VN Talk: Bad Apple Wars - Part 1: Overview

In which I talk (write) about visual novels from a storytelling perspective...

Platform: PS Vita
Release: 2017

Bad Apple Wars is one of several one-off otome titles Aksys translated in the wake of more popular franchises (or soon to be franchises) such as Hakuoki and Code:Realize. Since it never got a fandisc, I knew going in that it was probably one of Otomate's less popular offerings, but for those looking for something different, it's a ride worth checking out, particularly because it spends a lot of time reflecting on what makes a life worth living.

At the start of the game, Rinka is drowning in ennui as she heads for her first day of high school, wondering if this is all there is to her existence; going to school day in, day out just like she did in middle school. Unfortunately for her, she's hit by a truck on her way to school and dies, taking her to a high school afterlife called NEVAEH Academy (don't think too much about the name).

After a group of rebellious students crash the awkward opening ceremony for new students, it quickly becomes apparent that there are two types of students here; the good apples, who do everything the teachers say in order to graduate and be reborn, and the bad apples, who break the rules. The Bad Apples, capitalized, are a specific group of students who "live" to disrupt everything and seem to be seeking their own way out of their afterlife purgatory.

The first choice the player makes, even before the protagonist's name, is whether to be a good apple or a bad apple, and the game makes it pretty clear that the good apple side is creepy, even though it outwardly offers the only way to leave.

If you want to get to know the cast before you make a choice, you're pretty much out of luck, but at least the game lets you know which love interests are available to you on each side.

I just wish the two sides had been more visually/conceptually balanced so they would look equally appealing, since the Good Apple route features another new student (who is an obsessed bookworm that barely talks to Rinka), and the intimidating masked leader of the school's Prefects. The Bad Apple route features a (literally) more colorful trio of personalities and while Rinka doesn't yet know why they're rebelling or what they're fighting for, they at least look like they would be fun to hang out with.

If there had been a third option on the Good Apple side it would have made the two appear more even, especially if the third was a student whose position in the school was somewhere in between the new student and the Prefect, so there could have been something like a middle ground. It could have been interesting if Shikishima, who is a lower case bad apple who lives in the good apple dorm, was a Good Apple route option and perhaps a character like Naraka or Yoh (both non-romanceable) could have replaced him on the Bad Apple side. That would have given us an even three characters for each side.

Not knowing any of the love interests well enough to make a decision, I decided to RP the situation and decided that Rinka would try to fit in and learn more about the school before making any choices she'd regret, so she became a good apple for my first playthrough.

I think you can safely do the routes in any order, but I particularly liked bookending my playthrough with White Mask and Alma, so I'd recommend doing one of those first and the other last, with everyone else in the middle. That said, you'll learn more about how the Bad Apples operate, how Soul Totems work, and the different unbreakable rules through the Bad Apple common route. The unbreakable rules in particular are important since the Bad Apples believe that by breaking them they will acquire the Forbidden Apple, which will allow them to return to life.

The Bad Apple route also plays much more like a standard otome, where you get to know the general cast and everyone has a chance to shine. The difference is that route lock happens with the first choice in Chapter 2 (no matter if you're a good or bad apple), so even though you are getting to know everyone, Rinka's love interest is set ridiculously early and it's possible the player might not like their choice much by the time the story spins off to his specific ending.

On the other hand, I liked Rinka as a person and her character arc much better in the Good Apple route. She spends a fair to ridiculous amount of time berating herself and thinking about how empty she is on the Bad Apple route on account of the fact she never found anything to be passionate about in life.

While she does go with the flow initially on the Good Apple route, she doesn't have other people fighting the good fight around her. Rinka is forced to come to terms with what's important to her on her own, so when she finally does take a stand, it feels like a natural outgrowth of discovering the kind of person she really wants to be.

Rinka's odd way around the school's "limits" are also handled better on the Good Apple route. While the school has a certain number of written rules that students are not supposed to break, there are also limits which prevent certain actions from being performed. For instance, not being able to die is a limit, because everyone instantly heals from injuries. Not being able to leave the school is also a limit. But by fulfilling certain conditions, it is possible to surpass a limit.

