Muv-Luv (Extra + Unlimited) Review
by
, 03-23-2015 at 12:09 AM (18577 Views)
Muv-Luv is a visual novel created by âge. It is the precursor to one of the most popular visual novels of all time, so to be as unbiased as possible I'm going to write this review before moving on to its successor.
Overview
Takeru Shirogane is a typical highschool student who doesn't get very good grades and likes spending most of his free time either hanging out with his childhood friend Sumika Kagami, or playing his favorite video game. It's a simple life, and not much of note ever happens.
Enter Meiya Mitsurugi who Takeru suddenly finds lying next to him in his bed one morning. She's the heir to the financially prosperous Mitsurugi group and uses her near-unlimited resources to turn Takeru's life upside down. She forcibly has all of his neighbors (besides Sumika) and one of his classmates move away just so she can transfer into his class and expand his house to move in with him.
The story of Muv-Luv Extra follows Takeru's day-to-day life with Meiya, Sumika and his other fellow classmates.
Muv-Luv Unlimited on the other hand is completely different. One day Takeru wakes up and finds the entire town besides his own house in ruins. Meiya and Sumika, much less anyone else, are anywhere to be seen. Takeru concludes that he's just dreaming, but how long can he actually hold on to this belief...?
Structure
Muv-Luv Extra has a typical galge structure. There are five main story routes each corresponding to one major female character, although Meiya's and Sumika's overlap for the most part and are also the only two routes you need to clear to unlock Unlimited. If you just want to skip to Unlimited as quickly as possible, go for Meiya's route, as it's easy to reach Sumika's ending from Meiya's route, but not vice versa.
Muv-Luv Unlimited is a more or less linear story where the choices don't affect the major plot but just a few scenes instead. However, they do affect which heroine Takeru eventually ends up with, which in turn affects which ending you get. The endings are all almost completely identical though, just with a different partner. If you've seen one, you've seen them all, so don't worry if you don't feel like going back for the others.
Story
Muv-Luv Extra is a rather generic slice-of-life highschool story filled with anime tropes and humor. That's about it.
Muv-Luv Unlimited is a bit of a science-fiction mecha military type story with characters straight out of a generic slice-of-life highschool story. Funny how that works.
...okay I'll try harder. The central conflict in Muv-Luv Extra is the love triangle between Takeru, Sumika and Meiya. My main problem with this is that Takeru is completely oblivious to it, which I simply cannot believe. Meiya's line from above is from VERY early in the story. Nope, Takeru doesn't have a clue. It just goes way too far.
As for the individual routes, Meiya-and-Sumika's was enjoyable albeit extremely cliché and predictable, Ayamine's was okay, the other two (Chizuru's and Miki's) I didn't care for. There was very little plot or drama ever happening in any of the routes and so they all remained totally unmemorable beyond a few standout scenes. Sorry I can't be more positive about it, but that's how I felt.
If anything, Extra's appeal lies in its pure anime humor which I can dig, and was what made it enjoyable for me. If you don't like that, well... I got nothing.
Unlimited on the other hand... isn't all that spectacular either. It's a hell of a lot more memorable than Extra thanks to its setup alone, but it's not a closed story. It's mostly setting up for the final part in the trilogy, Alternative. Due to that I can't properly rate or judge the story on its construction or integrity, but as for its enjoyability at least it was good. Not great, but good enough. It has its standout moments and the harem is way less in-your-face than in Extra.
Oh and by the way, both novels are rated 18+ and I have nothing to say about the H scenes. There's one near the end of each route. The CTRL key skips over them. Enjoy.
One thing I do need to say about Unlimited especially is that it has a horrid kind of fanservice. The one that totally breaks your immersion and just makes you want to turn off and read something less silly immediatly. Of course I'm talking about the suits. They are just so smurfing stupid. ...but well I still got over it in the end.
Characters
If there's one thing I can cut Muv-Luv Extra some slack on, it's here. I actually really liked Sumika, and I grew to like Meiya more and more as I went (a trend that continued in Unlimited). Some side characters such as Tsukuyomi, Meiya's main servant, were also pretty enjoyable, and while I found the rest of the main cast rather weak I did like Chizuru and Ayamine to a degree. Caaan't say I cared for Miki at all unfortunately.
So yeah, while it still doesn't stand out much above the average, I definitely can't fault Muv-Luv for its characters. (I can and will fault it for never doing all that much with them in Extra though)
I'll just skip over Unlimited for spoiler reasons, but my sentiments are pretty similar.
Henyuu for best character design.
Soundtrack
For the most part Extra and Unlimited share the same OST. All things considered it was rather plain, but it did fit both novels pretty well. It feels very anime-y in a way.
So yeah, while I have little complaints about the soundtrack, it's average at best. I feel like I've been saying this a lot in this post.
Summary
What can I say? I can't in good conscience call Muv-Luv Extra and Unlimited "good". No, it's quite mediocre, with a few good moments. The story of Extra is pretty damn forgettable, everything else was just... fine... but nothing special or particularly memorable. The only possible exception being Sumika, and maybe the ending sequence of Unlimited.
Out of all the visual novels I've read, this one easily has the worst quality-to-length ratio, and I would not recommend it *on its own*. I give it a rating of
6.5 / 10
However, I might still end up heavily recommending it after all... we shall see, after I finish Muv-Luv Alternative.