A lengthy slice-of-life visual novel with great polish and execution, combining an aspiring surreal plot with traditional romantic comedy and deep characters, If My Heart Had Wings delivers lighthearted entertainment tugging at your feelings for several dozen hours and is as good an alternative as any to a traditional book or even a shorter anime.

The plot revolves around a male protagonist in a high-school setting, having just returned to his hometown (for reasons that shall be kept spoiler-free) and studying while working a part time job in a girls' dormitory. This rather cliché opening quickly evolves to allow for a major super-plot while introducing several subplots (and subsubplots) within the various branching high-school romance options.

The software follows the traditional controls of regular high quality VNs, allowing for not only auto-play, message logs and quick saves and loads, but actual scene skipping logs (note: all logs are deleted when loading a save), intelligent skip which can be customized to stop at branches and at new scenes, full customization for resolutions, character-specific volume control, mouse shortcuts by not only the wheel but also right-click and swipe movements and finally the default option to have characters carry on speech past text events if you scroll too fast and the next audio file hasn't been cued. As icing on the cake, the game even includes adorable audio effects for (quick-)saving, (quick-)loading and exiting. Once character-specific branches are unlocked after a full ending, the trigger is transferred directly to all existing saved games, so as long as you remember to save at all dialogue choices, this makes it easy to go back and unlock remaining endings.

The primary structure of every visual novel, the first noticeable aspect of the story is the sheer length of it. With a prologue spanning ~10 hours (which can compete with the full length of many VNs) and two separate intro movies, five fully individual endings spanning 3-10 hours each, the game is prepared to keep you going for at least 30-40 hours in total, depending on your thirst. Thanks to the intelligent skipping and branching system as well as the uniqueness of every route, I dare say that you haven't finished the story until you have done it all.

As for the actual content: It's praise on top of praise. While the story might start out slow in the eyes of some, the characters are naturally and thoroughly introduced in the style of the lengthy novel it is. The first several hours are used to get the protagonist at home in his new dormitory and school, meeting the diverse cast of support and main characters casually as they go about in their everyday lives, giving us glimpses of their general personal traits and their relations to each other, and already in this early stage introduce quirky scenes and minor plots that serve no majestic purpose, but are simply there to make the reader sympathize and become familiar with the characters before any real plot kicks in. Nothing feels rushed, and one might compare this to the first episodes of a TV or anime series where everything is still warming up and settling in.

Once the familiarity is established, we slowly delve into the characters' discovery of and expanding dreams of gliding in the sky - the main, superior theme of the game. However, this theme is constantly explored as an analogy for the main characters' own complicated backgrounds, essentially serving as a catalyst for their adolescent development. The prologue follows the characters' projected worries, hopes and dreams in this matter, giving us a deeper understanding of all of them during everyday life of an entire school year (with the summer vacation as the major plot driver as this is when they have the most free time). During this time, the few decision branches that will determine the 'ending' are also selected. Essentially, the 'prologue' serves as the first half of the full storyline, while the 'endings' serve as the second half.

One of the five 'endings' (omitting the bad ending) are then selected based on the prologue choices to determine events during the second year, which accounts for the second half of the story. The noticeable result here is that these are not traditional cliché endings where a few sudden choices suddenly makes the woman fall head-over-heels in love with you without any rationale whatsoever. Instead, the seemingly inconsequential choices you were faced with in the prologue trigger a whole avalanche of coincidental outcomes that just happen to favour the person you chose to direct your feelings towards (and in turn slowly direct that person's feelings towards the protagonist).
The story shapes itself to focus on that person and blurring out the other characters' roles. That is to say, the other characters simply have their roles rewritten in order to allow the selected person to become the deuteragonist. The supporting characters closest to the chosen person will have their backgrounds opened up as well. In this way, the plot remains pure and reasonable, and all major events happen in mostly the same ways with very few exceptions, but we are treated with completely different scenes and learn of vastly different details related to that character and surrounding characters in particular. This is why every ending is equally breathtaking (okay, some are still subjectively better than others) and provides more information about the characters as a whole, which only encourages you to go through them all. And just to drive the point home, the scenes are completely unique in the sense that not a single line of text is recycled between endings (IOW: five distinct second halves).

