First post, woo.
I also thought the choices were pretty obvious for the track scene. The point is to get excercise, and you're not supposed to be straining yourself, so it seemed to me "chill" was the option unless you felt you had something the prove to Emi.
Anywho, for my feedback: I too followed what I felt was the best choices my first time, and like many this is my first VN. I ended up with Rin, only to realize later when examining a path guide that I'd dodged about 500 ways to BAD END.
I've played Rin, Shizune, and Lilly's paths so far, Rin is my favorite followed close by... probably Shizune but Lilly is really sweet. Based on my first play I thought Lilly was my No.2 but as many have said Shizune turns out much nicer after the intro phase. (Likewise, from a bystander's perspective I do think it seems a little disingenuous for someone to request a deadline extension and then run
all the way to the new deadline, so I don't think Shizune was totally unreasonable.) I really liked the writing, and Hisao's internal monologue. It really felt like Hisao was a consistent person, but also was influenced by how you played him, his thoughts subtly changed based on whose path you were on and the choices you made, which is a really tough thing to pull off I'd imagine.
I can't say much about Hanako, she's really shy and I'm not one to need to be told something twice. The first meeting with her pretty much says it all to my mind, and I had to play against my grain to get Lilly's path because of it.
On the topic of Emi, I haven't done her path so I haven't seen like 60% of her screen time
She seems to have a decent sense of humor, but I guess she's a foul manipulator(based on what I've read)? At least Shizune is predictable, I wouldn't have seen that coming. I'll withhold judgement for now, but I will comment that she seems to have the least synergy with her "partner" Rin, It'll be interesting to see how involved they are in one another's paths.
Speaking of partners it'd be a crime to not mention Misha, she's great. Interpretations of her seem to be all over the place, but the way I saw her was a cheery version of Shizune, all her faces that aren't sad or confused look mischievous, like she too treats everything as some type of game. I recall a Hisao line where he contemplates if Shizune would sound like Misha if she could talk, and my personal thoughts are that that would be the case from the content of Act 1. Misha struck me as someone who mostly "played" ditzy, but was actually very clever. Perhaps I'm totally wrong.
As for Kenji, he's hilarious the first time you read each of his lines, but his scenes are the hardest to read through more than once. I can't put my finger on why.
Art, Music, and other things seem quite polished, though I can't personally compare to other VNs.
Overall, this is way longer than I'd intended. That and I really like what's been done here. I might follow up with more elaborate thoughts on Rin, since I just now noticed I mentioned she was my favorite solely in passing..
