their heartfelt confession (the tone just changed way too quickly from nonsensical adventure to tearful confession that it didn’t stick at all). personally i would have not used a CG for it (it was a plot scene anyway, even if it’s the confession scene) and maybe even cut it short to even further drive the point that something was up. just my guess but the writer probably couldn’t decide whether to prioritize making it a proper confession scene or a plot buildup scene and tried to do both - and ended up missing both.

and that was when it went downhill in terms of romance and characters. the twist was nice, the villain being actually quite sick (the cool meaning), but due to time constraint it pretty much rushed for the resolution. and since they alr had their (sad) confession earlier the conclusion just felt lacking somehow. this was also when we stopped getting raul’s pov even though it would have helped added more depth to the last conversation. i guess one thing remains consistent - angst does not really exist in this game.

not gonna lie, the way the villain was defeated… i know this game likes to be wacky, but that was really funny lmao.

i suppose this does convey the idea of ludus - fun love ? - pretty well. the route was indeed fun…