The only thing I want to put out there before we get started is for maximum enjoyment I do not recommend trying to get BRE on your first playthrough by loading saves you made during good route. To clarify, I mean saving at the appropriate branches as you play good route, then going back and loading those saves to try to get BRE, like you might for Bad Story End. This is because BRE forces you to play basically as little as possible, so you would have to severely limit the number of chats you can participate in while you play good route. Not exactly fun, imo.

Note: Not all BRE VNs are fully voiced! So if you open up a VN after the branch and it’s not voiced, don’t panic. Just keep playing and the voices should kick in partway through. Some BREs also have chats. Your BRE may not come immediately after the branch. Be patient and keep playing. (See end of guide for times and chatroom titles. If those chats come up, it means you succeeded in getting BRE.)

Casual Story functions differently from Deep Story, and then Jumin’s route functions differently from Seven’s. Yeah, I dunno. That’s just the way it seems to be.

Casual Story

BRE1 occurs after the Day 7 branch (Day 6, if Jaehee). BRE2 occurs after the branch on Day 10.

Achieving BRE1 is a combination of failing the minimum heart requirement and participation. The goal here to progress while acquiring the minimum in order to pass each story branch in order to successfully guarantee BRE.

Minimum Hearts: Common Route ...Day 4 - 50 Hearts Character Route Day 7 ...Zen - 170 ...Yoosung - 130 ...Jaehee - 110 (Day 6)

Tip: In Casual Story, BRE1 can be achieved by having less than 50% participation on Days 5 & 6. Participation is not cumulative. Having 100% on Day 5, but 0% on Day 6 will not let you pass the Day 7 branch. VNs with choices do not count towards participation.

Strategy: If you plan on playing common route to get hearts for all three characters so you can just reload a save on Day 3 or Day 4, you will want something closer to 70-75% participation per day during common route if you’re not going to keep a tally.

If playing common route for one character at a time, aim for ~50-60% participation per day to pass Day 4.

Play Day 5 with ~50-60% participation.

Save at the end of Day 5.

Stop playing until the game branches again. Get BRE1.

Load your Day 5 save. Play Day 6 with 50-60% participation.

On Day 7, play Zen for ~50%. For Yoosung 30-40% is fine (he branches earlier).

After you pass the Day 7 branch (Day 6 if Jaehee), stop playing. The game has two more branches left.

On Day 10 - the last branch - you should get BRE2.

Tip: Always check your backup save! You may get lucky and be able to load your Day 5 file for free :)

Deep Story

This time around, participation is irrelevant to passing Day 7 and it is much easier to get hearts for 707 and Jumin during common route, so you need to be sure you don’t have too many hearts if you want BRE1!

***Participation values for Deep Story are estimates. The number of hearts you can get per day vary wildly depending on which chats you happen to participate in. The only true way to guarantee you will get BRE1 is to tally your hearts to make sure you fail the minimum heart requirement.

Minimum Hearts: Common Route ...Day 4 - 80 Hearts Character Route Day 7 ...Jumin -130 ...707 - 150

Strategy: If playing both at the same time to reload on Day 3/4, depending on which chats you participate in, you might be able to get away with 50-60% participation each day in common route. But as long as you go no higher than ~76%, you should be fine.

If playing normally, I would go no higher than 60% a day.

After passing the branch on Day 4, save.

Stop playing until you get BRE1. 

Tip: Because participation is not a factor in Day 7 branch, it is possible, and quite easy, to collect too many hearts on Day 5 and accidentally miss BRE1. So it is advised you skip Days 5-7 entirely. If you are keeping a tally, just make sure you don’t go over over the minimums.

Load your Day 4 save.

...Jumin: Play up to 55% on Days 5-6. (I've also passed and got BRE2 w/ only 26 | 26 | 9, /shrug)

For Jumin’s VNs: choose Bad End answers.

...707: Reach 150+ hearts with 0% participation on either Day 5 or Day 6. A combined participation score of 70-80% between the two days you do play should net you enough hearts to pass Day 7.

For 707′s VNs: you absolutely must choose Good End answers or you will not get BRE2. **Thank you to @unluckysatellite for correcting me and confirming this with me~!

Pass the branch on Day 7. Stop participating in chats. VNs are mandatory, but do not count towards participation.

After the branch on Day 10, you should get BRE2.

BRE Chats

Aka, how you know you got it right when if the BRE VN doesn’t come right after the branch.