Rinka breaks two limits in the Bad Apple route, and it's never explained why. While one of those limits (finding the key in the Reaper Game) is also broken in the Good Apple version, she's not hunting for the key as part of the Perfects, so the fact she finds it comes across more as lucky happenstance than the fact she is somehow special. The Vexam is more annoying on the Bad Apple route because she magically solves the exam everyone always struggles with without a problem, and though she feels guilty about it, it doesn't make the result more satisfying for her or the player. I much prefer the Good Apple route where the Bad Apples just flat out outsmart the test and the Prefects.

There's also one element of the shared story that I liked a lot better on the Good Apple route, and that's the handling of the Sanzu and Yoh subplot. Unlike most students at NEVAEH, they've known each other since middle school and arrived together, which also means that they died together. In life they were part of an indie band that decided to break up after their final concert, but their bus got into an accident on the way there, which resulted in Sanzu and Yoh arriving at NEVAEH. Worse, Yoh remembers in the moments before he died, Sanzu dove in front of him to try to protect him, and blames himself for her even being here.

The Bad Apple route never establishes why the band was breaking up, only that Sanzu found out about it early by overhearing the rest of the band talking about it. Though she and Yoh make up, it's not clear what happened in the first place.

On the Good Apple route, Yoh explains that Sanzu was given an offer for a recording contract due to her talent, but she turned it down to stay with the rest of the band. Sanzu found meaning in life through singing, but Yoh didn't see performing in his future, so he convinced the band that the best thing was for Sanzu to take the opportunity she was given and they were going to break up to free her. When she learns this, Sanzu calls him out for not considering her feelings on the matter, and he apologizes for not being able to tell her, but he also makes it clear that he never had any intention of abandoning her. Even if he never played beside her on stage again, he would always be with her in the audience.

As a result, Sanzu and Yoh getting back together for their final performance feels a lot better in the Good Apple route, because we know all the necessary parts of their story. White Mask's Good Apple route is also the highest stakes version of their final concert, with a battle breaking out on the roof between the Prefects and the Bad Apples just to give the duo a chance to perform, and the two band members are so in sync with each other that they're able to play as if there wasn't a fight raging around them. It's a beautiful scene that none of the other routes manage, even though they all feature the concert in some capacity.

For a while, I honestly thought no matter what happened, both Sanzu and Yoh were going experience it together (since I played White Mask's route first), so seeing them ripped apart by Sanzu's surprise graduation was a punch in the gut, and the game is uneven about handling Yoh in the aftermath. Since graduation is not getting expelled, that means Sanzu goes off to be reborn, leaving Yoh behind, knowing that he will never see her again. In his despair Yoh gives up on being a Bad Apple because there's no point to being expelled anymore if Sanzu won't be there with him.

Half the endings leave it unclear what happens to Yoh, whether he chooses to return to life without Sanzu, or go through with graduation (or if he's even at graduation at all), and that's too bad. Sanzu's graduation leaves a huge impact on all the Bad Apples, and none suffer for it as much as Yoh, but since he's a non-romanceable side character he's not always given the space to fully work through his grief.

While I'm on the subject of side characters, I'd also like to call attention to Naraka, who is a gender non-conforming boy. He identifies as male, but loves frills, lace, and cute things, so he always appears in a Gothic Lolita dress. Only one character ever dogs on him for it, but only once per playthrough (to bring up Naraka's gender in the first place) and it's done by Higa, the team grouch who complains about everybody. It probably could have been handled better, but it's pretty clear that while Higa doesn't understand it, he doesn't think less of Naraka for dressing that way, and on his own route it's clear that Higa knows when he's not being fair to Naraka and is trying to be better about it. (And Higa being from the 1950s, it's understandable that he's trying to adjust from an older, more traditional value set.)

Naraka arrived at NEVAEH presenting as a normal boy, but after he fell in with the Bad Apples he found he could be his true self and hang out with people where he wouldn't have to explain that this is the way he wants to be. This only really comes out in Higa's route, but I was really happy to have a character like Naraka in game and many times he serves as the player's best friend/cheerleader.

I've complained from time to time about route locks in more recent otome from Otomate like Code:Realize and Collar x Malice, where there's a love interest who can't be pursued until everyone else's routes are complete, and then his story becomes the true route that wraps up everyone else's.

Bad Apple Wars doesn't have that, and I'm incredibly relieved. In fact, there aren't any locked routes at all. Whoever's storyline you want to play through your first time around is open to you. It seems that if anyone would have been restricted it would've been White Mask, since his real name is unknown on most routes and he's a Prefect, but even he is available immediately, and as it turns out, he's the one I went with! White Mask's route is next week.