Rewrite (visual Novel) - Gameplay

Gameplay

Rewrite is a romance visual novel in which the player assumes the role of Kotarou Tennouji. Much of its gameplay is spent on reading the story's narrative and dialogue. The text in the game is accompanied by character sprites, which represent who Kotarou is talking to, over background art. Throughout the game, the player encounters CG artwork at certain points in the story, which take the place of the background art and character sprites. When the game is completed at least once, a gallery of the viewed CGs and played background music becomes available on the game's title screen. Rewrite follows a branching plot line with multiple endings, and depending on the decisions that the player makes during the game, the plot will progress in a specific direction.

There are eight main plot lines that the player will have the chance to experience, three which are initially available and five more which can later become available. Throughout gameplay, the player is given multiple options to choose from, and text progression pauses at these points until a choice is made. Some decisions can lead the game to end prematurely, which offer an alternative ending to the plot. To view all plot lines in their entirety, the player will have to replay the game multiple times and choose different choices to further the plot to an alternate direction. When first playing the game, the scenarios for the heroines Kotori, Chihaya and Lucia are available. To access Sizuru's scenario, Kotori's must be completed first. Similarly, to access Akane's scenario, Chihaya's must be done first. After the plot lines for these five heroines have been completed, an additional scenario called Moon is made available. Upon the completion of the Moon route, another scenario called Terra is made available, which serves as the true ending to the story; both Moon and Terra revolve around the main heroine, Kagari.

Throughout gameplay, the player encounters minigames accessed through an in-game GPS system called Mappie, which is rendered as a point and click map. In most cases, the player can choose to automatically skip accessing Mappie, but sometimes the player is required to play through the minigame to move on to the next event. When accessing Mappie, the player meets various people who become Kotarou's friends, and certain people and items encountered will lead the player to do a quest. The names of the friends and the completed quests are recorded in the Memory function, which serves as an encyclopedia of events. If the player completes all 31 quests, a bonus scenario called Oppai (おっぱい, Breasts?) is made available. Oppai is a branch off Akane's scenario and serves as a comedic plot line not important to the overall story.

The gear and dial in the bottom left of the game screen is related to the Kotarou's Rewrite ability. The dial moves forward whenever this ability is used, and the outcome of certain scenes is determined by how much the dial has moved. Throughout most of the game, the text is presented in a dialog box on the lower portion of the game screen, but this is changed for the Terra scenario, where the text is overlaid across the entire screen.

In Rewrite Harvest festa!, there are six separate scenarios, one for each heroine. The player is initially given the choice to play the scenarios for Kotori, Chihaya and Lucia from a character selection screen. Once these three scenarios are completed, the routes for Sizuru and Akane become available, and after those two are completed, Kagari's scenario is made available. After the completion of Kagari's scenario, a dungeon exploration role-playing minigame called Rewrite Quest becomes available.