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I don't remember exactly when, but I started reading this (about 10 hours of it) shortly before I moved a couple of years ago, but since I left my computer at home, I kind of unintentionally dropped this novel. To be honest, at that time, I didn't feel any particular enthusiasm, nor did I feel any excitement about the abundance of philosophical reflections that were presented to the reader in quite detailed forms, so maybe it was all for the best, because this time I started reading it again and enjoyed it much more.

Of everything I've read, it reminded me most of Fate/stay night. The premise is this: there is a relatively small modern Japanese town that will soon be visited by "heroes" from the past, and they will clash in order to achieve some wonderful, mysterious goal, while our hero, an ordinary young man, is unwittingly drawn into the chaos of the events, but he is not so simple. For this reason, I think this comparison is quite appropriate. Well, and, in fact, if I had to recommend something to someone, regardless of my imaginary interlocutor's experience, my choice would be Fate, but personally, I liked this novel much more. The essence of this contradiction lies in my only complaint about what I read. The fact is that in terms of content, the four routes that make up this novel do not differ much from each other, and you end up re-reading approximately the same thing several times, about 15 hours each. That is, the same things said in different words, but with similar scenes. If it weren't for that, I wouldn't hesitate to say "10 out of 10!" and I wouldn't complain. On the other hand, maybe if it weren't for my crazy obsession with focusing on something, it wouldn't have been such a problem. Maybe, on the contrary, I would have enjoyed the opportunity to savor it longer. Oh, and continuing this comparison, in Fate, the "rules" of the world were more consistent.

I really liked the characters, all of them – even though most of them are scoundrels, you can more or less trace and understand the motivation of each one, but the witch, the protagonist's friend, and both villains were the ones that caught my attention the most. One of them, by the way, is very similar to Gilgamesh, but no matter how much I like him, I can't help but admit that the blond guy here turned out to be much more impressive. He is also a kind of "god-like king," but unlike his colleague, he has never tarnished his supernatural greatness with anger or arrogance, maintaining grace in any situation and even in communicating with those who, in comparison with him, would be like an ant compared to a tank. In this respect, he is very similar to the chancellor from Berserk. The protagonist here also appealed to me more.

The musical accompaniment is excellent, definitely one of the best among visual novels, which, given the high standard, is a very big achievement. A wealth of historical, literary, and philosophical references from different eras also added to the interest, and some of the voiced themes and thoughts made me think, although mostly about unpleasant things, such as the loss of youth and the associated view of life, for example. Or about my lifestyle over the past 15 years, where I can say that I "stopped in my tracks." In general, these are some depressing revelations.
I haven't watched movies in a long time, so I won't judge, but in games, anime, and visual novels, love in the context of friendship is rarely shown and often takes a very simplified form, but here it was one of the key themes, which I also liked.

While I was reading, I wanted to write something else, but I already forgot what, so never mind. In the "children's" version, there seem to be some additional scenes (since it was released later), so there is still an opportunity to enjoy them.

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Oh, I remembered one thing. If you listen to modern English speech or read translations of Japanese games/anime, you might think that it is a very primitive and devoid of any beauty language, but in this novel, the translation is very eloquent, I even had to look up words in the dictionary from time to time, which I haven't done in several years.