Dear Mom: My Letter to You

I love this game. It was a love from the first sight, but the longer I play, the more I like it. I survived through some serious sucky time and thought I had no one to talk to but family, I see the protagonist dealing with the same type of issues, and I feel like I really can relate. The narrative doesn't dance around some really difficult and downright traumatic topics - all the while staying overall gentle and reminding what beacons of hope the human connections could be when you're losing yourself in the sea of despair. The overall writing quality in my opinion is comparable to some famous titles; the graphics style is unique but pleasant; the voice acting is professional and on-point (and somehow reminds me of English dub of Persona 5 a lot, which is great). There are some slightly wonky character animations, but I can tell that even those are done with a lot of love and care. The music is quite good, though I am spoiled by Elements Garden and somewhat of a composer myself, so i...

This game is weird. I was thoroughly enjoying it until multiple hours in, when it decides to throw in possibly the worst and most careless depiction of sexual assault that I've experienced in a piece of media. Basically, 2/3rds of the way into the game, one of the main characters friends is drugged, with what is only described as an "aphrodisiac", and then proceeds to sexually assault the main character in a closet. Said friend gets expelled, and your task is to work on your stats so you can reconcile with her. The entire time I was extremely uncomfortable with the fact that my in-game goal was to basically make-up with the girl who just sexually assaulted me, and it's not until after doing so that you even find out she was drugged. This arc of the story kind of put me off of the entire experience. I don't really think I could recommend this game because of that alone. Sexual Assault is such a delicate topic, and to see it handled this poorly really made me lose faith in this games ...

This was a lovely experience! It's a very sweet and heartfelt VN with love and care oozing from every single facet of it, and it's very easy to recommend it! So, to briefly explain the story... Dear Mom is a VN/statsim hybrid which (funnily enough) reminds me first and foremost of the Persona series. Though there's no dungeon crawling here, it's structured somewhat similarly. In Dear Mom you assume the role of Ayame, whose mother has recently died. You experience one year of her life in high school, and the story is broken into four main chapters with story beats scattered across each chapter. In-between these story beats, which range from a light-hearted trip to the beach to more emotional scenes, such as your grandfather reminiscing with you about your newly deceased mother, you get periods of time where you can choose what you want to do. Ayame has four potential love interests (three of them are women) and five stats to build. Each love interest has their own isolated little min...

I think this visual novel is very worth giving a go for fans of slice of life with a bit of emotional exploration. The story is moving, and the themes were handled with sensitivity and care. I think the writer managed to make it quite believable in as much as the main character is clearly struggling and has personality flaws, but not so much so that she becomes intolerable. You end up rooting for her to succeed and develop; which is all in the end you can really want from a protagonist. The art of the characters I felt was competent, although not exactly stand out. The backgrounds though were really lovely and well made so thumbs up for those. As for the voice acting I think it ranged from enjoyable to a few voices that are actually a little painful to listen to, but I personally feel that might have been subjective taste. I cannot comment on the music since that is not something I personally pay too much attention to in visual novels. Unless, that is the music is absolutely...

Dear Mom: My Letter to You is a Visual Novel/Stat Raising Hybrid that follows the story of Ayame, a 17 year old who is recovering from a traumatic event that occurred 1 year ago from the start of the game. Throughout the game it is our job not only to follow her journey but to also hep Ayame grow to her full potential, which includes making new friends and mending burnt bridges. This game is set in her 2nd year and is divided into 5 chapters. Now again this game has stat raising gameplay. Ayame has 5 attributes she can increase throughout the game and they are increased through school stuff, hanging out with friends and also doing certain activities at home. Also there are no multiple routes and is mostly linear but there are checkpoints in the game where Ayame needs to have some attributes to a certain level to push through or suffer a 'bad end'. Furthermore some actions and some events with her friends/LIs require her attributes to be on a certain level as well for them to proceed....

I can definitely recommend this! The reader should definitely take the content warnings seriously. The whole game is about healing from the trauma of CONTENT WARNING including multiple nightmares about them. At the same time, it really is a life-affirming game. The protagonist has serious flaws and her past actions have caused real hurt, some of which can never be reversed. But she, with the player's help, becomes a better and better version of herself over the game, able to do a lot of good, too. Is the story perfect? Probably not, but I cried a lot in the final chapter and epilogue and wanted to become a better person in my real life from reading this VN. The writing is strong overall, and the VN is a complete package: strong art, music, some animations, many hours of game play (my play through was 16 hours), and even a stats building component with interactive maps. The stats building was pretty forgiving where regular play can get you what you need before it's important. There wa...

Dear Mom may be a game that's easy to overlook and dismiss based on it's cover and premise, but underneath the rough edges lies a hidden gem and a heartfelt experience that will make you laugh, make you cry and surprise you in many ways. Visual Novels have always been a niche genre that's been hard to pick up, but even from within the classics that everyone knows and loves, without external recommendation - every title feels like a risk to try. In that sense, Dear Mom is no different. It is a loving homage to all the classic Japanese romance games that I used to play, and I could feel the passion and enthusiasm bursting from within. The stats building made me feel like I was always progressing and that my choices felt impactful. The background locations and the visual effects always made me feel immersed. All the characters are brimming with personality, yet have more dimension and depth to them than initially expected. All the character arcs feel real and human, relatable. It all wr...

Great game, has a beautiful message and it's really fun. I like the characters, each one has a different personality and interesting story line. I also like the stats bilding mechanic.

even with the abyss is inside you, there is always redemption that crawls out to the light i've been following this for a long time thanks to the VAs retweeting it and oh boy its been worth the wait! a great story with superb voice acting along with it too, gotta love these indie VNs its nice