#sarcasticrant

When I first saw the announcement that there would be a High School Story book in Choices I was beyond happy. High School Story is a story that is and would always be very dear to my heart. Yes, this post is going to get sentimental. Fucking deal with it. I love High School Story, most of all the characters. I loved the storyline, but I will admit that, after a certain point, things get... flat for lack of a better word. Not that it goes down in quality, but... you're just reminded how much of a ‘never ending school year’ it was. There was no sense of time, but despite this it never lost its core aka being a high school story... heh heh. However, now that I found out it was getting a Choices book, everything changed. There’d be a concept of time and yes, a definite ending. We’d have to say goodbye, but High School Story could finally have that overarching plot like TC&TF. 

Before I get on with the main point of this post, I just want to say that I LOVE the Choices edition of High School Story. It easily fits into my top 3 books. The book is amazing. The characters, most of them anyway, are original and exciting to get to know. The story is interesting, retains the core of HSS, and leaves you impatiently waiting for your keys to restore. There are issues here and there, but most are just small nitpicky things. Emma seems too much like a YA protagonist for my tastes. Caleb is practically a younger clone of Sean (he even has similar relationship drama, except worse), and a few canon mishaps. The only real problem I have, which isn’t really a problem just me being sad and confused, is that I don’t get why they made this a High School Story book and not just a normal high school book. 

It follows a new MC and a new core cast of characters and while, yes, the original gang are still there, they’ve been, for lack of a better word, reduced to minor roles. Sure, characters like Mia and Julian, and Ezra have subplots you can explore depending on what extracurricular activity your MC chooses (I’ve only done cheerleading so far), but... they’re not relevant to the plot. You could remove or replace with original characters, renamed the book ‘The High Schooler’, and it would not have changed the book. For players who never played the original High School Story it’s like ‘who cares, cool story with cool new characters’, but for original players... there’s this weird feeling I’m sure (kinda sure) we’re all sharing. Here we are, in our senior year of high school, ready to share new adventures in the Choices storytelling format with our old friends. Except, they don’t know us. They walk off, but it doesn’t really set in until I meet Autumn. She catches me alone just like in the beginning of the original High School Story. Of course, she’d remember us. She was our first friend after all or at the very least we’d kick off our friendship again, like an AU or something of the original story. Except, she doesn’t. Autumn takes our picture and runs off without even asking for our name. I turn around and meet Emma who we become friends with. Don’t get me wrong, I think Emma is a cool character, but at that point, I put my tablet down and sat back. I didn’t cry or get mad or anything. It’s just a game, after all. Not that big deal, but... it was a really sad moment. We later learn that the original MC, the one we played as in the original High School Story, graduated before the original gang (despite them all being in the same grade) with I’m assuming Katherine and all the A-listers. So, their MC is gone and our MC is hanging out with Michael and Caleb and Emma, but every so often I feel like turning around and seeing the original gang at a table, having fun, and wanting to tell them ‘its me guys!’, but I can’t. 

That’s why I don’t understand why they made a High School Story book and not a high school book. Sure, I get that new players might be a little confused with their MC suddenly knowing a whole group of people, but PB has done that before with Hero. You know, we go into Hero for the first time and suddenly Poppy has been our friend since high school and we’ve been crushing on Grayson since high school. If they wanted to avoid that, they could’ve made an AU. Retold the tale of High School Story in a different way. Sure, old players would know what would happen, but it had been so long, years maybe, and the writers could have a chance to write things differently in a way they might’ve been limited in within the original pixel-style app.