Your Diary Review

Game Information

Release Date: 30th September 2011

Producing Company: Cube (sister company of CUFFS and Sphere)

Scenario Writers: 種村いのり、皆本あいる

Artists: カントク, すいみゃ(SD artwork)

Story

Tomoki is your average 2nd year at high school, although he has to live with his childhood friend, Yuhi, at the moment since his parents are overseas. He’s also a member of the book club at his school and works part-time at the cafe Yuhi’s father owns. One day, Tomoki is walking down the street and notices a used bookshop, thinking that there might be some good books in there, he decides to go in. Inside, the shop is very messy and looks as if no customers have been there for years. Nevertheless, Tomoki browses the shop. One book particularly stands out to him – called “your diary”. He decides to open this book, and to his surprise a girl comes out of it and stands before him. She asks “Will you be Yua’s new friend?”. It turns out that Yua is the god of happiness and it’s her job to search for the owner of “Your Diary”‘s happiness. Like this, Tomoki’s new life with Yua starts, and with 4 girls close to him – will he really be able to find his “happiness”?

Your Diary’s common route actually had a pretty good story and was very fun to play through. The routes were of variable quality and were quite predictable. My major problem to this game was its similarities to another eroge called Amesarasa. I found this strange since neither scenario writer was involved in that eroge. In fact the similarities to Amesarasa were quite staggering since i noticed that the characters in Your Diary are essentially loli-fied moe-fied versions of the characters in Amesarasa:

• Yua – Yuki : The pair are similar in that they are both short-haired loli’s who meet the protagonist in unusual ways, they are both quite outgoing and have magic involved in their routes.
• Sayuki – Rin: Both of them have long black hair and are really interested in books, and they’re both involved in a book club. They also have some past involvement to the protagonist. However, Rin also has some very important similarities to Yua.
• Yuhi – Mitsuha: Both are childhood friends of the protagonist who are a little tsun towards them but really have cared deeply for the protagonist for some time. They both also wear their hair up in a single ponytail (Mitsuha wears her hair up for about half of the game, if not more)
• Kanade – Hana: They’re both fans of reading and are also quite shy and get embarrassed easily. They both also have a good friend who they rely on. Also, both characters have their hair in a single plait.

Well, maybe i’m just being a little over-analytical but i really couldn’t help feeling that this game was some kind of Amesarasa rip-off which compensated an engaging story for moe characters. Maybe it’s just me, but i prefered the more simplistic style of writing used in Amesarasa compared to Your Diary. Now, i’m not saying that the story is downright bad, it’s just disappointing since the writers could have done so much more. Kanade’s route is so moe though!

Characters

Yua

Yua is the goddess that came out of Your Diary who is searching for Tomoki’s happiness. She is also the writer of Your Diary and records every day’s events in the book. She’s a genki girl who gets on well with everyone. She also gets teased by everyone quite a lot due to her childish-ness. She lives in Yuhi’s house and sleeps in her room since Yuhi didn’t want another girl to sleep in Tomoki’s room. Yua really likes cats.

Yua is definitely one of the most adorable goddesses ever, although her route was quite predictable. I still liked her quite a bit though.

Minagawa Yuhi

Yuhi is Tomoki’s childhood friend who lives above the cafe that her father owns, she also works part-time in the cafe. She gets on well with everyone, although she is a little apprehensive of Yua at first. She is also quite tsun towards Tomoki but she secretly has feelings for him. Yuhi is quite a good cook and is also in the same class as Tomoki.

Yuhi was funny and could be really cute at times. I would prefer if she was more tsundere but that’s just my personal preference. The way that she keeps everyone in order is quite amusing to see.

Hirosaki Kanade

Kanade is the little sister of Tomoki’s friend Hiroki and is also another childhood friend of Tomoki. She is a year younger that Yuhi and Tomoki though. She is a very shy girl who gets embarrassed easily and relies on her best friend Natsuki to talk for her a lot. She also enjoys reading.

Kanade is like a cute little puppy to the protagonist, who treats her like a little sister. She really takes moe to a new “diabetes-inducing” level though. Her innocence is really adorable too.

Ayase Sayuki

Sayuki is the oldest member of the group and is the head of the book club at school. She acts like a big sister to everyone else, especially Yua. She is well-known around the school. Sayuki also has a secret crush on Tomoki and seems to know Yua from somewhere….

Sayuki’s route was my favourite, i was not expecting anything like it and the ending made me cry. And, the route actually made me like her more than i did before.

Artwork

First of all, i’m going to mention that i LOVE Kantoku’s artwork style a lot – it’s definitely distinctive and he does a really beautiful job most of the time. However, i will mention that there are some art inconsistencies, although these are probably due to either time constraints and/or the colouring artists (since it was mostly oversimplified colouring that was the problem). However, the art was godly for most of the game. The SD art was also really adorable and pretty funny. BG art was nice, although there’s not much to say here.

Music

Song: Clover by Duca

This is definitely my favourite opening song this year, it’s such a sweet song and fits the mood of the game really well. Plus, it’s sung by Duca, which makes it even better. The ending song (also by Duca) is also really nice. The rest of the BGM is above average and there are a couple of really nice pieces, although some tracks weren’t all that memorable. The heroine’s voices were all really very cute though and i liked them a lot.

System

The game was run in widescreen which was really pretty, although something really annoyed me about the title since it panned depending on which icon you moved your mouse to, it was impossible to see all the heroines fully at the same time. The text box and the rest of the system was very nice and clean, and i liked the notebook style used for the backlog. The cg viewer was also nicely organised but i was expecting a similar system to Cafe Sourire, so i was a little disappointed there.

Scores

Story: 11
Characters: 13
Artwork: 19
Music: 18
System: 19

Total: 80

Final Thoughts

Overall, i feel that Your Diary is a disappointing moe-ge which has very high production values. Considering how much hype the game got, i think most players would be disappointed with this. The best route in the game is Sayuki’s which is genuinely quite moving, although i did have some issues with the latter half. Play this game is you want something lighthearted to play. Do not play if you’ve played Amesarasa before.

Omake