The Sound of Fireworks: The Haiku Review

A visual novel about love, acceptance, and friendship, players will get acquainted with the appropriately named Hanami with the release of thatdiesel’s The Sound of Fireworks: The Haiku. Does this title manage to make an impact, or does it fizzle out?

The Sound of Fireworks: The Haiku Review

Amimi Imai (or Hanabi to her friends and family) is going through a rough summer. Her parents are separated after her dad had some money issues, she’s got her life uprooted in a new town, and her friends are all far away. To make matters worse, the literature club she joined is forcing her to make a number of haikus and she doesn’t have a partner. What’s a girl to do?

Enter Uta Shibata, or Shibby to his friends. He’s going through a few things on his end, but he has an affinity for Hanabi from the get-go. Making some coy moves, the two end up being partners and wind up ringing in the school year together. It’s not without its hiccups, especially with Hanabi’s past, but players will be able to see how the two are able to adapt and grow together throughout this visual novel.

Sound familiar? The Sound of Fireworks: The Haiku sticks to the cliches of the genre – almost to a fault. Hanabi is deathly shy, Shibby is an aloof klutz, and the two end up bonding together through a number of wacky misunderstandings, late night texts, and other things.

It almost feels like the creators of this game played the visual novels that subverted the genre and made an impact, and then created a carbon copy, surface-level clone where they filled in the blanks. It proves to be wholly unoriginal and instantly forgettable.

The same goes with its overall design. For those who like making choices and seeing where the adventure takes them, they’ll be out of luck – The Sound of Fireworks: The Haiku only has one main route. One can just as easily get the same experience watching the game on YouTube as they would constantly clicking to get to the next main point.

There’s also a few bugs to speak of when it comes to The Sound of Fireworks: The Haiku’s design. There’s some substandard voice work to be found at select points of the game, but clicking too fast causes Hanabi and Shibby to speak over one another in what amounts to be a huge amount of discourse. There’s also no option to adjust the speed of the text, or do anything other than check the log, save or load.

Once players are done, there are some extra scenes that one can check out that provide more insight into its world. While these vignettes are nice, they’re still a bit on the short side.

If you’ve ever played a visual novel in your life, you’ll know exactly what to expect in The Sound of Fireworks: The Haiku. This title is a walking, talking cliche, cribbing notes from the best without doing anything unique.

This review of The Sound of Fireworks: The Haiku was done on the PC. The game was purchased digitally.

Posted
Aug 26, 2022 by
casey-scheld

in
Game Reviews

A visual novel about love, acceptance, and friendship, players will get acquainted with the appropriately named Hanami with the release of thatdiesel’s The Sound of Fireworks: The Haiku. Does this title manage to make an impact, or does it fizzle out?

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