But Not For You - バット・ノット・フォー・ユー

People were hyping this up in Discord recently, grabbed it quickly after seeing a few screenshots and realizing it was a timeloop story. I have to say, this is one of the best doujin VNs I have ever seen, with some of the best passages comparable to top commercial eroge. It’s a pleasant surprise to find something like this with a theme you love, beautiful writing, and the commitment to not hold back at all. I have no idea who the writer is or what he does with different pennames, but he should be among the greats after this.

The story starts with a short prologe with Momo, a guy who has a crush on his literature club senpai, Shiori. Sadly she doesn’t seem too interested in him, at least as a man so he starts thinking if he’d have a chance if he were to be a girl. The very next day, a Thursday, he wakes up as a girl confused what’s going on as. Everyone now recognizes her as a girl, as if the male version had never existed. Quickly enough she starts getting used to this as she can now spend time more comfortably with Shiori, that’s until Saturday night where she gets the news that Shiori died from suicide, next morning when she wakes up it is Thursday again. From there the plot continues as some other timeloop with Momo trying to unveil the mystery of her suicide in the three day period. Things do get real ugly for both of them going through some horrible stuff in the loops.

I will also say that the TS stuff it’s not really about gender stuff, mostly used for social power class dynamics, in case someone is concerned. The prose is not really fancy; if anything it’s simple but extremely polished. It has some nice tempo that makes it very engaging to read, the close personal style fit’s nicely with Momo experiencing things for the first time, making you really get into her skin even with all the horrible stuff. It’s been a while since i got so mesmerized reading something. It feels like a mix of Masaki with the literary style of Setoguchi, pretty sure this should click well with fans of both.

This also has tons of characters for a doujin game, due to length not all of them really get their time to shine (not that it was necessary), but mostly focuses on Momo and Shiori, with the other two club members being the other more prominent characters, especially Tokuma who kind of gives some nice little details about topics with the looping and whatnot. That conversation near the end is really interesting with him questioning the morality of looping and people’s memories defining who they are. Where it lacks in SF explanations it makes it up with some more personal philosophical takes. Shiori actually doesn’t get that much screen time but between Momo’s descriptions and the ending twist that makes her one hell of a character too.
The mystery is also pretty cool, being some grounded behind the scenes dark school plot instead of some crazy scifi stuff. As much of a fan I am of crazy shit, this kind of mystery fits more the literary style. The ending twist is also super cool and completely owned me, it also has tons of little details foreshadowing it through the text.

The branching is simple, there are a few choices that lead to three short endings and and a fourth true ending. The most difficult part is hitting the right choices to do the other endings before the last one since it’s hard to tell sometimes, but in any case it doesn’t matter too much if you do it after the last ending; it’s mostly to avoid having to go back after the climax. There’s also a Novel Mode with no choices that lead directly to the fourth ending. I understand it’s there since the branching is a bit weird in a timeloop plot like this but I’d recommend seeing all the endings since they have some interesting content.

From the description it says the game is 300K chars so basically 2-3 LNs size, it reads super fast with execellent pacing and lots of stuff going on, so the exact length is kinda irrelevant tbh. The graphics are good enough for a doujin having tachie for all the characters so that’s nice, some CGs are pretty nice but mostly elevated by the writing. The sound aspect is good, it goes for the atmosphere approach with tons of sound effects and leaving many scenes with no sound.

Kinda hard game to talk about since most of what it makes it good it’s the prose and the mystery, but wanted to post something in case it gets someone to read it since it’s way too good to be under the radar with less than 300 sales in DLsite. Anyone that likes good writing should enjoy this one, it has some gruesome stuff and yuri/ts stuff, but it’s done with prudence and not for shock value whatsoever. Not sure it will be for everyone but it’s good enough to be worth a try. Strong recommendation.