Following one of his mother’s spur-of-the-moment decisions, Hideaki has moved to Okutama. The people he will meet at his new school hold a secret from their past, one they want to keep hidden. You’ll have to get close to them to find out what these secrets are – that is, if you dare to do so.
No One But You follows the story of high schooler Hideaki as he moves with his mother back to his hometown of Okutama. They had initially left the town ten years ago, however his mother has decided that they should move back. She has a bit of a streak of doing things spur-of-the-moment, so stuff like this is nothing new to Hideaki. Within his new school, he’ll meet a handful of friends, quickly becoming close with them. The closer he becomes, though, the more he learns about their deeper secrets, and sometimes he may be faced with having to make a life or death decision for the sake of his friends.
Within No One But You, there are 5 routes you can go down – 4 girls and 1 guy. Each story will move you, though some of the stories do feel a bit lacking in the closure that they provide. As-of this writing, only one story has a “finished” ending, Megumi’s, with the other 3 girls’ After Story finales coming soon. I am a bit sad that all of the After Story endings aren’t already available, as I would be interested to see what happens with them. The final route, Ryo’s, is more of a neutral, no romance ending, and doesn’t appear to have an actual “After Story” ending.
I found the writing in No One But You to be quite fantastic. While it will only last you a few hours to get a single route, you’ll be drawn in by the writing and will want to come back for more. During my playthrough I did spot a few oddities in the writing though, mainly relating to the in-game calendar.
The game follows a daily sort of setting, much like Persona does. This calendar, while a nice feature, does appear to be a bit buggy. They’ll make references to the day in the text (for example “tomorrow is the weekend”), but if you look at the actual calendar it ends up being extremely off. Months sometimes repeat on themselves as well, so hopefully you’re prepared to experience May and June a few times, despite the story clearly progressing forward.
The art feels like it fits the mood, though there definitely seems to be an emphasis on the breasts of the girls’. I can forgive that part as this game does have a “hentai” patch (available outside of Steam). Looking beyond that, the CG’s, for the most part, look quite fantastic. There are a few that I found that seemed to have a bit of a different artstyle, namely some of the one’s featuring Shiro.
The music in No One But You works wonderfully with the scenes that they go with. The game also has a music player to listen to, should you want to hear the soundtrack even more than within the game. While some tracks may feel a little repetitive after awhile, they still don’t feel too overused when it all comes down to it. Overall, I was quite pleased with the soundtrack in this game, something I find a bit rare in VN’s as they tend to overuse tracks a bit too much.
So would I suggest No One But You? I would, if you’re looking for a ~10 hour Visual Novel. I found the writing enjoyable, and some of the endings nearly brought me to tears. Voice acting is being planned for the game, and the rest of the After Stories will eventually be added. If anything, I’d perhaps just suggest waiting until the rest of those After Stories are in the game to get it, but even if you don’t wait for that, it’s still an enjoyable experience.
No One But You Review Score
4/5
No One But You is available now on Steam.
I would like to thank Sekai Project for providing me with a copy for review purposes.
