East Tower - Kurenai (East Tower Series Vol. 4)

Easily the best of the series (though that's not much of a compliment). It's actually quite decent. Kurenai and Hisui are both cool characters, and the plot is rounded up very neatly.
That said, there's not much point in playing this before the first three volumes and I can't bring myself to recommend playing the first three volumes.

A memory is a beautiful thing, it's almost a desire that you miss. - Gustave Flaubert

Well, here be the last part of the East Tower series, hailing from RoseVerte's collection. It sure is not among the best in their catalogue with questionable art choices and some blatant weeaboo humor, yet still the long wait in the series' completion delivers justly with a wonderful plot twist. We have waited so long for the revelation of our hacker, right? Well, allow me to say that none of us guessed this one correctly - and there were a lot more at stake on this game than we were aware of to begin with.

Well, about the storyline, I'll try my best not the spoil things for the reader, yet I have to warn you priorly. East Tower - Kurenai is the last part of the series, and it is mandatory to play this one, the last. The first game, Akio introduces us to the concept of the VR game and our participants; the second game, Takashi reveals some elements about the past of our protagonist; and the third game, Kuon simply nudges our attention deeper towards the unspoken mysteries of this VR game. This game is where all our prior questions will be answered, and presumable odd repetition of the prior events will be explained. Apparently, our protagonist did indeed participate the game three times, yet she remembers a singular one; and in this last game, it is not even Sakuya that participates alongside Kurenai... Oh, I already said too much. Give it a chance, and all will be revealed.

Paying closer attention to the character of our chosen beau, Kurenai is a sly arsehole to say the least. He is pretty, flamboyant, witty and deliberately cruel on all manners of social interactions. You know the type that you'd love to hate, yet end as hating to love? He is that kind. With his identity explained at the finale of the series, even his character shines under a different light - that is a feat masterfully handled by RoseVerte. Kurenai is different compared to all others, as we may have noticed priorly. This time, we will end up being paired with him, even though such wasn't our choice. Did the hacker succeed in this timeline? Well, you see, Kurenai has a mission to pursue in this odd Dream World - one he'll see through, even if that would be the last thing he'd do.

As you may have noticed, the gameplay takes a different direction in each game, and it has been the hardest for this final one. Our challenges do contain some mini games this time, which would require your attention to detail and even skills on time management. As the game comes to an end, an opportunity for the truth emerges. This is also the longest game in the series, containing both an outlay of the game in the VR world, your usual character interaction process and the end-game revelations that would require some in-depth story elements to be analyzed. It would take one A rated and three S rated playthroughs to see all endings - considering aggressive/passive answer scale presents different outcomes for the nature of the relationship, giving you a total of 6-7 hours of playtime - and also relevant achievements.

Could I recommend this one, knowing that it lacks a lot in display quality? I surely can, considering its story elements and character progression is handled wonderfully. If you are patient in your discovery, series do deliver by the end. If this is the worst title in RoseVerte's catalogue, I can wholeheartedly congratulate the developer. Wonderful work indeed!

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It's a great finale to the series. Extremely satisfying. Has mini games too which are fun and have easier difficulties for people who are interested in the story primarily. It was really good. It's also longer which is great.

The story is really unique and interesting - otome games don't usually have such a strong story. I loved it. I haven't even finished all the endings or paths but I'm excited to finish it.

Great game!

All of roseverte games are the best!

Omg where do I start?

I really love this series and definitely recommend it. It's much more than your basic dating/romance VN.
The final instalment is my absolute favourite. It really rounds off the entire experience with a nice big kick.
There's white a few twists, some you begin figuring out and some that might surprise you.
This instalment not only plays with gender identity and roles but also the concept of self identity. It doesn't do it in a hamfisted way that is spoon fed to you, but it reminds me of Serial Experiments Lain in how the concept of your online self may or may not be considered the full you. It's done in a different way but that's all I'll say.

I personally head canon the main character as a non-binary person, although the dev's indicate this wasn't the intention. But by cautiously playing with gender identity and it's place in romance really is a nice thing to see done well (and without crapping on us trans folk).
You do best to play the entire series really to get the most out of it, as the last one in the series really just goes over and above expectations.

The replay value of this instalment is AMAZINGLY big, I got about 4x the amount of play time out of this one, even with the skip function being used! There's multiple endings, between good and bad, and between how aggressive or passively you play your character. There are polyamorous endings, and singular/monogamous endings to be had.
Every play through will let you see a slight different facet of your characters.

The entire thing is hugely charming and I just feel so happy playing it through so many times.

This is a series with so much love and thought evident. I usually pick games for how pretty they like in part, this art style isn't quite my preference but I'm glad I found it and played it through as it's an absolute gem!
Thank you so much devs~
(Oh also the Devs are really good at getting back to you if you're having issues with the games!)

The aggressive male route was the best one, but the passive male was cute too.
I really recomend this game, but before you play this one check out the other ones too, they were really good.

I loved East Tower - Kurenai. I have a weakness for red-heads. This story is fun and engaging. I stll haven't got 100% on the achiements.
11/10

These "Tower" games were my first roseVeRte games and inspired me to buy more.
Great game series.

Real fun game with multiple endings to discover

So... This is the last edition of the East Tower saga.

There are a lot of endings. One bad, one neutral, two harems, two male, two female. Half of the pairs are aggressive, the other passive. You will also (based on an animal pick) find out how the relationships from the other game panned out.

It is the most extensive of the games, provides a lot of info missing from the others, and... well, wraps up on a sort-of good note...

Also, my suggestion would be to buy the East Tower Complete Edition. Especially as the last volume is almost three quarters of the price of the bundle...

