Corona Blossom Vol.3 Journey to the Stars Review

Corona Blossom Vol. 3 finally came out, which means the game that got unceremoniously chopped into three parts has, after Vol. 1 and Vol. 2, finally reached its ending.

Looking back, the content distribution across the three volumes is actually pretty regular: Vol. 1 is Arne coming to Earth, Vol. 2 is the villain showing up, and the last volume is the final showdown (probably).

Vol. 1 is the protagonist meeting a chunk of metal that falls from the sky. The metal is from outer space, turns into a little loli when it hits him, and he names her Arne (R-Ne). Then a bunch of self-proclaimed space pirates show up, saying Arne is their catch and demanding he hand her over.

Vol. 2 is the protagonist befriending the space pirates and discovering they’re not actually that bad. The pirates gradually give up on Arne and become friends with him, and then at the very end the protagonist’s sister suddenly flips, announcing she’s a scientist and that this alien Arne would make great research material.

The villain in Vol. 3 is that same sister, Kanade, who wants to ship the alien Arne off to the lab. She tells the protagonist that with Arne’s alien power, humanity could overcome all sorts of incurable diseases—sacrifice one alien loli and you save all of mankind—and asks him to join her. He refuses, and then it’s teaming up with the space pirates to hold off Kanade while building a rocket, choosing to send Arne back to her homeworld.

The ending is Arne going home, and the protagonist getting married and having kids in that little town, occasionally recalling the summer he met Arne.

Taken as a whole, Corona Blossom is really just the story of an alien metal that takes the form of a loli and spends one pleasant summer on Earth. It follows the same routine as most works in this genre: cute alien meets protagonist, humans want to capture the alien for experiments, protagonist refuses to give in, protagonist chooses to send the alien home.

But after that rocket goes up, there’s no explanation of whether Arne is even still alive. I suspect that cockpit without so much as a seatbelt would smash her to death, honestly?

All in all, this is a very “safe and steady” game. There’s no absolute villain—even Kanade gets her redemption at the end, and her goal was saving humanity anyway (probably). There is a main plot, but it doesn’t get much weight; most of it is summer and loli slice-of-life. The music is fine, I’d put it at upper-mid tier as far as visual novels go. The art goes without saying—I’m personally a big fan of Nanakamai’s work, though I genuinely can’t understand why her uncensored HCGs draw dicks more realistically than the women’s pussies. Still, everything besides the HCGs is spot-on.

Also, I played the uncensored version, so I want to know: in the normal version, is that CG of Kanade getting captured still that… fully nude?

Thinking back, each volume is about 5 to 6 hours, so all three together come to nearly 20 hours—exactly the length of a standard visual novel. There are no branching choices, the whole thing is one story, and the CG count isn’t small, though that’s across all three volumes…

So you know what I’m getting at. This should have been one complete game, sold split into three parts. I get that Frontwing wants to make more money, but splitting it like this is one thing—releasing a volume every few months with that long a gap is another matter entirely. By the time I played Vol. 3 I’d nearly forgotten what happened in Vol. 1. It took me ages to even recall what the protagonist’s mother said. That really hurts the experience.

Altogether, the three volumes of Corona Blossom add up to one complete moe game following the “alien contact” formula—harmless, no toxins, and sure, the plot doesn’t have any big twists, just the usual routine. If you like this sort of thing, go ahead and play it. But I suspect they’ll bundle all three volumes on Steam eventually, probably with a discount, and it wouldn’t hurt to buy it then.

Corona Blossom was basically Frontwing’s tentative cash-grab test of the overseas market, and it seems to have worked well, since they’re now planning to force the Grisaia series back to life for another round. I probably won’t follow along this time—at least not until they finish releasing it…

Following this game from start to finish, I do feel a bit sentimental. Seeing Arne sitting in the rocket at the end, the background plastered with photos of the protagonist and the town friends, and the OP kicking in as the rocket launches in its moment of crisis—I got oddly emotional.

I did back this game’s crowdfunding myself. The story isn’t anything especially novel, but having played it, it still counts as a memory—it brings to mind that line from the OP: “Hold tight to the joy of having met you…”

I want to hug Arne too!!!

Originally published on Steam: https://steamcommunity.com/id/plumlis/recommended/562480