http://fuckyeahgakuenheaven.tumblr.com/post/183324363392/i-just-found-out-that-i-forgot-to-include-the
Ending list fixed.

Oh, forgot to talk about the patch [heaven.neo-romance.net] as well, which is very well done! A few typos and formatting errors, but that's to be expected in a game with this much content. Ending list not being translated is a little annoying, but there's lots of useful notes including a walkthrough with the ending names translated.

Disliked a couple of the translation choices. (Using "myself" for Chiba's "jibun" doesn't work to get the meaning across because it makes no grammatical sense in English. Translating "...っ" and the like as "*gasp*" looks kinda silly and made me laugh a few times at what should have been dramatic moments, but I honestly don't know what would be a better way to translate it.) But overall with my very limited Japanese knowledge, it seemed like a good translation.

General Thoughts (2/2):

Despite those issues, the character interactions are a lot of fun and the game has a lighthearted, fluffy atmosphere with mostly feel-good friends-to-lovers stories and few bad ends.

Biggest disappointment: that Yuki isn't asexual. I mean, his nickname is literally Ace and his first love is food, how is that not a setup for asexual memes. (I'm joking but, you know, still.)

Anyway, 4/5 would recommend. It's generic but executed well, and it's not the type of BL game that typically gets translated to English. I think it could find an audience on Steam if it got picked up for an official release.

If you want to import the game, you can find used copies on Surugaya [www.suruga-ya.jp] for about $20 and order it through Treasure Japan [treasure-japan.com] (another ~$30 in shipping and fees).

General Thoughts (1/2):

The setting is a typical all boys high school with some minor fantasy elements (or I guess magical realism would be a better description). The art and music is fine, but nothing particularly stands out as memorable.

Some neat extra features, including callbacks to the previous game (which isn't translated so not terribly useful, but still cool) and side stories.

The pacing is really off; some of the routes end just after the main conflict wraps up and some go on for an arbitrary amount of undated scenes, which can start to feel like Return of the King levels of epilogues. I think the writing would be stronger if they 1) spread out some of the central plot stuff among all the routes, rather than having five "main" routes and four "side" routes with some random other conflict, and 2) made the climaxes of each route line up better with the end of the Bell One.

Routes (3/3):

Yagami - Eeee the tsundere ^_^ Disconnected from the main plot, but it's a sweet friendship story that shows a different side of Yuki, and while romance doesn't play a big role, it feels like a natural development.

Secret Route - Mehhh. From a story standpoint, it's a nice epilogue; it's a fluffy, happy game and even the villains aren't bad people after all. I wish they had just kept it as a low-key friendship route, though, because the romance feels forced and switching to Sakaki's perspective, with his bland reactions and constant repetition that he's an adult and Yuki's a kid, rather than showing Yuki's perspective of a wide-eyed innocent crush, only emphasizes the skeeviness of the student/teacher relationship.

Routes (2/3):

Chiba - Took a joke character flaw (fear of cartoonish ghosts) and played it seriously for a story about fear of death stemming from childhood trauma. I liked how it ended up despite the plot holes.

Arata - Fucking traumatic adkfdjas. Feels out of place because it's disconnected from the main game in plot and tone, so it's hard to call it the "best" route in that context, but it dives deeply into issues of sexual trauma and being closeted to great emotional effect. Recommend using a walkthrough for his good end.

Tomo - He's so boring I kept forgetting he was even romanceable -_- His route's important plotwise, but the romance feels forced and he's still hella boring. Sorry, Tomo.

Routes (1/3):

Kuya - What a sweetheart. Yuki's more oblivious and less forward than in the other routes, but I think it makes sense with the dynamic between them. Wish his wasn't the only route to give closure to Hattori's story, though.

Takato - The most stereotypical seme of the bunch, ofc that means random rapiness, but at least there's not much of that in the game overall. His is the most romantic and explicitly sexual route, and I really like his character development in it, but the ending is so contrived it just about ruined the entire route for me.

Joker - Ridiculous even by the game's standards, but that fits his character so it's all good.

Sonoda - I liked this friendship ending more, as it emphasized the group friendship between the whole cast, but the romance was nice, too.