Suzumiya Haruhi no Yakusoku - Why time loops aren’t a fun story element.

This game was such a mixed experience. I loved the anime and decided to try one of the Visual Novels to see more of this world I came to love. When I looked at ratings on VNDB. It was a 50/50 between 6/10 and 8/10. Of course, ratings aren’t a defining factor if you will enjoy it or not. But a plot like that was really telling that this was an experience you either enjoyed or didn’t. So how did I find the game?

Well initially I really enjoyed the experience. It’s set a day before the cultural festival. With you playing as Kyon having to finish the film, he helps Haruhi record during the original Manga. As the game continues you get to meet and interact with many of the characters from the show. While these are mostly main characters. Some background characters do make an appearance as well with short interactions.

However, where this game sets itself apart from other visual novel experiences is a mechanic that allows for a question-and-answer type minigame between each character. In these scenes you were given a list of dialogue options. With you being encouraged to choose statements that each character would enjoy. For example, Haruhi will have a positive reaction towards statements praising her work or related to supernatural things. While she will have negative reactions to negative statements about her interests or the SOS brigade. There is a hidden ranking system to each conversation, and these will affect your outcomes of the story.

That initially surprised me. You are almost encouraged to fish for negative reactions because it changes how the story plays out. But for the true ending this generally is not advised. An ending I didn’t get and don’t feel the motivation to get for reasons I’ll say later.

Now the thing is that’s really all I can say about the gameplay. If you enjoy the world and characters of the game, then initially this could be a positive experience. Until the final act there isn’t much of a story, but these are entirely new interactions with these characters that you have control over to some extent. However, the largest issue is mentioned in the title.

When you think of the Anime for this series what’s the first thing that comes to mind? For most it’s the endless eight. It’s probably the most notorious stunt performed in animation. For people reading this who aren’t aware. The second season of the anime this game is based on had 8 episodes of what was largely the same episode without any major change. Unsurprisingly fans were upset, and this became a whole controversy. I’m sure you can piece together the issue here.

The game goes for up to 7 days and each day is a time loop. Now at first this does feel like a blessing. You get multiple chances at interactions with characters. You don’t need to save scum to experience all the dialogue. The issue is that by day 3 it’s entirely the same conversations with only a few scenes changing. Ironically it only took me 6 hours to beat this game simply because by about day 4 it’s just auto skipping dialogue for almost the entire day. This is not fun. Like at all.

For people who want to play this. If you play this, I recommend a guide so you can get the good ending. It’s the most interesting ending and all the time looping will probably make you sick of seeing the exact same conversation 4 times over.

At least you get unlockables as the game continues. Some of them were a little strange. One is an alarm clock where Nagato will count until a certain hour and then alert you. She can also wish you a happy birthday. I find this funny because I don’t think the PSP has a battery life long enough for any of that to ever be used. But I hope someone out there had Nagato wish them a happy birthday. There’s way more that’s just the only one I played around with. Infact because we are on Lemmy I can show a Screenshot of this.

So, yea time looping is not a fun mechanic. Maybe once but this game goes for 7 days. I don’t know who thought it was a good idea to base an entire game around the most controversial thing from your media. But outside of this issue. It’s enjoyable to have a Haruhi VN experience that lets you interact with the characters in a more open and casual way. Next, I think I’ll try the PS2 one. My Japanese isn’t fantastic but that one seems to have a lot more fun with itself so maybe that will be a more positive experience.