Endings cont. and translation
I've moved the rest of this section to the comments since I reached some character limit for reviews. Please read it there.

The artwork and background CGs are top-tier as far as VNs go, with dozens of aesthetically pleasing locations drawn to detail and interacting smoothly with the storyline to the extent that you could be forgiven for assuming they were screencaps from actual anime. Larger pictures use zoom effects to perceive 3D, while the climactic weather and cloud scenes are breathtaking examples of art only secondary to actual photography. Characters are drawn in high quality manga style with the usual repertoire of traditional facial expressions, facing side to side, different nuances of surprise, happiness and sadness, determination and fooling around, making them look just right in just about every possible situation of the game. To further enhance this, there exists more than a dozen partly-animated unique chibi scenes for when the characters are engaging in some interactive activity, adding to the liveliness and inherent fun of the scenes.
However, the animated 3D models of the moving gliders are slightly edgy compared to the otherwise soft strokes.

From the few but highly efficient emotional original soundtracks hitting the atmosphere just right on cue with the scripted scenarios, to the catchy and award-baiting opening and closing themes that will stick with you forever, the music is as polished as you'd expect from a superior VN. The cutscenes to accompany the opening and ending include traditional VN-style still images, but coupled with great animations of the characters and their glider, making them come truly alive.


Gameplay: N/A
Story: 9/10
Graphics: 9/10
Media: 9/10

Overall: 9/10

A lengthy slice-of-life visual novel with great polish and execution, combining an aspiring surreal plot with traditional romantic comedy and deep characters, [i]If My Heart Had Wings[/i] delivers lighthearted entertainment tugging at your feelings for several dozen hours and is as good an alternative as any to a traditional book or even a shorter anime. The plot revolves around a male protagonist in a high-school setting, having just returned to his hometown (for reasons that shall be kept spoiler-free) and studying while working a part time job in a girls' dormitory. This rather cliché opening quickly evolves to allow for a major super-plot while introducing several subplots (and subsubplots) within the various branching high-school romance options. [h1]Gameplay[/h1] The software follows the traditional controls of regular high quality VNs, allowing for not only auto-play, message logs and quick saves and loads, but actual scene skipping logs (note: all logs are deleted when loading a save), intelligent skip which can be customized to stop at branches and at new scenes, full customization for resolutions, character-specific volume control, mouse shortcuts by not only the wheel but also right-click and swipe movements and finally the default option to have characters carry on speech past text events if you scroll too fast and the next audio file hasn't been cued. As icing on the cake, the game even includes adorable audio effects for (quick-)saving, (quick-)loading and exiting. Once character-specific branches are unlocked after a full ending, the trigger is transferred directly to all existing saved games, so as long as you remember to save at all dialogue choices, this makes it easy to go back and unlock remaining endings. [h1]Story[/h1] The primary structure of every visual novel, the first noticeable aspect of the story is the sheer length of it. With a prologue spanning ~10 hours (which can compete with the [u]full length[/u] of many VNs) and two separate intro movies, five fully individual endings spanning 3-10 hours each, the game is prepared to keep you going for at least 30-40 hours in total, depending on your thirst. Thanks to the intelligent skipping and branching system as well as the uniqueness of every route, I dare say that you haven't finished the story until you have done it all. As for the actual content: It's praise on top of praise. While the story might start out slow in the eyes of some, the characters are naturally and thoroughly introduced in the style of the lengthy novel it is. The first several hours are used to get the protagonist at home in his new dormitory and school, meeting the diverse cast of support and main characters casually as they go about in their everyday lives, giving us glimpses of their general personal traits and their relations to each other, and already in this early stage introduce quirky scenes and minor plots that serve no majestic purpose, but are simply there to make the reader sympathize and become familiar with the characters before any real plot kicks in. Nothing feels rushed, and one might compare this to the first episodes of a TV or anime series where everything