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A girl, an unmarked letter, and a dark secret eating away at seven hearts; the mystery at the core of Root Letter, the latest visual novel from Kadokawa Games, is a gripping one. Takayuki, a 30-something Japanese man, waxes nostalgic about a pen pal named Aya Fumino he lost touch with fifteen years ago.
While sifting through the stack of letters she once sent him, he uncovers one— mysteriously unopened—in which Aya confesses to killing someone and announces her intent to disappear. Takayuki, his curiosity piqued, travels to Aya’s hometown to question her former friends and find out what happened to her so many years ago.I was immediately intrigued by Root Letter‘s narrative hook, but even more interested in its setting: the game takes place in the beautiful Shimane prefecture, across the real-life cities of Izumo and Matsue. I had the pleasure of staying in Izumo for a week during my transformative excursion to Japan two summers ago, making the game a surreal nostalgia trip for me. All of the places Takayuki visits in Root Letter are modeled after real locations; I have a picture of myself standing in front of that lines up so perfectly with its in-game depiction that it’s almost eerie. And while my experience with Shimane certainly elevated my appreciation for Root Letter‘s nature-rich locales, anyone should be able to appreciate their gentle, rustic beauty.Over the course of Root Letter‘s ten chapters, Takayuki pieces together the information he gleans from Aya’s letters to find her former classmates, all of whom are still living in Shimane.
Skip navigation Sign in. This is a wiki for the Visual Novel/ Adventure game; √Letter (Root Letter), published. New page: Shoko Manabe is Riho's manager in the upcoming Root Film.
Each of these classmates, in turn, reveals a little bit more about the circumstances surrounding Aya’s mysterious disappearance. Who did she kill? Was she even who she said she was? Could there have never been an Aya in the first place?
These questions propel the mystery forward until the player reaches one of five endings, though not all are conclusive. The trouble with Root Letter begins here: a visual novel lives or dies by its writing, and Root Letter has a terminal case of inelegance. Its prose lacks finesse, wildly see-sawing between serious and comedic, with irrational characters that spout absurd dialogue.Takayuki’s drive to discover Aya’s whereabouts borders on obsessive, yet he is wholly without motive aside from idle curiosity. He refers to characters using Aya’s nicknames for them, which range from “Monkey” and “Shorty” to the bizarrely crude “Bitch,” a name he humourlessly throws about with wild abandon.
“You’re that chatty Bitch, aren’t you?” he asks a middle-aged single mother, and yet she seems relatively unfazed by his accusation. Takayuki himself is something of a jerk, regularly harassing bystanders for information and repeatedly visiting Aya’s friends at work, even after they’ve repeatedly told him to buzz off. There’s a certain appeal to having an abrasive main character, but Takayuki has little personality aside from his dedication to finding Aya, making him difficult to sympathize with.The game’s strange writing is compounded by its core mechanics. Root Letter aims to be more than a straightforward visual novel by introducing investigation elements in the vein of Takayuki can check objects in the environment, refer to his guidebook, and present items to coax information out of people. The problem is that there is exactly one way to proceed in any context, period. The story only diverges during the final two chapters, which differ depending on a series of clearly defined choices throughout the game that are easy to manipulate. The investigation phases ultimately become exercises in trial and error, and unlike Ace Attorney, there’s little deduction required on the player’s part—sometimes it’s a matter of selecting every seemingly-unrelated dialogue option until the game decides to progress.It’s a shame that Root Letter has such abysmal writing, because there truly are some fascinating plot threads to unravel throughout this brief journey.
It nails the “visual” part of “visual novel,” showcasing nature’s abundant bounty in a little-known slice of the Japanese countryside. Meanwhile, its soundtrack boasts a handful of stunningly beautiful melodies, but they repeat far too often, further lessening the impact of climactic events. The game feels decidedly out of balance, its compelling premise at odds with a wildly uneven presentation. There’s a great story buried somewhere within Root Letter, but it simply can’t find the right words to tell it.
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VisualNovel/RootLetter
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Guess no one wants to see the truth.
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Root Letter (stylized as √Letter) revolves around the mystery of Aya Fumino, your old high school penpal who went missing 15 years ago. On receiving her final letter 15 years late, in which she confesses to a murder, you set off to Shimane Prefecture to unravel the mystery of what happened to her. Reminiscing through previous letters from Aya, you must piece together the truth, alongside the testimonies from seven witnesses who knew her. Did she really murder someone, was she telling the truth in her letters – was she even real?
Root Letter was released in 2016 for Playstation Vita and Playstation 4 with additional releases on the PC and on the iOS and Android smartphone, developed by Kadokawa Games and published by PQube for North American and European Audiences. This is the first game for KG's planned 'Mystery Adventure Game' series, with RL being first in line. What makes this unique is that it's one of the few Japanese-made VN games that reflects on places outside of Tokyo, especially Matsue since it's the hometown of KG's president Yoshimi Yasuda.
