NOT RECOMMENDED
Round and round he goes, when he’ll stop no one knows. If there was ever an author whose name has become synonymous in the visual novel medium with time-loops it’s Ryuukishi07. It’s featured as a staple in his When They Cry series, the epilogue he wrote for the remake of Kamaitachi no Yoru, and even though he only wrote the Lucia route in Rewrite, the game itself was a looping story. Needless to say, the man is experienced, and Loopers is not his or Key’s first time producing a story in this genre, yet both seem to have assumed the other party was bringing more to the table than what was actually presented.
Not quite a Nakige or horror game, Loopers fails to present the genre-defining elements, that made its creators so famous in their previous stories in any new or meaningful way. Starring a group of people that are impossible to think of as human beings, it is best to describe them as superficial anime characters (walking talking tropes). We have the muscle-loving character, the chuunibyou, the over passionate MC who brings people together through love, speeches of friendship and never giving up, etc… the characters presented don’t add any unique flavor to the already cliched story. None of the characters even have a story or arc; not even the main character is immune to this. Tyler goes through the story and ends it as he began, there is no narrative surrounding the character. Mia (the female love interest) is the only one that has any semblance of conflict going on in her life and as such is the only one giving the story any urgency. This is a huge step-back knowing that the author can and has done better. The main character’s hobby of geocaching feels so out of place in a story centered around time-loops, getting stuck, and loneliness. The game just throws a bunch of elements together hoping that something sticks. During development there was talk about putting a human finger in one of the treasures the cast would find, sadly that got scrapped because it doesn’t fit with Key’s image, and therein lies the main issue.
Ryuukishi is a horror author. Although not all his works belong to that genre, it is what he is known for. From titles such as Higurashi, Umineko, Iwaihime, Higanbana, Kaleidoscope, the list goes on. His writing style doesn’t fit Key’s image, so hiring an author and asking them to write in a way that censors what made them unique questions why they were brought on in the first place. He isn’t at his best and neither is Key, which is ironic because even if Rewrite was a Nakige, Lucia’s route still had horror elements. You could tell that it was written by him while still having the main game feel like a Key game. Loopers does nothing of the sort when it comes to its narrative. The horror elements are downgraded to a comedic degree with characters (notably Hilda) creating over-the-top drama just to add to the player’s already diminishing interest in the story. The only way this story screams Ryuukishi is in highlighting his faults as a writer, mainly his character writing. His penchant for having his characters speak as if they’re talking to the player rather than to each other or during their monologues is still a huge issue. They talk in terms of ideals and not in a way people would actually speak. He is also still writing as if he is a teacher and wants his audience to learn basic principles that he has already expounded to us enough times in previous works or we’ve experienced before in one of the myriad of anime that already preach them (friendship, never giving up, believing in yourself, etc…). He still has an issue with being subtle and doesn’t trust the audience enough to get the point if he doesn’t hammer it in. Key is also at fault for the same reasons their anime fail to hit as hard as their VNs
Key is a Nakige maker. All their games have included, to varying degrees, crying elements that drive their players to tears. It is their brand, and what differentiates them from other developers. They are also one of the top developers in the industry, so I am always expecting the best from them. They are accustomed to long stories that fully flesh out their characters. They know how to give their characters enough time to develop and tug at your heart strings. Yet here the same issues arise as those of their anime. There is simply no time to get invested. The game is too short to have any kind of effect. There are 8 main characters all of which only exist inside their respective clichés. What you see from them when they’re introduced is all you’ll ever need to know about them. There is not enough time to make me care about them and the story only ever tried to on a very basic and superficial level. Planetarian dodges this issue by only introducing 2 main characters for the whole story, and so does Harmonia with its 3. Loopers is too short for its cast, leaving them virtually pointless. The story is overly familiar and does nothing new with its narrative. People stuck in a time loop get out of it. It doesn’t go deeper than that.
If you ask me whether Loopers is a sci-fi or fantasy story, I wouldn’t be able to properly categorize it as either. The game doesn’t bother to explain the loop. It is presented as something that literally just happens. The phenomenon is linked to a fairy tale at the start of the game, but doesn’t follow on it except at the end when it brings it back up for the sake of resolving the narrative. But how? and why? The old soldiers that were trapped never mentioned anything about the fairy tale assuming it was the cause for their entrapment like Mia said. But what are the rules for trapping people and where it appears and disappears? The phenomenon is too arbitrary to take seriously. Whether you want to call it Key Magic or just a badly written McGuffin, it still comes off as lacking especially since old Key and Ryuukishi works put so much emphasis on loops and the how and why of them. Also when you introduce such a key plot point, the general assumption is that it will be tackled later. Not necessarily cleared, but at the very least dealt with.
On the other hand, the most striking thing about Loopers is the art and character design with Mia and Ritapon being standouts. The visuals have a very strong sense of style and so do the characters’ clothes. The sight of the clouds during a sunset drawn by Kei Mochizuki has a very soothing feel to it, and Leona’s jacket looks like it was caught in a freeze frame and could fall off at any minute. I would love to see more of their art-style in future Key games. The soundtrack is good, but not enough to call it a standout especially since even Key’s worst games have amazing OSTs.
Loopers is only one of 3 Kinetic Novels in development at Key while they slowly build up their next main bishoujo game, but I can only hope the other 2 (which are also being written by freelance authors) find a better balance between what an author is good at and what Key can do well. Key has high expectations to meet and so does Ryuukishi which is expected since both are masters of their craft. Loopers, though, doesn’t do anything especially well, and both parties can and SHOULD be doing better. This visual novel’s themes fell flat every time it tried to link its story back to geocaching.