is still warming up and settling in. Once the familiarity is established, we slowly delve into the characters' discovery of and expanding dreams of gliding in the sky - the main, superior theme of the game. However, this theme is constantly explored as an analogy for the main characters' own complicated backgrounds, essentially serving as a catalyst for their adolescent development. The prologue follows the characters' projected worries, hopes and dreams in this matter, giving us a deeper understanding of all of them during everyday life of an entire school year (with the summer vacation as the major plot driver as this is when they have the most free time). During this time, the few decision branches that will determine the 'ending' are also selected. Essentially, the 'prologue' serves as the first half of the full storyline, while the 'endings' serve as the second half. One of the five 'endings' (omitting the bad ending) are then selected based on the prologue choices to determine events during the second year, which accounts for the second half of the story. The noticeable result here is that these are not traditional cliché endings where a few sudden choices suddenly makes the woman fall head-over-heels in love with you without any rationale whatsoever. Instead, the seemingly inconsequential choices you were faced with in the prologue trigger a whole avalanche of coincidental outcomes that just happen to favour the person you chose to direct your feelings towards (and in turn slowly direct that person's feelings towards the protagonist). The story shapes itself to focus on that person and blurring out the other characters' roles. That is to say, the other characters simply have their roles rewritten in order to allow the selected person to become the deuteragonist. The supporting characters closest to the chosen person will have their backgrounds opened up as well. In this way, the plot remains pure and reasonable, and all major events happen in mostly the same ways with very few exceptions, but we are treated with completely different scenes and learn of vastly different details related to that character and surrounding characters in particular. This is why every ending is equally breathtaking (okay, some are still subjectively better than others) and provides more information about the characters as a whole, which only encourages you to go through them all. And just to drive the point home, the scenes are [u]completely unique[/u] in the sense that not a single line of text is recycled between endings (IOW: five distinct second halves). [b]Endings cont. and translation[/b] I've moved the rest of this section to the comments since I reached some character limit for reviews. Please read it there. [h1]Graphics[/h1] The artwork and background CGs are top-tier as far as VNs go, with dozens of aesthetically pleasing locations drawn to detail and interacting smoothly with the storyline to the extent that you could be forgiven for assuming they were screencaps from actual anime. Larger pictures use zoom effects to perceive 3D, while the climactic weather and cloud scenes are breathtaking examples of art only secondary to actual photography. Characters are drawn in high quality manga style with the usual repertoire of traditional facial expressions, facing side to side, different nuances of surprise, happiness and sadness, determination and fooling around, making them look just right in just about every possible situation of the game. To further enhance this, there exists more than a dozen partly-animated unique chibi scenes for when the characters are engaging in some interactive activity, adding to the liveliness and inherent fun of the scenes. However, the animated 3D models of the moving gliders are slightly edgy compared to the otherwise soft strokes. [h1]Media[/h1] From the few but highly efficient emotional original soundtracks hitting the atmosphere just right on cue with the scripted scenarios, to the catchy and award-baiting opening and closing themes that will stick with you forever, the music is as polished as you'd expect from a superior VN. The cutscenes to accompany the opening and ending include traditional VN-style still images, but coupled with great animations of the characters and their glider, making them come truly alive. [table] [tr] [th]Pros[/th] [th]Cons[/th] [/tr] [tr] [td]Heartwarming storyline with feels[/td] [td]Periodically broken translation[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]At least 30-40 hours of entertainment[/td] [td]Slow-paced[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]Deep, real and immersive characters[/td] [td][/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]Polished music, animation and cutscenes[/td] [td][/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]Chibi artwork![/td] [td][/td] [/tr] [/table] Gameplay: N/A Story: 9/10 Graphics: 9/10 Media: 9/10 [u]Overall[/u]: 9/10