Liberation Day is by far the strangest visual novel I've every played just because of its story structure. It returns to the combat game of MoA, which is still very enjoyable, but it completely removes the attack animations. This is a bonus when it's the enemy's turn, but loses a lot of immersion flavor when your own people are making attacks. I consider it a net negative, but they do deserve credit for attempting to address a frustration from MoA. The first 'half' is... basically terrible. You are fully rail-roaded through the story, there are no real choices, and the only sex-scene is honestly just creepy and voyeristic (this may have been intentional, however, because of the second 'half'). You essentially 'beat' the game in this way, and if you stopped here, it'd be an awful experience. HOWEVER... the 'rebirth' gameplay option is essentially a second half of the game you can utilize once you've played through the primary story. Rebirth is purely visual-novel, and is heavily choice-based, though there's really only one 'correct' path per character focus. (some of the failure paths are interesting!) Purely because of Rebirth, LD is actually a pretty solid story experience. The first 'half' provides a strongly negative context that the second 'half' is specifically constructed to help you address. The story bends itself over backward to make all this work, however, and I can confirm I would have preferred if they had just used the branch options for Rebirth throughout the base game, and let it develop in that way as one whole experience, it would have been entirely better overall. SO, if you don't mind experiencing a lot of negative story, and then being able to tackle THAT with more flexibility, you may actually prefer LD to MoA. The whole series is enjoyable! But only MoA and end-half of LD really have any replay value due to other frustrations. Hope this helped! --Cy
The play order I followed was one I saw recommended, and it worked well, so I do recommend going MoA > Academy > LD. Academy is an unfortunate mix of overdone mechanics over a short, but actually very good romance visual novel. The problem is that the good parts are HEAVILY outweighed by the mechanical drudgery. Of my time clocked on Academy, only about 20-30% was truly engaging content. Now it was really engaging, and I loved it, but it was so broken up and disjointed by the mechanical side of the game that it killed any desire I had to drudge through a second play through. Worth one play through, and just make darn sure you focus on the girl you like most the first time, because you probably won't have the patience to get through the mechanics again. All the stars I've awarded to Academy are for the actual story/visual novel elements. The mechanics became entirely a negative by overstaying their welcome to an egregious degree. Academy would honestly be more worth the money if the mechanical elements were totally removed, and it was just a straight visual novel dating sim. Academy is simply too mired in mediocre mechanics, and would otherwise be very enjoyable. The whole series is enjoyable! But only MoA and end-half of LD really have any replay value due to other frustrations. Hope this helped! --Cy
The play order I followed was one I saw recommended, and it worked well, so I do recommend going MoA > Academy > LD. MoA is actually the strongest stand-alone game. This ironic because it's the free game of the trio, but it also was good enough in hindsight that my frustrations with the other two games were mitigated, and I was happy to have retroactively paid the developer money for the experience. MoA has a very fun space-combat system mixed into the visual-novel story. Played at the base/easiest difficulty, it's very approachable and entertaining, while still being casual. The cast is also strong and fun overall, which is a very big plus where many visual novels only have one or two interesting characters. MoA has two major issues. The combat game's animations are neat, but can't be skipped on the enemy turn, which makes the enemy turns, especially in late game fights, very painful to click through. (LD fixes this issue, but overcompensates, which I'll get into on that game's review) The second issue is basically a content warning. One of the characters effectively sexually assaults the player character, but it's played off for laughs. Some people don't care, but the people that would, will be REALLY put off by that one throw-away scene. In MoA, the only nudity is completely out of left field, and has almost no connection to plot coherency at all. Very much felt tacked on for no reason beyond being able to say it has nude CGs. Game would've been better if those were left out, in my opinion, but they aren't as bothersome as the content-warning I explained above. (basically a shower-scene for one of the cast members) Overall, I consider MoA the best single game, and it was good enough that I don't regret investing in the rest of the series. Hope this helped! --Cy
