I had my eye on Sakura no Kumo * Scarlet no Koi (さくらの雲＊スカアレットの恋) well before release, mostly because that “Cabbage” game from before was so unbelievably stupid. The scenario is by Fuyu Akane (冬茜トム), who’s done story-driven work for several SugarPot and Cabbage titles, and this wasn’t his first time teaming up with Korie Riko either. The premise when it was first announced kind of baffled me: our protagonist gets sent back 100 years into Japan’s past and has to find a way home. That’s literally the level of a Chinese web novel. One of the bad ones. Trusting the writer, I still opened it up and it took me a good while to finish. Partly because things were busy at home, partly because the early-to-mid game is just so damn boring. The good news is the final chapter is genuinely fun, and it’s tightly paced — it blows through all that long-winded buildup and explains what was actually going on. In Japan they call this “paying off the foreshadowing.” Sure, if you say so. Anyway, let’s get into the game.