Review: Pure X Connect

A charage with a great common route, but weaker every other route.

This article was originally written on 6/16/2015. May contain conceptual/structural spoilers.

Pure X Connect (PxC) is a charage which excels on the surface. First and foremost, it has a cast of warm, engaging characters. It has a protagonist who’s reliable, not generic, and interesting to root for. Oppositely, it has a cast of memorable, not-entirely-archetypal heroines (not to say that archetypes are necessarily bad — but originality done right is always likable). To top it off, the work had begun fantastically with excellent pacing. Thinking back, when I had begun my read of PxC, I had likened it to something “like an anime”  because of how well it succinctly executed its comedic scenes, and how immediately it managed to immerse the audience. While I typically prefer visual novels (as an overall medium) over anime, visual novels suffer in comparison when it comes to being consistently engaging to read. Indeed, because a visual novel tends to be that much more descriptive and ‘longer’ than anime traditionally is, the excess detail at times, cripples the overall immersion. So, when PxC, a charage with good characters and a fun protagonist, had managed to effectively conquer the medium’s inherent weakness, I had high hopes for the work.

Ultimately, my hopes were betrayed — but not quite in the way imagined. PxC’s greatest strength is its common route pacing & direction. This is something that I would find difficult to argue against. The events of the common route of the work was for the most part set at the upscale bakery & restaurant, Pivoine. Throughout the span of the common route (which I consider as ‘ending’ just before a heroine branch), all the heroines are given nearly ‘equal,’ and proper development, while the mood of the work (which I’d describe as a mix of comedic lightheartedness, with the occasional heartwarming undertone), was well-established. Granted that some charage seem to overtly favor a particular heroine (or set of), PxC, in developing all the characters to similar degrees of meaningfulness, had done something ‘right.’ Nonetheless, as much as the common route supported the work, it crippled it in the end.

As a result of the seemingly ‘well-focused’ common route of the work, the romance within PxC was developed rather weakly. Because all of the heroines are basically given the same screen time, and because the branching to the confession (for each respective heroine) occur in retrospect, rather suddenly, the romances don’t make a lot of sense. The game had allowed the player to choose the heroine who would ultimately confess to them by giving the player the option to text a particular heroine through the span of the common route. This type of strategy (as a branching mechanism) was ultimately ineffective due to two large reasons. One, the texts typically concerned very superficial, comedic-in-nature things, and were ‘structured’ in the sense that the texts for each heroine followed the same pattern (The player sends a total of five texts. The first three texts are comedic in nature. The fourth and fifth are too. But, the fourth text results in a follow-up call, and the fifth, a lengthier one). In a way, this structural similarity made the ‘branching effort’ seem entirely effortless (as it’s basically the same thing in five different colors). And two, the texts don’t seem to have a ‘real impact’ in the story of the work, as the events of the common route basically stay entirely unchanged (save for a few select, ‘cosmetic-in-nature’ lines).  So, we could interpret that the select heroine only fell in love with the protagonist because he sent them a few comedic texts (by this logic, then what would happen in a universe in which the protagonist simply held textual conversations with all five?). Needless to say, this type of tenuous logic doesn’t seem to be very meaningful.

Nonetheless, the work doesn’t suffer merely from poor branching. It suffers from its heroine routes themselves. While the work has a cast of affable heroines, their respective branched routes weren’t exactly well-written. While evidently, within each respective route, the relationship between the protagonist and the chosen heroine rose to a greater level of intimacy, their interactions still seemed greatly superficial (as their conversations were focused primarily on comedy). To add insult to injury, the heroine routes as a whole, lacked meaningful purpose (no overarching theme, or even motif). Indeed, the common route at the least, shared a ‘common purpose’ or setting at the restaurant and bakery, Pivoine, In contrast, within the respective heroine routes, the group interactions among the heroines not only diminished greatly, but their connection to Pivoine, while still intact, weakened greatly. In a way, it’s difficult to view the setting of the work (Pivoine) as being that meaningful (as it seems to have no purpose other than to provide a setting for the sake of it, and to perhaps justify dressing up the heroines in a cute uniform).  Further, the heroine routes all ended on ‘touching,’ but nearly random or inconsequential notes. Typically, heroine routes tend to have some type of ‘satisfying’ conclusion that follows some ‘light’ plot even if it’s rather innocuous (e.g. a heroine route in which the heroine and the protagonist make marginal references to baking, and the heroine decides to become a baker in the end). In PxC, the heroine routes felt like an ‘elongated’ common route (with comedy being the central focus). Some of the heroine ends were evidently more meaningful than the others, while some other heroine routes, seemed to end abruptly (as if having ended the work on a random, arbitrary day).

Consequently, as a result of this, while I liked the work superficially, it never really appealed to anything more than that. There weren’t a lot of meaningful connections developed. It was a charage done right in the sense of having presented likable characters, but it wasn’t a visual novel done well in the sense of developing anything meaningful or worthwhile (or ultimately memorable). Don’t get me wrong though — I thoroughly enjoyed some aspects of the work. I enjoyed the comedy, and as mentioned already, I did like the heroines. I enjoyed the first heroine route far more than the ones which followed (as at this point, nothing felt archetypal, it seemed novel). But in retrospect, as a whole, the work wasn’t really that memorable. It had an average soundtrack, whose memorability will derive more from the fact that its tracked played on loop (rather than any track being particularly meaningful). PxC has good art — but good art in itself isn’t that important. So all in all, it’s an enjoyable, but ultimately, not that memorable work.

mdz
I enjoy reflecting on works which I've read and sharing my thoughts on them.

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