(Minor spoilers) This doesn’t change, ever. Takeru, the main character, is introduced as kind of a dick. Having said that, Muv-Luv is far from flawless. I don’t doubt that this is one of the top VNs in terms of the amount of time and effort put into the presentation of the VN format itself. Again, the actual quality of these may not have been top-notch, but since I’ve rarely encountered such things before in VNs, it felt quite luxurious. There are also sometimes sections of the story where the dialogue will advance as if it were on auto mode, almost anime-like, leading to some very tense fights because the player has no control over its pacing. Furthermore, in the mecha Alternative segments, the environments are sometimes animated and moving, which is a breath of fresh air since this is something I’d never seen before, even if the actual quality is not so high. Background CGs don’t just feel like backgrounds here - the characters actually move around within their environments as if it were 3D and will turn to talk to each other, which helps add an incredible amount of immersion. As the series goes on, the quality of the VNs continually increases, which is quite impressive, given that Extra is already pretty good. Now, let’s talk about the production quality. Photonflowers* and Photonmelodies♮ are two short-story / spinoff collections, with Photonmelodies♮ containing A Shimmering Shard of Spacetime (also known as Altered Fable), which is a direct sequel and extended epilogue to Alternative, and it was exactly the thing I required after finishing Alternative. If you, like me, could not accept that Muv-Luv was finished when Alternative ends, then good news, because it doesn’t actually end there. After Unlimited comes Alternative, the crown jewel of the franchise. Only one good ending is required here, as the endings are the same for each heroine. Once you reach Unlimited, you’re likely now going to become invested in the story. (I did this, though at the end of the journey, I sorely wished that I’d done every Extra ending at the start.) The most common advice is just to power through it and do Sumika and Meiya’s routes if you don’t like Extra, ignoring the other heroines in favor of the more ‘canon’ choices, and that’s entirely fine - the only thing you’ll miss out on is a deeper connection to those heroines and a bit more information about them. However, despite the genre shift, you’re unable to skip Extra, as it is a vital piece of the trilogy. Naturally, fans of one genre probably aren’t going to be particularly keen on the other genre - and since Alternative is the part people come to Muv-Luv for, Extra is the part that gets the mediocre reviews. This is because the first and last part are very different genres - Extra is a rather generic tropey high-school rom-com, while Alternative is a full-blown mecha war epic. If you visit the VNDB page for the first two parts, you might notice that the vote score is comparatively very low next to Alternative (at 6.98/10). Extra and Unlimited are packaged together in the VN Muv-Luv, and Alternative, the longest part, is separate. The main trilogy is, in order, Extra, Unlimited, then Alternative. Muv-Luv is made up of a main trilogy and numerous fandiscs and spinoffs. I was smiling fondly the whole time when I briefly went back to collect the remaining Extra endings, even at the parts which I remember making a sour face at originally. Over the course of playing through this series, a lot of the things I found cringy or annoying in the beginning (the chibi art being a prime example) ended up becoming endearing to me by the time I finished. I only have ~20 novels under my belt right now, but I highly doubt that the Muv-Luv series will be taken down from its #1 spot in my heart any time soon. I’ve laughed at the cast’s silly antics, I’ve cried both tears of joy and sadness for them, and there’s been scenes burned into my brain for all eternity for how truly well-written they were. Muv-Luv is the most intense emotional rollercoaster I’ve been on. This review I hope will serve as, first, a way to convince newcomers that the 100+ hours you can sink into this franchise is worth it, and second, a document of my personal opinions for veterans to disagree with me about who's Best Girl over. It is quite easily the best piece of media I’ve ever had the luxury of consuming. All one needs to do to verify this claim is look towards the vote statistics - there’s more than twice as many 10/10 ratings than 9/10 ratings, and a mean score of 9.12/10 as of when this review was written. Muv-Luv Alternative is objectively a masterpiece. If you know literally nothing about Muv-Luv, read this at your own risk. This review will contain minor spoilers that VN newbies may not know but are likely considered common knowledge by VN veterans.
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