Free visual novel for Windows
Butterfly Soup 2 is a free visual novel for Windows by Brianna Lei involving Asian-American baseball-playing teenagers. It’s a sequel to Butterfly Soup and is set in 2009’s San Francisco.
Interactions in this game are similar to others in the genre, like NEET Girl Date Night or
ERROR143. You watch the story unfold and interact with the different characters making decisions that will affect the unfolding of events. In essence, it’s a romantic story, and uses its central theme (gay romance) in a non-conflicting way which can be appreciated by anyone, no matter their background.
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A coming-of-age story with some deviations
There are many teenage love stories, but Butterfly Soup 2 manages to be a distinctive one. It recreates elements from 2009 and San Francisco faithfully, giving it plenty of realism. Aside from that, the characters’ love for sports is nicely depicted.
There are also references to controversial topics, but always tactfully, and without making an issue out of them. However, sometimes characters feel a bit unrealistic, with sudden changes in behaviour or motive.
Simple but polished gameplay
Being a visual novel, Butterfly Soup 2 doesn’t have much going on in terms of gameplay elements. You stick to making different choices via dialogue, which will impact the story somehow.
The graphics are beautiful and show a special take on anime characters, while the music and effects do their job well. Music is upbeat, according to the sports setting, and effects are minimalistic but serviceable. Unfortunately, it doesn’t have voice dialogue, which would make the 2-4 hours of gameplay a lot more unique.
A good sequel
Butterfly Soup was received so well that it got this sequel. However, the game works fine as a stand-alone, so you don’t need to play the original to follow the events on Butterfly Soup 2.
It offers a decent amount of content and length, and even with some questionable character development, it’s still entertaining.
That said, it’s unfortunate that everything leads to the same critical points and ending. It makes your choices redundant and makes you wonder if it wouldn’t be better if there were no interactivity. It also makes it a very likely one-time experience.
