(This is merged from my last WAYR on /r/visualnovels and the WAYR I will post next week.)

VNDB link

Before you ask, yes, it's Hitsugi, not Hitsuji. The title is not a biblical reference to black sheep, even as a pun.

A doujin game I bought at a low price, this game has been completely exceeding my expectations. The most remarkable aspect of the game is most definitely the art. The sprites are good, but it's the unique and stylishly-drawn backgrounds and the large number of CGs that really makes this game stand out. Despite being classified as 'short' on VNDB, the game has six whole pages of CGs (not counting differences), comparable to many longer games. The author really does not spare any effort in providing the player with an immersive visual experience. The backgrounds and CGs also communicate the mood of the scene well, with the general, pervasive depressing mood and the psychological horror dotted throughout the tale both conveyed through the use of effective visuals. The music is fine, the sound effect supplement the art well, and the voice acting pretty enjoyable. It's hard to explain the artstyle well in words, so take a look at the screenshots on VNDB and DLSite to see what I'm talking about.

After briefly introducing the characters, a meteor crashes onto the earth, presumably killing everyone. Then our MC wakes up in a strange flat, where he meets one of his classmates whom he's barely talked to before the meteor incident. This classmate, Mawaru, calls himself God. After exploring the flat (which includes [very mild spoiler] a room filled with flesh and gore à la Saya no Uta), the game largely focuses on exploring aspects of the MC's past which he has forgotten since waking up in the flat. This is aided by objects appearing in the flat, which seem oddly to be intended for jogging the MC's memory.

The writing is generally enjoyable to read, despite not being overly difficult (it does send me to the dictionary, but not often enough to be an annoyance at any stage). My biggest difficulty is as usual the kun'yomi verbs, especially when they're joined together (at one point I saw a four-part verb with three ren'youkei forms), along with some difficulties in decoding colloquial reductions. Although the descriptions are enjoyable, in the backstories sometimes I feel like there could be more exploration of the character's motives. Because, apart from a brief scene from Mawaru's angle and two sub-episodes, the story never switches to other perspectives, the other characters sometimes act in somewhat unnatural ways, with unclear motives; for example, it's not clear why Shoutarou wanted to befriend the MC so badly or why he fell in love with the MC. All we know about Shoutarou's love for the MC is why he got determined to confess - but we never found out why he fell in love in the first place. Even for Seika, the only explanation we have is that he's lonely - we don't really know why he's lonely or why the MC was the only one he ended up falling for.

There are three parallel 'mysteries' in the game (I put this in quotes because these are not true mysteries, but rather matters for which the author is withholds information). The first is the MC's childhood; we know from the beginning of the game there's an incident after which he began to trust nobody, but this is never mentioned again afterwards. The second is the stuff about the MC's past that he has forgotten about, which the bulk of the game I've read so far focuses on revealing slowly. The third surrounds the settei of the game: Why did he end up in the flat, why is he amnesiac, what exactly happened after the meteor incident, why is Mawaru God?

Unfortunately, not everything about the three mysteries are revealed by the end of the game. The true end says 'To be continued', so I suppose this is to be expected, but damn, there are some things I want to know! The third mystery is completely solved. The second mystery is largely solved, but there are loose ends. I think the author has dropped enough hints to support my theory that Haneishi hated the MC because he loved Mawaru, judging from the conversation with his cousin. But we never really learn that much about Mawaru and his possible shared past with the MC - come on, don't drop the common hometown and leave this Chekov's gun unfired! And the ending confirmed that Mawaru actually did have an unhealthy obsession with the MC that amounted to love - but we don't know why or how that started. The first mystery is not touched on at all, and seems to be a noodle incident. There's are also smaller mysteries we never find out more about, viz. who the woman behind the door was in one of the bad end, or who put his hand on Haneishi's shoulders.

In general, apart from the loose ends that are not tied, perhaps deliberately so to set up a sequel, the main weakness of the story is that it's not very believable. Some examples: We're supposed to believe that a total social outcast is suddenly chased around by not one, not two, but three crazy yanderes who are all pretty damn attractive; that the police never thought of asking Seika what he knew about the MC or Shoutarou; that Shoutarou's head remained fine in the box despite a few days having presumably passed since his death; and don't forget how suspiciously specific the opening scenes are, despite them being false memories: there's even an interaction with Mawaru built in, even though the MC couldn't even remember Mawaru's name before. With that said, everything that's revealed is preceded by some foreshadowing (such as the blood in the bathroom that turned out to be real), so the writing isn't bad; it's just it requires the reader to have a reasonably high ability to suspend disbelief (which, to be fair, could be probably said of most yandere works).

My qualms with the story notwithstanding, there's no doubt that the art is outstanding, certainly better than a lot of commercial works with its unique backgrounds and CGs. The use of sound effects were quite effective as well, and I enjoyed the voice acting and music too. The weaknesses in the story don't take away from the immersive multimedia experience that the VN provides. The bad ends in particular are very well made with some pretty good (as in beautiful, not scary) scares. I still recommend it despite its flaws, especially for anyone who is interested in a relatively serious yandere work that incorporates heavy psychological horror elements. The only group I'd really advise to stay away from the game is those for whom believability is important - but considering the prevalence of tropes and rather unrealistic personalities in VNs and otaku media in general, perhaps VN readers are already relatively immune to these problems.