We will be reading at our own pace and posting in this thread whenever we want to talk about something related to this VN. We will finish by April 5, 2024 and start the third game then.
Please use spoiler tags for major events in the current chapter(s) and any content in future chapters.
When asking for help, do your best to provide context. Pasted text, screenshots, descriptions, etc. Unlike book clubs we can’t flip to relevant pages, so we may need a little help identifying exactly what is being discussed.
Feel totally at ease to ask questions or give your thoughts, any time! Clubs live and die by participation, and asking whatever question you have, no matter how silly it may seem, helps others who are reading it and even the answerer themselves.
Have fun, and do your best to interpret anything said with as much good faith as possible
Participants
I’m reading along
I have finished this part
I’m reading but will start later
I am still reading the series but haven’t reached this part yet
Yay finally! Game downloaded
I’ll be playing the Steam version (English text, Japanese audio), playing this episode for the first time. Will use the guide I think this time. See you soon for comments!
Yeah I definitely recommend a guide for this one since the routes are a little more complicated compared to Printemps. This game also requires you to do every route to unlock an extra with story essential info. I’m looking forward to seeing how everyone likes this one!
Also a reminder to everyone to check out the voice test lines before you start since they will change after you finish the game.
This time I will use the four seasons (e.g. console version) guide right from the start: 誠也の部屋【FLOWERS 四季 PS4版 Switch版 攻略】 Had a little trouble getting the 4-komas in the first game using the guide for the original version.
Recently, I’m hearing (Ayane Sakura (佐倉 綾音))[Ayane Sakura - IMDb] (the voice for Erika) all the time in anime. Very busy woman.
I finished reading through the prologue. Its pretty short but I’ll post my initial impressions.
Prologue thoughts
The first time I played ete I was pretty sad at the beginning because Suoh wasn’t the MC in this one. I like Erika too of course but Suoh will always be my favorite
The first CG in the game was very pretty as always. I think the art just keeps getting better as the series progresses. It is a real feels bad moment for Suoh though.
I also like how throughout the opening Erika comments on how beautiful Suoh is multiple times while she’s thinking. Its also one of the first things she thinks when she see’s the girl singing.
When I first read this, I wasn’t expecting their opening encounter to be so hostile. They just went at it with each other but it makes for a funny & interesting dynamic.
The OST in this one is really good too, I love the arrangements they did. I think the ete arrangement for the school theme might be my favorite one of the 4 seasons. Perfect summer vibes and the bell sound in it is really nice.
Almost feels weird reading this in the winter since its summer focused. I was very jealous of Erika complaining about the hot weather. I would love that right now instead of getting snow
What a surprise to start the story with Erika as the MC, wasn’t expecting it at all
Super nice to be playing a sequel, same environment but different story. Grateful that Erika recaps a bit what has happened previously.
Erika calls Suoh her “bookworm buddy”, how is that in the Japanese version?
Guessing that the books she has is “Shot in the Heart”? I haven’t heard about it before, just checked on Wikipedia.
Ouch, not a great start with the new girl! Interesting character for sure.
Yeah I thought about that when we were planning, especially since we read the episodes in 3 months, would have been fun to be synced with the actual weather, but that would mean wait 6 more months before playing so I didn’t want that!
They reference a lot of media (both jp and eng) that I never heard of before The fanbooks for each game has a page that lists all the quotes and what its from but since they didn’t directly quote the book I didn’t see it listed there. Shot in the Heart sounds like it’d be right though.
Question about the guides (the link in the main post and the one from @BobTheKanji are different but similar home page and list the same endings I believe), how are you supposed to read it? First the left column, top to bottom, then middle column, top to bottom, and last rightmost column? Or something different?
First the left column, top to bottom, then middle column, top to bottom, and last rightmost column
Yeah.
I always thought @AzusaChan s avatar was a different character from the same series named Azusa. But now looking at the avatar, it looks like Suoh. But with a hat I hadn’t seen in-game yet.
Yes, that is right. You get some freedom in the order you want to read the game if you don’t want to follow a guide but the true ending can’t be done first, it is locked until you do one of the normal endings first
Yeah it is Suoh. Its from her winter outfit. The name Azusa comes from K-on actually, I used to have an avatar of her a long time ago
I like the new OST so far. The season theme oddly reminds me of harvest moon/story of seasons. Although I think those games use different melodies for each season l, whereas in Flowers it’s all the same melodies so far, bit different instrumentation.
