Honestly, I’ve always held ToHeart in something close to sacred regard. Sounds like bullshit, but that’s how it is. When I was a kid I played it by pure chance — no idea which version, probably on a PS emulator or something, some pirated disc anyway. It blew my mind, mostly because I couldn’t read a single word and just clicked around at random. Around the same time my cousin was playing Princess Maker and Uncharted Waters, and I remember some magazine — Computer Fan or Popular Software, can’t recall which — running a piece where someone gushed about Sakura Wars, said you had to play it in this lifetime or you’d regret it forever. So I came to see these games — Japanese, text-and-dialogue-driven, choices tied to a calendar — as something lofty and sacred. That’s the impression ToHeart left on me. Later, after I got into anime, I kept spotting homages to it everywhere, which pretty much cemented its historical status. Some people even say it inspired all the stuff that came after, blah blah blah. So when the ToHeart remake was announced, I was paying close attention. The promo PV got me hyped — full 3D production, which surely meant a next-gen experience, fundamentally different from those so-called traditional visual novel remakes that are just AI upscales. Of course, Japanese game pricing. When it launched I couldn’t afford it and had no time to play anyway. Then the winter sale hit, I grabbed it, and after about half a month of playing I painstakingly cleared three routes (not counting the bro). And I was utterly converted… Insanely good. You’d need a brain clot and a low IQ to screw up a remake this badly.