Butterfly Seeker came out early this year, so naturally in the back half of the year they put out Butterfly Seeker: Chaos Nightmare, billed as its fan disc. Usually a game that sells well gets an FD, and sometimes a game that sells like shit gets one too — making a visual novel isn’t expensive, the worst that happens is the voice actors get tired, everything else is copy-paste. Why not squeeze some money out? Going by the other titles from this brand… (yes, I’m looking at you, Kage no Umi no Apeiria), the FD should just be a little slice-of-life sideshow with no real connection to the main plot, lower quality than the main story, maybe giving a route to a heroine who didn’t get one, maybe just shooting the shit. In short, a cash-grab riding on nostalgia. No reason to expect much. But Butterfly Seeker: Chaos Nightmare genuinely brings a lot of surprises.

Butterfly Seeker (バタフライシーカー) came out back in March, and I only just finished it recently. The main reason I didn’t want to touch it at first was the scenario writer: Nozomu Kaihara (海原望). Kaihara is, I believe, a Liar-soft person. I’ve played a few things he worked on. I wouldn’t call them bad — it’s just that they always leave me with this strong sense of discomfort. Not from the art or the setting, more from the way the script and dialogue are written. So when I saw his name on Butterfly Seeker, I immediately didn’t want anything to do with it. But I had literally nothing to play. I don’t like moege, I don’t like the stuff everyone else hypes to the heavens, and what I actually want is traditional mystery / puzzle-solving / story. Looking around, the only thing left from the first half of the year was Butterfly Seeker. So I played it. And since there was nothing else I wanted to play, I played it pretty seriously. After clearing everything, my impression was: actually pretty good. This might be the first Kaihara game I’ve been able to get through? Some people say Kaihara is a pen name of Meteo Hoshizora… but I’m not familiar with Meteo Hoshizora so whatever, lol.