Okay, let's be realistic here. Is ET-Kurenai the BEST Otome vn I have EVER played? No, it is not. Would I still recommend others play it? Yes, 100%.

Pros:
+Multi-play Justification: I LOVE it when a VN gives you an in-game reason why the protagonist lives through the adventure repeatedly. I feel like it wraps the game up in a nice bow, and grants a feeling of completion to a story that has more complexity and depth. Knowing that the protagonist DID pick all of the possible male counterparts is meta, and gives the stories more of an arch feel, threading all of them into one adventure instead of 4 stand-alones.

+Story: Is good. Not great, but fun enough that my giggling made my husband sigh at me a time or two. Or three.

+Voice Acting: I don't speak Japanese, but I can understand the emote.

+Enjoyable characters: These are not simple stereotypes, they are at least passably faceted., and Kurenai himself is both well-written and complicated.

+Twist: This retelling of East Tower has a pretzel in the middle I did not see coming, and that I found to be very enjoyable.

+Aggressive/Passive Points: This is a new feature added in Kurenai, granting the player a new level of agency. To simplify: choices now have a stat gain in either Passive or aggressive meter, and those meters determine dialoged, CGs, and endings that you will see. It's not a HUGE deal, but it is a nice addition I don't think I have seen before.

Cons:
-Art: The watercolor art has gotten better in each play through, but it is still B quality. I am, however, looking forward to more from this artist, as I can see clear growth, and I expect them to get better and better!

-Sound effects: The effects are VERY limited beyond the voice acting, and the 7,000th time you hear the raspy "touching" sound effect your ears will bleed a little.

Overall:
I recommend buying the whole East Tower set, when it goes on sale. They are short (some of them VERY short) sweet stories that I had a lot of fun playing through. If VN novels were candy then this set is the plain chocolate Hersey Bar of the lot; nothing super-amazing-life-changing, but still totally worth the time.

This review covers all 4 of the East Tower games in one. Simply put, the game isn't very good. The art has occasional good moments but most of it is pretty bad. The story is set up in such a way that it could lend itself to an interesting discussion of gender identity and digital sexuality but it instead chooses to do cliché "oops, I tripped and grabbed your boob" moments. There are dialog options but the game is still very linear; you either die instantly, find a solution, or pick a solution that gives you a bit of extra dialog.

I would not recommend any of these games except for Kurenai (which was admittedly pretty good). However, there are parts of the Kurenai story that won't make any sense without playing at least a bit of the other ones.

The game is also way too expensive. I bought them all as a set with 40% off ($18 total) and I feel ripped-off. There are much better VNs available for much less. Takashi, Kuon, and Akio were each only about 1.5 hours of play time, which is not a great value.

Finally, every time you finish a section (and there are at least 7 sections per game) the game tries to get you to post to social media. That really pisses me off. It takes me out of the moment to try to get me to advertise for a game that I paid for. Dear game devs, please don't do that!

I just could not get into this story. It is unique and a different concept, but it was just a drag to read. Perhaps if there were more lead in thorugh the other parts I could have gotten more interested.

The final chapter really surprised me! The story is more complex than the other chapters, and at least to me, I found amusing the fact that you can play the game several times, and there’s still something to discover.

Really liked the multiple endings, and the passive and aggressive thingy. Kurenai is also adorable, haha.

10/10!

This is absolutely worth it, so long as you play the 4 games in order.

The East Tower series is a set of otome visual novels that are different than your standard Japanese otome game. If this review peaks your interest, I would recommend buying the whole bundle as it is cheaper than buying each one individually. ~As a side note there are shounen ai endings for those interested. Only in ET Kurenai though...~

I was surprised at how much I ended up liking game. I think a lot of that has to do as a Otome game addict I was getting a little burnt out on the mobile games. (When I say burnt out, I think I have played the main story line of more than 80 characters on mobile otome games.)East Tower Kurenai is the final installment the series. The order which the game is recommended is Akio, Takashi, Kuon then Kurenai. I would say don't play ET Kurenai first but it wouldn't be too bad if you at least play one of the other characters first to get an introduction to the story first. I would recommend this game even to just VN fans (not necessarily otome fans) because it explores interesting themes and has a great overarching plot.

The story is what got me hooked on this game, I love a different story than your more standard otome game as I feel that there is a good underlying story that nicely ties up at the end. I especially like how this game explores gender related sexuality in a very interesting way and ET Kurenai has the strongest of this theme out of all of the East Tower games. Gender fluidity is something much different to be explored in a VN/Otome game, especially for a Japanese market. Also I really liked how the whole past and ground work for the East Tower is finally revealed.

The voice acting is very nice for an indie game. I liked some of the unique voices in the game (Daiki specifically). I wouldn't say that there is any blaring miscasts in the voice acting. Of course this being an indie game, there aren't the big shot seiyuus (voice actors) to really make the voice acting really shine.

The art has for ET Kurenai has improved over the series of games. I was not big on the art style that ET has, but I grew attached to the characters anyway. I would say the thing that bothers me the most is the roundness of the faces, especially the young versions of the characters. I think of all the VN/Otome games ET has to take the cake on roundness of faces. Of course everyone has the same standing poses but I'm more referring to the CGs. Even though there are a lot of slight variation changes for CGs to bring the count up over a hundred, there still is a lot of CGs for an indie game. In fact it has a lot more than a standard mobile otome game. The new backgrounds in ET Kurenai has improved as well from the starting BGs of the ET series (there aren't a whole bunch more). Also I like Kurenai's character design the best out of the guys in ET. Also I like the character designs for the new characters that enter only in Kurenai's story.