Kotonoha Mau Natsu no Fuurin (言の葉舞い散る夏の風鈴) had a lot of buzz before release — not because of some insane premise or anything, but because of the staff. Writer Noriaki Hanno had previously done Kage no Umi no Apeiria and the rocket-building thing, and both were received pretty well. This time almost the whole original team was back (with an even stronger artist brought on), so of course people were hyped. Once the game was announced, though, it looked like there wasn’t anything special in it — at least compared to Apeiria, this one’s setup is basically plain water. But because of the writer, most people still had high expectations. And what were we all expecting, exactly? Some crazy twist? High tech? A physics textbook? Logic-puzzle quizzes? A lot of people probably figured that since the writer had done something that good before, this one should be good too — even with its very “youthful,” very “ordinary” premise, there had to be something thought-provoking underneath. Well, we were all wrong. It’s just an unbelievably simple, plain-water game. Hell, it’s not even up to plain-water standards…