ZEN BRE1 22:22 - Nervous Jumin

Yoosung BRE1 17:00 - The life of a cherryboy

Jaehee BRE2 17:30 - Suspicious feeling

Observations:

. Branches route to BRE only when you do not have a minimum number of hearts. Contrary to popular belief it is not based on participation. (BRE1 for Casual Story seems to be an exception to this rule, or this may be because you can’t get as many hearts in casual common route vs deep common route.) If you have enough hearts, it seems to route to good end by default, but in any case, good vs bad end is based on your choices. BRE is hearts. This is why Bad Answers give you hearts. Without enough hearts, you fail the checkpoint and get BRE instead of Bad End.

. In Casual Story you need minimum participation of ~55% each day (give or take a couple points) to pass the first branch after Day 5. Participation is not cumulative. You can’t get 100% on Day 5, skip Day 6, and still pass Day 6/7 to go for BRE2. (In Jaehee’s route I did 100% Day 5, skipped Day 6, and got BRE despite having ~100 hearts, which was enough to pass with ~55% on both days.)

. In Deep Story participation doesn’t play a role in whether you pass the Day 7 branch. (I skipped every day of the first branch in Jumin’s route and still passed the branch. Jumin hearts are really easy to get in common route.)

. In Casual Story you need a minimum of 55 hearts to achieve a character’s route. If you do not have 55 hearts, you get the common route bad end.

. Deep Story requires 80 hearts.

All that being said, in order to get all the endings with as little replaying as possible, you cannot play each day beyond ~60% participation without risking having too many hearts for when you reload to do BRE. For maximum enjoyment, I recommend saving all the BREs until you’ve finished all the other endings.

General Strategy:

To be as efficient as possible... Check your backup save before reloading. You might get lucky and be able to reload for free.

NOTE: VN mode does not count towards participation. If you are faced with choices in VN mode, just choose the answers for bad end and don’t worry about it. If you’re following this guide, you won’t be able to earn enough hearts to pass Day 10, and you will still get BRE2.

For Days 1-3 play common route earning (roughly) equal hearts for each character. I recommend going for about 60-70% each day during common route if you’re doing them all at once in Casual Story, otherwise you risk not having enough hearts to pass the Day 7 branch for BRE2, if you only have 55% participation on Days 5-6. Deep route unconfirmed.

Save late on Day 3. This will be the save you reload when it’s time to do the next route. **If you don’t want to worry about “being efficient” and are fine pursuing one route at a time, just do only ~55% on each common route day.

On Day 4 earn hearts only for the desired character, no more than 70% participation. You may wish to save now, and skip Days 5-7 entirely if you’re playing deep route to avoid the risk of getting too many hearts on Days 5-6 (this is unfortunately pretty easy to do).

Day 5 get up to 60% participation using Good Answers. **If Jaehee or Jumin route, save.  This is the save you will use to reload after getting BRE1.

Day 6 55% with good answers. Save. This is the save you will use to reload after getting BRE1.

Stop playing until the game branches on Day 7 (Day 6 if Jaehee route). This will get you BRE1.

After BRE1, reload your Day 5 or Day 6 save to pick up where you left off (so after the save time).

Day 6 play up to ~60% using Good Answers.

Day 7 play as if you were going for ~55% with Good Answers. Depending on the route, you won’t be able to get more than 50% before the branch, so honestly don’t worry about it.

Pass the Day 7 branch, stop playing, and let that baby cook!! :) BRE2 happens at the 3rd branch on Day 10.

Rinse and repeat.

Confirmed:

......................Participation on Route........ || Day 5 || Day 6 || Day 7 || Hearts JAEHEE || BRE1.............0%.........0%.......................... >100 ......................100%........0%.......................... >100 || BRE2  .............54%.....58%........................ ~110

**Minimum hearts needed to pass Day 6 is unknown, but probably around 100.

......................Participation on Route........ || Day 5 || Day 6 || Day 7 || Hearts YOOSUNG || BRE1............0%..........0%.........0%......... >100 .......................54%.........63%.......36%....... ~127 || BRE2 ...........63%..........63%.......36%....... ~133

**Minimum hearts to pass Day 7 is ~133. (Because Yoosung’s route branches later than Jaehee’s, you need more hearts to pass the Day 7 branch. Because I entered Yoosung’s route with only ~60 hearts, the chats I chose to participate in for my original 54/54/27% participation did not give me enough hearts to pass the branch. It took multiple tries to find the minimum; 127 hearts is just the most I had while still failing.)

......................Participation on Route........ || Day 5 || Day 6 || Day 7 || Hearts ZEN || BRE1............0%..........0%.........0%......... ~60 .......................63%.........9%.........0%......... ~104 || BRE2 ...........63%........63%.......66%....... ~173