Posting here since the other thread reached the bump limit - thanks to the wiz >>32483 who recommended other denpage to me, in particular Kusarihime. I finally got around to reading it last night after taking a half-year long break from visual novels due to work, and I have to say it came pretty close to surpassing Sayonara wo Oshiete as my favorite visual novel.
The start of the game is mostly the typical small-town countryside Japanese town setting, with a few weird mythological elements thrown in. The protagonist has amnesia and returns to his hometown with his family in the hopes that it'll help him recall his past. The first few days mostly consist of some simple slice of life stuff and exposition, with introductions to a bunch of key characters. But a few weird occurrences tell you something is off. Then you're introduced to the time-loop system, where you have to keep restarting the game and reliving the same few days with some very vague and limited memory of the past loops. Each time things go a little differently, and as you progress more and more of the protagonist's dark past is revealed.
(spoilering my general thoughts since they spoil the remainder of the game)
The gradual revealing of the protagonist's past was done very well. Every so often you get a memory that comes up - sometimes with voice only, often just snippets of conversations - which hint at something darker and deeper. Then the game will eventually reveal the whole scene - sometimes only after you've gone through several time loops. There are also some scenes which come up after the reveal which has the protagonist and the other character involved in his memory going on separate monologues in their thoughts. It could've been really corny and hackneyed if executed poorly, but they did a brilliant job of placing these scenes in exactly the right place, and juxtaposed the thoughts of the protagonist and the other character involved so skillfully, that it really hit hard. The first of these scenes is with Ise, a classmate in college, and reveals the emotional turmoil as misunderstandings between the 2 cause them to go their separate ways without ever revealing their true feelings to each other. It's hard to describe without the full context - everything that comes before this scene really serves to strengthen its impact - but it's executed excellently and not in a poor way like many types of these situations are.Post too long. Click here to view the full text.