Review/Reaction Posts for Psychdelica of the Black Butterfly

[alias_sqbr]

Here's a series of reaction posts I wrote about the game, and some content warnings.

It's a mystery/romance/drama by Otomate, creators of Hakuoki/Code Realise/Amnesia etc.

I still haven't finished it, I couldn't figure out how to get a good ending for the most recent route I played and was put off by the worry I'd never see a good end again. But I still really enjoyed a lot about it. It's a little more gothic character drama than romance, with one very long common route and shorter romances, many of which are bittersweet, as well as non-romantic endings focussing on the main character working through her issues. Some of the guys are very messed up and even their "best" endings are pretty sad.

The structure is pretty unique, and doesn't quite work: there's a map of scenes that gets unlocked as you play the game and make different choices, and you use this to make different choices and see side scenes. But the link between what choices you make and what scenes get unlocked is sometimes very opaque, even with a walkthrough. There's also a shooting minigame (!) but you can skip that pretty easily if you're clumsy like me.

Anyway, it's a well made game with engaging characters and affecting emotional scenes, and an enjoyable gothic atmosphere. The art and voice acting is good too. I'm glad I played it but it's not for everyone.

Comments

[chrry]

"the worry I'd never see a good end again" literally bought the game right after reading this 👀

"Some of the guys are very messed up and even their "best" endings are pretty sad" *my longest yeah boy ever*

what you mention about the structure reminds me of Kindred Spirits on the Roof, this one sounds more complex/complicated tho 🤔

[alias_sqbr]

Haha, fantastic, have fun :D

And yeah it is waaay more complex than Kindred Spirits. Like you can't screw up Kindred Spirits, the calendar just lets you slightly customise what order you watch the scenes in. But this has good/bad ends relying on your choices in a really opaque non-linear way I still don't quite get despite following a walkthrough. Which on the plus side, does work thematically with the heroine being an amnesiac in a confusing and scary situation.

[chrry]

Sounds very interesting, and atmospheric (?) I'm sure I'll need to check walkthroughs too but I can't wait to see the system for myself~ will try my best to play this month (๑•̀ㅂ•́)و

[alias_sqbr]

I'm curious to hear how you go! Good luck :)

[chrry]

I'm done~ and honestly I think the flowchart somehow manages to make everything look more complicated than it actually is 🤔 I'm not saying I get how everything works and how every single scene got unlocked, but after thinking about it, the structure doesn't really feel that different from other games, except for flowchart gimmick (which is interesting but also intimidating and overwhelming at first lol).

I mean, you choose a boy, and that unlocks scenes with that boy. When you read the scenes with that boy, you unlock the option to get his ending(s). In other games it happens automatically, and here you have to choose and unlock scenes manually, but that's it. It's true that some routes/endings have other specific requirements, but that also happens in other games, so idk

in the end I only needed a walkthrough for 2 of the endings after the epilogue (after looking at the choices I don't think these are exactly hard to get without one, but it can be confusing if you're not sure who you should be aiming for), and the happy ending (which wasn't hard to get, I just didn't realize it was there thanks to a bug in my flowchart lol)


which endings/routes are you missing? Karasuba and Monshiro?

(EDIT: btw I can finally read your posts now and they're so fun agfdsghds)

[alias_sqbr]

Oh, you hit a bug? How did it manifest? I followed a walkthrough but couldn't get Yamato's good ending to show up, maybe it was a bug, hmm!

I see your point about the flowchart. Maybe I am just easily confused by diagrams haha.

Glad you enjoyed my posts! I enjoyed yours too, it's inspired me to consider giving the game another go.

[chrry]

You know when you're reading the main story for the first time, at certain points it says you need to read x amount of side scenes to be able to continue, right? Well, after reading all the scenes I could (way more than I needed), chapter 4 still was still locked and I couldn't advance. And I had a similar issue with the summer camp thing. I technically had read the whole thing the first time, but in the flowchart it only got unlocked up to the 3rd part. The 4th part was still locked, and the 5th didn't even appear. I couldn't get the happy ending that way.

But your case... hm, guess it could be a bug too. From your posts I see you already cleared the Real World ending, so you should be able to get this one too. Maybe it's the walkthrough you're using? I used the one on steam to get that ending and had no issues.

Or maybe the issue is that you use your save files or the flowchart for this, and you actually have to start from the very beginning. Apparently this worked for another person who was struggling with the same ending, and now that I think about it that's how I did every play through.

either way, good luck! I hope you figure it out, and I hope you enjoy what's left of the story if you decide to pick the game up again <3

(I'm the same so I feel you hahah)

[alias_sqbr]

I hadn't tried starting again with a new file and just playing through, I'll give that a shot!