Karifean's Blog of Visual Novels

(Original Post on the Forums)

#5
Muv-Luv (Series)
Developer: âge
Availability: Japan Only
Adult Content: Yes
Length: Long (~80 Hours)

Time is the cruelest kindness.

Oh yes, Muv-Luv. Fair warning, this is gonna be a long post.

I originally planned on posting this list quite a bit earlier in March, but there was one thing that kept me from doing so: I had not read Muv-Luv at that point. And I didn't feel right making a Top 10 Visual Novels list without having read the highest rated visual novel on VNDB.

I won't be able to completely avoid spoilers for all games, especially since the final part of the trilogy builds heavily upon the first two, so if you're definitely planning on reading Muv-Luv and don't wish to be spoiled at all, you might want to skip this post. I will do my best to be vague so as to spoil as little as possible.

On the left: Meiya, on the right: Sumika, the two main heroines

Muv-Luv is a trilogy comprised of Extra, Unlimited and Alternative. Muv-Luv Extra is a rather generic highschool harem slice-of-life kind of story. While the two main heroines, Meiya and Sumika, are pretty likeable, the protagonist, Takeru Shirogane, is incredibly dense, and just about everyone else is forgettable as hell. Especially the all the non-mandatory character routes... they were just boring. If it weren't for the occasional laugh, the two main heroines, and the at least somewhat engaging romance, I'd be out of good things to say about it.

Yuuko knows best.

So we're off to a rocky start, but what about Muv-Luv Unlimited? Well thanks to its setting it's already a lot more interesting than Extra; one day Takeru wakes up and finds the entire city around him in ruins. Nothing's left, except for his own house. Takeru decides he has to be dreaming and decides to just enjoy it as much as he can. I'm not gonna spoil the rest of it.

Even with the initially intriguing and somewhat dark setting, Muv-Luv Unlimited is upbeat and bright as hell. Takeru is still as dense as before and the harem hasn't gone anywhere. While it's a lot more tolerable than Extra and has a pretty good ending, I still can't call it good overall.

But it has mechas, if you're into that.

So with all that, why is it #5 on this list?

Simple, Muv-Luv Alternative happened.

Seriously one of the hypest openings I've ever heard. From that point on it was clear that the mood has completely shifted. Gone is the fluffy pink logo from Muv-Luv Extra, Alternative's logo is simply grey. The lighthearted title screen theme from Extra/Unlimited is replaced by Crash.

Alternative begins with Takeru waking up back in his room, only to notice that he has looped back to day one, and all previous events have been undone - except that he still remembers them all. Determined to prevent disaster from striking again, he sets out to do things differently this time.

Muv-Luv Alternative is by FAR the best part of the Muv-Luv Trilogy, and easily makes sludging through Extra and Unlimited worth your time. Takeru is now actually a really likeable protagonist, and all the other main characters also get some good character development. It even resolves the harem very early on since now there's a 'one true pairing' (and it also happened to be my favorite pairing from Extra, so hooray). In short... just about all the issues I had with the first two novels are gone.

You can neatly separate Alternative into three acts. The first act is a repeat of a lot of previous events, but this time a hell of a lot better thanks to Takeru being a badass now. It's still somewhat reminiscent of the first two games, but in a good way. Around this time I found myself getting really attached to the cast and caring about seeing them succeed.

The second act is when Alternative gets progressively darker and darker. I'd say its main focal point is Takeru's character development as everything he's built up starts to crumble around him. I seriously felt as if Alternative just kept going "oh you think he's hit rock bottom? Well smurf you, here's one more!" It gets so dark I actually started to wish I'd be back in Muv-Luv Extra. It was still happy and fun back then. Yes, that visual novel I considered boring and way too upbeat? I wanted it back. Badly.

I'm not gonna talk about the final act; if you want to know what happens, you'll have to read it yourself.

Alternative managed to do something quite incredible: it made me appreciate Extra and Unlimited, and a lot at that. Without having read those two first, Alternative simply wouldn't pack nearly the punch it does. Usually Key is the studio that specializes in tearing down happy times, but Muv-Luv is just on a completely different level. It literally spent TWO ENTIRE VISUAL NOVELS just building and setting up for their deconstruction in Alternative. It was an incredibly daring move on âge's part, but given Alternative's extreme popularity, it certainly paid off.

Of course I also have to mention the soundtrack. While Extra and Unlimited were once again unremarkable in this regard, Muv-Luv Alternative has a great soundtrack. It does wonders to build atmosphere in context, and is still great to listen to outside of context, which is exactly what a great soundtrack should be like. There are a lot of suspenseful, anticipation-building tracks, like War Preparation or Briefing, and quite a few emotional tracks like Meiya or End of Regret.

And oh my god I swear Flame of Life is one of the overall best tracks from any visual novel soundtrack as far as I'm concerned.

I think the anime Muv-Luv is best compared to is Attack on Titan, both in tone and in popularity. If you liked Attack on Titan, chances are you'll love Muv-Luv Alternative. If on the other hand you hated it, or you don't like dark settings in general, or you despise mechas, then Muv-Luv Alternative might not be for you. There is a good reason MLA is as popular as it is, and while it's (obviously) not my personal favorite - and going by it's popularity I actually expected it to end up even higher on the list - I still loved it.

But now we're getting to the Top 4, and to me this is a notable step up because if I were to rank my favorite video games including visual novels, my #1 non-VN game would be at the #5 spot with the Top 4 occupied by these very novels. They are the main reason I like the genre as much as I do, and why I prefer it over any other storytelling medium. And if anyone else here ever gets around to reading them, I hope you will agree~