Looking back on some of my old Gal impressions, I always want to laugh bitterly. The old me thought a game had to have a good story to be good. And what counts as a good story? It has to have a big twist, but not too absurd a twist — explode the plot while staying coherent, plant a pile of foreshadowing and pick every bit of it back up. Best if it also works in a little life wisdom and the truth of the world. That’s a good game. Now I see that what I was after was just the “good” games within the story-driven category. But like how a cinema shows more than Hollywood blockbusters, Galgames aren’t only the story-driven kind. I’ve also thought that if a game can make its characters cute enough, that’s fine too — I just always felt that kind of game was a tier below the story-driven ones. Because those are the big titles, and this is just selling moe character writing, tea-party-slice-of-life level. Like holding up Death Note against Yuru Yuri, or a AAA title against Minecraft — most people figure the two aren’t even on the same level.