If My Heart Had Wings Visual Novel Review

(WARNING!: This review may contain some spoilers. Please read with caution.)

Have you ever flown through the sky, and if you haven't, have you ever thought how it may feel to do so? Unfortunately, because humans don't have wings, they can only rely on certain machines, like gliders, to help them fly; the question is, though, would you want to have a hand in building such a glider if given the opportunity to? That's exactly what the Soaring Club does; they build a glider and fly off into the sky that we can only look up to. I first heard of a visual novel with such a Soaring Club when I was searching the App Store on my iPod for a visual novel to play; I could only play a little bit before my iPod would black out and get me out of the app, so a few months later, I finally managed to buy this visual novel for my newly-acquired laptop. As time went on, I became convinced that this was the best among the few visual novels I've played, and even now, I think that. Why do I think so? Let's find out.

Ladies and gentlemen, here, at long last, is my review of "If My Heart Had Wings", or "Kono Oozora ni, Tsubasa wo Hirogete" in Japanese!

In "If My Heart Had Wings", you play as Aoi Minase, a high school boy who returns to his hometown, Kazegaura, after a cycling accident forces him to give up on his dream of bicycle races. When he arrives, he meets a wheelchair-ridden girl who watches alongside him as a glider passes the hill they are on; he meets that girl, Kotori Habane, again when he ends up becoming "dorm mother" to Flying Fish Manor, an all-girls dormitory for his new school, Keifuu Academy, but she's rather hostile toward him. While at Keifuu Academy, Aoi wanders around and comes across a garage; there, he meets Amane Mochizuki, the sole member of the school's Soaring Club and the pilot of the glider from that day. Aoi, Kotori, and Aoi's childhood friend, Ageha Himegi, end up joining the Soaring Club to accomplish a goal, and that goal is to fly their glider up to the rare phenomenon, a cloud called the Morning Glory.

Now, before I get onto the real review, I must admit that I played the MoeNovel version; most fans have a problem with this because of the translation and the removal of the erotic content. While I did notice that the latter did take its toll on some of the routes of the game, mainly Ageha's, it didn't bother me too much. However, the translation did turn out to be a bit of an issue; there were noticeable grammatical errors all over the place, and some quotes weren't where they were supposed to be. There were multiple times where I wanted to just try to find a way to fix them. Even so, I tried my best to ignore and/or make sense of these errors, and I still managed to enjoy it regardless.

Since that is out of the way, I want to start out by commenting on how beautiful this visual novel's artwork is. Everything visual about this game, from the character designs to the background images to the CGs and even to the animations, is absolutely breathtaking and overall perfection; I'd love to give a medal to whoever did all of the artwork for their splendid job. As for the music, the opening theme, "Precious Wing" by Chata, and the ending theme, "Perfect Sky" by Haruka Shimotsuki, were perfect for this story and at least a little bit well-sung. The background music was well done, too; whatever would be playing at a certain moment would be quite fitting to that exact moment. The voice actors did a very good job with their respective roles, too.

The story, no matter which route you would go down, would be quite entertaining in its own way; some are better than others, but you can't expect every aspect of a story to be perfect, regardless of how much you'd like it to be. It's now time to start talking about the characters, starting with our protagonist, Aoi; you would think he's just your generic protagonist of a visual novel, anime, or whatever, but he's actually quite entertaining to follow. A huge majority of the supporting characters, such as Ma-bou, An-chan, Kanako, and Isuka, are all likable in their own right; the only one even remotely unlikable is one of the teachers, Tobioka, but in one of the routes, even he goes through development that makes you sympathize with him. If we're talking about characters, though, we cannot forget the five potential girls for Aoi to date throughout this visual novels! I played it in the order of Kotori, Amane, Ageha, Asa, and Yoru, so I'll talk about each of them individually in that order, too.

First, we've got Kotori Habane, the aforementioned wheelchair-bound girl, who got that way because of an accident. She starts off as an antisocial tsundere, which could make most players dislike her at first; honestly, I wasn't really all that different, but I just knew that she was going to get some character development that would make her likable. Sure enough, I was right; she turned out to be quite a fun character to follow, and for some time, she was actually my favorite character. Her route was an entertaining one to read through, and it has a satisfying ending. I also loved the relationship between her and Aoi; to this day, out of all of the girls, I think Kotori is the one that looks the best with Aoi, even though I don't think of her as "best girl" anymore.

Who is my new "best girl", then? Well, soon after I completed Kotori's route, I read through Amane's route, which takes the least amount of choices to get to, even though you have to complete Kotori's route to access it. I may have said that Kotori's route had a satisfying ending, but Amane's ending was, without a doubt, even more satisfying. I regret not saving this one for last; it answered any questions one may have had about Isuka and the previous Soaring Club, gave Tobioka character development that actually made him a little bit likable, and wrapped it all up beautifully. Amane Mochizuki herself is, without a doubt, the most entertaining out of all of the heroines, too; she is one that has the ultimate combination of amazing beauty (I don't mean that in a lesbian way, because I'm straight, just so you know), a funny personality, and genius attributes. Amane was definitely "best girl" for me, and not even the next three routes I read through could change that.

Next, we've got Ageha Himegi, Aoi's childhood friend. This girl, with her fun personality, definitely had potential to be an awesome character and heroine, and for the most part, she fulfilled that potential. However, despite me enjoying her route, it was definitely the weakest of them all, and I'm not just referring to how the sexual innuendo it contained was taken out. (Apparently, boobs = eyes.) Ageha would refuse time and time again to say that she loves Aoi, and after a while, that got a bit annoying. Other than that, I liked her character; I definitely can't see this visual novel without her.

Finally, we've got Asa and Yoru Kazato, who are introduced in the latter half of the story, regardless of what route you're taking. Although I couldn't really say this for Yoru at first (in fact, she started off as a real b*tch), I really liked both of these twins, and I always enjoyed their dynamic; they may look alike, but they're totally different, from their personalities to their interests to the color of their casual wear! I really enjoyed Asa's route through and through; it was just so adorable, and I could really see the relationship between her and Aoi. As for Yoru's route, though.... well, actually, in this route, she had to share Aoi with Asa. At first, this really bugged me, as two-timers really leave a bad taste in my mouth; however, when the story in this route turned out to be better than the route with Asa alone dating Aoi, I was somehow able to forgive that aspect. It felt like Yoru was getting more spotlight, though.

All in all, If My Heart Had Wings was a great visual novel that all visual novel fans must try, regardless of whether they're playing the all-ages version or the 18+ patch. It may be my favorite visual novel now, but since some parts have prevented it from getting a perfect score out of me, I'm sure that one day, a visual novel will come along that will get that 10/10 out of me. Until then, though, I can only remember those times I spent with Aoi and all of these wonderful characters as I look up at the sky with my newfound appreciation for it, hoping (probably in vain) that one day, that passage of clouds will appear above me, too.