#got the plat trophy but at what cost??

[ububunes]

Anyways I finished psychedelicha of the black butterfly... Like a week ago? Man I'm slow...

Anyways. Spoilers if... Literally anybody cares about this game. It was truly mid up until the very end but I have to give it some credit for that. Content warning for child death, attempted SA, some baked in misogyny (from the game), and gaslighting (from Karasuba). Now time for:

Basic character info

Beniyuri/MC/Ai

She's the heroine and because of that, she's kind of lacking in personality. Maybe. I'm sorry, at a certain point I started skipping through the side stories... But in the main story she's mostly defined by her willingness to help, her honesty, gullibility, and her fear. She's got some trauma and is fairly stuck in the past.

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Yamato/Takuya

If you went to his TV tropes page, I'm 95% sure he would have something like "Needs a hug". They aren't wrong, honestly. He's got a short temper and is almost always fighting with Karasuba. His favorite sport is soccer and when he was a kid he would "tease" (frankly, semi-bully at times) MC because he had a crush on her. Don't do that in real life. Monshiro's twin brother.

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Karasuba/Aki(to?)

My least favorite! He just keeps finding new ways to try and get MC to himself, and will not stop making very uncomfortable advances before calling them jokes. He is the character who figured out Hikage first though, and by his good ending he decides to work on himself and improve with MC. Still not redeemed but congrats! He would get upset if you followed any other dudes on social media, get anxious if you make even a slightly too long phone call or look at your texts too long. Would also beg for your PIN and get sad if he wasn't your lock screen AND homescreen. No thaaaanks.

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Hikage

Look. This image just goes so hard I HAVE to show it in it's full unaltered glory. He's the evil big bad and tricked the entire cast blah blah yeah he's basic as hell. He's also misogynistic! If I hear him talk about how all women are weak one more time, I frankly might just break down. He's like. So generic anime bad guy that I can't hate them for it, they're just following the assignment.

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Kagiha/Natsuki

This dudes dead! He's been dead since he was like, eight actually. I'm not sure how ethical it truly is to date him but I also am too tired to care. He's another of the least favs anyways. He made a promise to marry MC when they were kids and man is this dude taking it way too far. I have no idea what his plan is if he 'comes back to life' like Hikage promised since he's been presumed dead for ten years... He's also working with Hikage.

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Monshiro/Kazuya

Again I'm frankly not too sure on how ethical it would be to date him. He's been in a coma for ten years, since AROUND age 7. He leans on MC for comfort and has been wandering the mansion for ten years waiting to give MC her ribbon back. I don't know what else to say about him, he's not that fleshed out imo... Yamato's twin brother

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Usagi

Truly the most underdeveloped character. She's Hikage's little sister and the reason he's insane. I would ask her to get him to therapy or to be his therapist but there aren't any therapists here and if he saw her face he would genuinely lose it.

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The story is honestly pretty much summed up as "repressed memory trauma with otome game action and shooting segments." I'm sure it can be explained better than that but if I'm being honest I'm already starting to forget details. Whoops.

My favorite endings have to be the Yamato true end, the best ending/common route ending (it's literally just called "best end" on the flowchart, I don't know what to tell you), and the secret ending. I find it kind of strange that Hikage and Kagiha (whose names I continually mix up. I'm not very good with names) only have one ending each. I guess you could could the singular bad ending, which is also an honorable mention just for being there and being kind of awful if you accidentally trigger it, as an ending for Hikage since it's (probably) his book, but that sounds lame and doesn't completely check out. I guess you can also count the best ending as Kagiha's true ending but again, seems cheap? But also way better than his default ending where you seemingly lose your mind in the mansion and live in "happy married bliss" with Kagiha.

Probably also a good time to mention that Hikage and Kagiha are both dead.

Basically the whole story goes as follows

The main characters (minus Hikage) go to a summer camp at around ages 6-8. They get warned not to go to the lake because weather changes quickly in the mountains (where the summer camp was, I guess.) They go to the lake, find an abandoned mansion and start exploring, find some glass shards that ARE lore important, just ten years from now. Anyways it starts to rain incredibly hard and the kids desperately try to get to the shore and back to camp. Unfortunately MC and Monshiro both get swept under the water. Kagiha rescues MC first, then Monshiro who is still comatose from the accident ten or so years later. Kagiha ends up drowning and his body is never found*

(*His body is found in the common route ending, but I don't remember any mentions of it in any other endings.)

Ten or so years later, Karasuba, Yamato, and MC meet again after Karasuba and Yamato moved, following the accident. MC is still pretty torn up about Kagiha's death, partially from guilt, and semi-refuses to talk about it. Yamato has been visiting his brother in the hospital every day, also from guilt. Karasuba moved on, and was more concerned with becoming stronger since he could only stand and stare as MC and Monshiro drowned. They go on a Fun Bus Ride!™️ And plummet off the side of a cliff after the driver... Falls asleep? Gets hit by mother nature? I dunno.

They end up comatose and in a mansion that's in a place between life and death. They have to find the shards of a magical kaleidoscope so they can return to earth and Hikage can get his wish fulfilled. Frankly uninteresting romance happens. Yamato turns into a monster and then partially back. This all sounds cool when simply laid out but when you're playing the game multiple times and the slowness of the max speed of the skip button starts to hit? Maaaaaan it sucks. It also makes some sections of the game unintentionally funny because while voices don't play during skip mode, sfx do and it's kind of hard to take Hikage seriously when he's in his evil mode but his walking sounds like someone chopping veggies really fast.

One aspect that really disappointed me was that there was only one real (labeled) bad ending. There are no endings where you all end up trapped in the psychedelicha forever because you can't find the last shard, there's no ending where you give up, no ending where, in a mansion with deadly and aggressive monsters in it, you get killed. That might sound weird and honestly maybe it is but the one bad ending simply being a choice of whether you open a book (bad end) or not (you get to continue playing) feels out of place. Yes some of the characters endings can absolutely be counted as bad ends but... They don't get you the achievement that triggers when you get the 'Bud' ending. (I am unsure as to why it is called that.)

The true endings are all nice. Again Yamato's feels the nicest simply because he gets to apologize to his brother and make amends. He also gets reassurance that no, he isn't an awful person just because he made an admittedly very awful decision as a child.

Karasuba gets shown that he's kind of awful and gets to grow into a better person with MC. Good luck with the relationship.

Monshiro gets to give MC her ribbon back and also gets told that no, you didn't deserve to die instead of Kagiha. Good for him. I'm still conflicted.

The additional scenes unlocked after certain endings were nice too. Seeing Karasuba confront Hikage about his identity was honestly really cool. Seeing what Hikage was up to scheming before the games events was nice. Seeing Kagiha and Monshiro interact was neat, especially since they don't really do that very much. Plus it adds lore.

And finally... The secret ending. You get to make the choice of actually staying in the mansion during the summer camp, keeping everyone safe and alive. It's definitely a nice addition after spending this whole game in danger and having to deal with issues. I honestly had started to wonder why they didn't do that. Like yes they're kids but... None of them had thought of it? Damn. Being able to not traumatize MC was great. Having to deal with four clingy guys? Not so much.

Here's the complete in game flowchart if anybody was curious as to what it looked like!

In conclusion.... Yeah no I can't completely recommend this game. It kind of sucks, it's vita exclusive (I think?), and one of the mechanics forced on you (the butterfly hunt mini games) are kind of jank and annoying to replay and replay for points. And again this game is exceptionally mid. Not good mid, not bad mid, just true neutral mid. Anyways, remember: hooray! Hooray! Beniyuri-chan! Hooray! Hooray! Kagiha-kun!