Hourglass of Summer (Ai’s Route)

And here we are once again with another Hourglass of Summer route. Since there are 5, if this were a week it would be Thursday! Oh wait..I hate Thursdays. Damn it. Oh well.

So for those of who who haven’t read my THREE other posts on this game, long story short. You’re a guy named Kotaro in high school. You have a crush on a girl named Kaho. You’re coming home one day from school on a random day in July. You get covered in  a weird powder. You wake up September 1st, you find out that you had been in a relationship with Kaho and she died the day before. You pass out, and you begin traveling through time in that 2 month time span trying to stop her from dying.

That’s pretty much the long and short of it. But where does Ai fit in? Well if you’ll wait a minute I’ll tell you! All right. Here we go. Ai is your next door neighbor. She, you and Takeshi (the only other male student basically in the game) are best friends. You  have been forever. And of course, she has the world’s biggest crush on you. But because this is  a dating sim, you have absolutely no idea. Because you’re a derp.

Because you’re an idiot, since you have a crush on Kaho, you ask Ai for tips on how to woo her. And begrudgingly, Ai helps you out.

Once all the crazy time travel stuff happens, you begin hopping around trying to save Kaho. Unfortunately, Ai’s dad, who runs the fish store next door, collapses from overwork, and Ai starts living with you while he’s in the hospital.

Ai then takes it upon herself to become your personal alarm clock and wake you up every day…..with a pillow

While jumping around, Ai  begins to notice that you’re a bit odd as you’re different than the other days. Despite her being a total space case, she’s pretty much the only one out of the three student options to realize you’re not yourself when you time jump. So, Kudos on that.

Along the way events happen such as going to a festival, her cooking him dinner, all sorts of stuff that if you were a normal person you would get the feeling she was totally into you.

In my first post I mentioned how there is two routes that make me feel really sad when you picked either one of them, and Ai is one of the two. Basically throughout the game, Ai and Kaho travel along a very similar path. Until you get a bit towards the end when you have to decide who you take with you to the festival. If you pick Ai, Kaho gets disappointed and vice versa .You can actually feel the pain in their voice. It’s kind of sad.

Regardless, you actually try to explain to Ai about your time traveling. She doesn’t really understand all that well, but she believes you in a heartbeat. When you save Kaho, you wake up in the nurse’s bed on September 1st, and Ai asks if it’s really you, and you tell her it is, and the game ends with her hugging you.

However, there is ONE little additional thing i forgot to mention. there is indeed an epilogue. Fast forward a few years, and you see that you actually married Ai and you and her run the fish store, as happy as happy could be.

There is only one word for Ai, and that is adorable. She is clumsy, naive, and a little slow, but she has the most wonderful, accepting, loving hearts of anyone in the game. She always believes in you, never doubts you, and truly does love you with all her heart…..And she has a snaggletooth. What’s that? What does that have to do with ANYTHING? It looks like it’s time for another…….CLASSS WITHHHH HHIDEKKKKII!!!

Short class today. That is all. CLASS DISMISSED!

Ai tries to show herself off as a strong girl. Even though she may be clumsy and naive, she always puts on a smile and a brave face no matter what. Even when her father ends up hospitalized she does her best to keep a strong face. Finally though, when she goes into her empty house to get something and finds herself in the dark alone, she finally breaks down and shows you the scared girl underneath the smile. And it wrenches at your heartstrings.

She really is a wonderful character and it is a wonderful route. The only issue I could possibly have with this route is that it’s so closely linked to Kaho’s that whether you pick Kaho or Ai, one of them gets hurt. However, it IS heavily implied that if you don’t choose Ai, she ends with Takeshi as he loves her but never said anything because she was so obviously in love with YOU. Well…obvious to anyone that’s not a dating sim protagonist.

Still, besides that one little thing, i LOVE this route. It is second only to Mana’s. I would recommend if you only wanted to do 2 of the routes, do Mana’s and this one. You seriously wish you could reach into your television and just squeeze Ai in a loving embrace. It’s actually hard to pick another route because Ai is so adorable. You can tell that this game wanted you to be with Kaho, but if there was a silver medal, this is the route the writers would have given it to. It’s just about as well developed, and it’s amazing.

All in all, Ai’s route gets a 9/10.

 

um…I wasn’t sure how to end this review so um……..here’s Ai in a maid outfit.

 

And that’s as close to hentai as i’m going to give you for this. Because i’m an evil bastard.