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An unknown live-action project based on the game is scheduled to be produced by Perfect World Pictures. On August 2018, Yasuda announced that two games are in in progress, named Root Letter: Last Answer and Root Film.
![Root Root](http://img1.ak.crunchyroll.com/i/spire2/0c0ef384eb0002678c9fd49e5a0aabfc1503686896_full.jpg)
Last Answer is an expansion to Root Letter, using live-action scenes, actors and visuals as an option while having scenes that further explain the endings, released in Japan in December 2018 and worldwide in 2019.note
Root Film will serve as the game's sequel, still set in Shimane Prefecture with a 2020 worldwide release for the Playstation 4 and the Nintendo Switch.
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Tropes presented by Root Letter:,
![Root Letter Movie Root Letter Movie](/uploads/1/2/5/8/125848407/261652007.jpg)
- Bad Ending: Three out of the five endings can definitively count as bad with the protagonist dying in one, being institutionalized in another, and tormented by Aya's ghost in the third. The fourth is a Bittersweet Ending at best, in which Max just misses his pen pal by one day and then moves on without ever meeting her.
- Bittersweek Ending: The epilogue of the 'Princess of Himegamori Forest' route, it's one of the few ending where Max Gets The Girl, but the girl in question had tormented and even murdered her friends for revenge.
- A Day in the Limelight: Chapters 2 through 8 all focus on one each of Aya's seven friends from high school.
- Dead All Along/Dead Person Impersonation: The real Aya Fumino died 25 years prior to the story, and it's revealed that a girl named Shiori Yoshioka was posing as Aya.
- Everyone Dies: In the 'Cursed Letter' ending.
- Evil Old Folks: Dr. Fumino, in some endings.
- For Want of a Nail: If the group of friends hadn't randomly stopped at Dr. Fumino's house that one rainy day, it's likely the events of the game would've never came to pass and things would've turned out very differently for everyone.
- Happy Ending Override: Averted in the 'Government Plot' epilogue, the initial ending has Max institutionalized while everybody else being captured or in the plot, the epilogue ends with Max & his friends recovered their memories and become heroes.
- Happily Ever After: Shiori and the protagonist in the Golden Ending.
- Hidden in Plain Sight: Shiori, the 'real' Aya Fumino, can be clearly seen in many promotional materials, such as the cover art for the game and the image used for this page.
- It's All My Fault: In the Golden Ending route, everyone feels responsible for the fire that killed Yoko Fumino. Dr. Fumino assures them it was an accident and no one was at fault.
- Local Hangout: Kaminari-An becomes Takayuki's main hangout to eat at while in town.
- The Men in Black: In the “A Government Plot” path, they pop up to track Max and the friends.
- Monochrome Past: The flashbacks are mostly portrayed in a sepia tone.
- Multiple Endings: There are five in total.
- My Sibling Will Live Through Me: In the 'Princess of Himegamori Forest' route, Aya and Shiori are siblings who were separated shortly after Shiori's birth; Aya's personality eventually completely takes over Shiori's.
- Never My Fault: The position a lot of the characters take when talking about how their friendship ended with Shiori, leading the protagonist to call them all terrible.
- Only Known by Their Nickname: Aya's letters have her call her friends by the nickname she identifies them as. It's up to the PC to find out who in town matched those names.
- Posthumous Character: The real Aya doesn't actually make an appearance in any of the routes except through flashbacks, and has truly been dead for 25 years.
- Ridiculously Cute Critter: Shimanekko, who's also the real life mascot of Shimane Prefecture.
- Scenery Porn: All of Matsue. The prefectural government worked together with the game staff to ensure that it gets accurately represented.
- Seven Deadly Sins: The friends in the “Princess of Himegamori Forest” path get described as Four-Eyes' Greed, Bitch's Envy, Fatty's Gluttony, Snappy's Wrath, Monkey's Pride, Shorty's Sloth and Bestie's Lust. Max gets an eighth sin added in Frivolity.
- Story Branching: Though certain key plot points remain the same across all routes, Aya/Shiori's personality and role can vary wildly depending on the route. One route, for example, has Shiori being an alien and Dr. Fumino being a UFO researcher (along with the two soba restaurant employees).
- Shown Their Work: Matsue is entirely depicted accurately in the game.
- True Ending: As is common with many visual novels, requires at least one playthrough to be unlocked.
- We Used to Be Friends: Basically the whole premise of the game - Shiori and the gang were once a very close knit group, but they were driven apart by their jealousy and paranoia.
- Wham Line: From Dr. Fumino in the Golden Ending route when he says he doesn't have Shiori's contact information but knows where she is.Dr. Fumino:She's right behind you.
- 'Where Are They Now?' Epilogue: The end credits for the Golden Ending show a character montage of what the seven friends all accomplished after the events of the game.
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