MINORU'S BLOG

My face after finishing Alternative

Wow. That was my first reaction after finishing Muv-Luv Alternative, thus completing the Muv-Luv trilogy. I feel like I just experienced one of the most epic tale ever told in visual novel medium. Everything about Alternative was just exceptional. It really lives up to the expectations.

If you've never heard about the franchise, let me tell you briefly about it. The main story consists of three titles: Muv-Luv Extra, Muv-Luv Unlimited, and Muv-Luv Alternative. Extra narrates the life story of normal high school boy Takeru Shirogane. It's just a typical harem story full of its hijinks and cliches. His life turned 180 degree in Unlimited, after he somehow ended up in alternate world where there exist aliens called BETA which raped (har har!) the humanity so hard. For more info about these two titles read my Muv-Luv review.

It's safe to say that the purpose of Extra and Unlimited are just to set up the settings and characters for Alternative. The story of Alternative was built with Unlimited as its base. In Alternative, Takeru found out that he was thrown back to the beginning of Unlimited but he retained his memories of the events happened in Unlimited. He then tried to prevent what happened in the ending of Unlimited. But it was easier said than done.

The exact moment when everything just went tumbling down

The first half of Alternative was some sort of new game plus for Takeru as he was already familiar with all of the events plus he kept his trained body so he never got in the trouble again. The story almost same as the first half of Unlimited but with minor changes. At one point, the story changed into a new direction. New events kept coming and coming. And boy were they horribly depressing.

Yes, as expected, Muv-Luv Alternative has this depressing tone all over it. Well maybe it's not as grimdark as let's say Saya no Uta but it's still depressing nonetheless. While Extra is funny, Unlimited has heavier atmosphere but still lighthearted, Alternative has this sense of helplessness. You can't do anything with its story. You just keep watching horrible things happen and happen again but you can't stop it. For me most of this feeling came after experiencing the infamous PTSD arc.

The amount of mecha actions and battle scenes were satisfying. I once said that I was disappointed with the lack of real battle in Unlimited. Fortunately Alternative paid it off with its incredibly animated mecha battles.  Honestly I've never been a mecha fan in my life. But after playing Muv-Luv I can't deny that those TSF designs were sexy as hell. Especially the Takemikazuchis.

The soundtracks are superb. They're very high quality orchestra music. I still got a goosebump everytime I listen to the OST. Well I am listening to them as I type this and it makes me pumped up as hell. I love them especially the battle themes (there are bunch of them). Also, the OP was done by JAM Project and it's gar as hell. I never skipped the OP once in all my playtime.

"However, by that point you'll have been torn to pieces."

Well, before this post gets too long I'll let it finish with a word of encouragement for you to read Muv-Luv as soon as possible. Especially if you're a fan of science and giant robots. Honestly I'm not even a fan of both but I still enjoy it like a motherfucking ice cream on a hot summer day. I give Muv-Luv Alternative a perfect 10/10 for all the effort it gave to entertain me in the best possible way. Thank you age for this amazing visual novel and thank you Amaterasu for translating it. I'll never forget the experience of reading the Muv-Luv trilogy.

(Man, I don't know what the fuck I was writing. Please forgive me since I wrote this draft at 2 AM)