I really liked the accordion (?).
The peaceful ost (where spring was more energetic and joyful), the bells in the music and the red in the UI oddly all give me christmas/winter vibes, rather than summer. I associate yellow with summer.
After seeing Suoh be a hot mess in the first game, its fun to see how flustered Erika is herself in this one. Whenever Dahlia is around, she makes some great faces.
It seems a bit odd in the first game they talk a lot about 3-person amitié groups but they break that up here so Erika and Chidori can be together. Although with Mayuri gone, I guess no one in the main cast is in a 3-person group anymore. Her intro scene was nice, I thought it was funny to see how much Erika opposed it.
Dahlia showing Chidori how to help Erika was adorable too. I can’t even imagine how embarrassed I would feel as Erika in that situation.
The mystery in this one was good too. Erika playing “detective” with Dahlia made for some fun scenes. I always like when the Sasaki’s get involved too. They’re great comic relief
Outside of that, its hard to get a good feel on Chidori in this opening chapter I think. I don’t think she meant harm when she was asking about Mayuri but she really can’t read a room and know when to stop. At the end of the chapter she also still thought she did nothing wrong since Mayuri was “just” a classmate. I guess she doesn’t know their situation but from the reader’s perspective it hurts to hear that. On the flip side, it was nice to hear that she lied because she didn’t want to make Suoh sad.
It is funny how anytime someone brings up Suoh, they always mention her beauty so far
The reveal that Chidori isn’t actually pissed off all the time but just has bad eyesight was great too. They really loved using that 苛立つことに苛立っている目 line in this first chapter but I am guessing they will tone it down now after that. That line is perfect to describe her though
As always you are so fast
I only read 30min a day, to I have time to read other things in Japanese, since I play in English. I am only at choice #5. I am writing my thoughts as I go along, will post them at the end of the chapter and read your post then!
Feeling totally awkward when Sister Basquiat and her breasts are described :x I don’t think I would be able to see a teacher that way (granted, I never had a hot teacher (or maybe I never considered that a teacher could be hot, I mean, are they even normal humans? that is news to me))
Oh wow didn’t see it coming that the rabbits were going to be so important.
Tough mystery! I had no idea about the answers.
I liked the reveal in the chapel, a bit long but really effective. Nice touch about Chidori’s sight, didn’t see it coming (pun not intended).
The second part of the mystery was a bit easier to guess, the other choices didn’t really make sense.
A bit weird with Sister Basquiat and the teddy bears haha.
But nice that Erika and Chidori are now sharing 2 secrets (teddy bears and the rabbits), can see how that can make them get closer for the chapters to come! (well it’s my first time reading but all the pictures from the intro video give pretty big hints as to how it will end between the two)
The twins also had their Amitie partner quitting (“disappearing”) that was never replaced I believe
Finished chapter 2. It felt a lot shorter than ch1.
Chapter 2 thoughts
There were some fun scenes in this chapter and a lot of wordplay jokes this time around. I’m glad Yuzu and Neri had some scenes in this chapter. Although when Yuzu is around, things always get crazy. Also felt like there was a lot of food talk in this chapter which isn’t too interesting for me but Erika usually makes it more fun with her jokes.
Erika messing around with Rikka in some of the scenes was nice. Its funny how Erika likes to play around like that but she’s completely hopeless when Yuzu does it to her
The final scene in this chapter was the best part I think. Erika always acts like a tsundere and pretends she doesn’t care for anyone, but you can tell she really does value Suoh as a friend. Suoh can be too nice & passive at times so it was good that someone talked some sense into her. Good to see Suoh is finally going to take some action regarding the Mayuri situation.
Semi-unrelated but the texthook page I was using for the Flowers series went down the other day which sucks. I was able to replace it with a different page but lost all of the text from ch1 & Printemps. I usually like to keep the text for an entire series until the end so I can use it as a pseudo-backlog. There’s been a few times in other VNs where a character mentions something that I completely forgot so I just ctrl+f on the texthook page to get a quick refresher.
Oh no
I also like to save the text (when I play in Japanese), so I can also search inside of it for use of vocab and things like that. I’m always scared that it disappears so I keep a copy in a .txt file. Sorry that it’s happened to you!
The fanbooks for each game has a page that lists all the quotes and what its from but since they didn’t directly quote the book I didn’t see it listed there. Shot in the Heart sounds like it’d be right though.
it’s a bit hard to relate to her.
