Flowers - Le volume sur hiver - What an ending! Suou and Mayuri! Erika!
As promised on my Flowers dedicated stream page (where you can see all my thoughts as I read), I just completed the final installment of the Flowers visual novel series, Le Volume sur Hiver. This concludes Mayuri’s story, which started with the first game, and provides all the heroines with a happy ending after so many troubling episodes. Please read my previous short impression post to see my opinions on the earlier entries. Be aware that this post will contain spoilers.
The story continues from the third entry, which ended with Suou discovering the tomb of a mysterious Shion Basquiat who was never mentioned in any school documents. This begins her journey to find out how this name is connected to Mayuri’s disappearance, and it was a very long road. Suou tried her best to find hints using her new position as student council president, but the mystery at times seemed impossible to decipher.
Everyone started to look suspicious to me, especially Dahlia, but I tried to dismiss those thoughts because she played such a supportive role for Erika during her most vulnerable moments. On top of that, Yatsushiro and Nerine returned as villains, even going so far as to hurt Erika during a small spat in the middle of the night.
I did not like them much in the third game, which remains the low point of the franchise for me. Even though nothing permanent happened to Erika, seeing them again only increased my resentment toward them. They were acting for their own personal gain and did not care if someone got hurt in the process. Furthermore, I have to say that Nerine is amazing at acting like a stereotypical, annoying woman.
Things began to become clearer after Suou and the others discovered the portrait of Shion Basquiat and realized she looked identical to Mayuri. There is literally no one who could see a difference between the two. This more or less solidified my idea that Mayuri was being held captive to act as a double for someone who needed Shion to remain alive.
We saw a cute Cinderella play with all the girls in different roles, and Mayuri even appeared at the end as the prince. As the story neared its conclusion, only the final mystery remained. Then the revelations started flowing in, one after another, in the good ending. While I was happy for Suou, I was also angry at Mayuri.
She essentially exiled herself to fulfill her role as a fake Shion to please an old lady who still believed her granddaughter was alive. To make matters worse, Dahlia facilitated the entire charade and kept it going for years with multiple girls taking the role of Shion over time. My reaction was the same as Erika’s: what was she thinking when she accepted that? Did she not understand that she was hurting Suou for the sake of a stranger's delusions?
However, the story ended with the Grand Finale, showing what happened afterward to all the girls. Everything seemed to have returned to normalcy with a happy ending for almost everyone involved. They even included the butterflies to show that Shion, Dahlia’s father, and the grandmother were finally happy.
Overall, the game was a step up from the previous entry, but I still feel it fell short of the masterpiece that was the second game. My final ranking of the four entries is: Second > Fourth > First > Third. The second game left an incredibly strong impression on me. Perhaps I am biased because Erika is my favorite character and I like Chidori as her partner, as she creates a perfect contrast between the two.
Erika’s voice remains one of the best I have ever heard in any visual novel. I could probably set an alarm clock using her voice, as a friend suggested while I was writing this post. I could talk about her forever, so I should stop now before she takes over the review.
The love triangle between Suou, Rikka, and Mayuri in the first game was hard for me to relate to and never truly grabbed me. This made Suou’s search in the following volumes feel less impactful. To be clear, I enjoyed the experience and I like all three girls as characters, but I was never moved by the moments surrounding them.
Looking back at the series as a whole, I think the most powerful element the franchise delivered was its atmosphere. Regardless of my personal favorites, whenever I read Flowers, I completely disconnected from the world around me. I felt like I was there with them, watching them live their lives with their mistakes, issues, and struggles. This masterful work was made possible by the combination of soft art, outstanding music, and great voice acting. It is rare for me to enter the zone while reading a visual novel, but they somehow achieved it.
I am now left with that emotional void in my heart that usually occurs after completing a series I love. It will pass in a few days, and I plan to start a new series once the feeling subsides. You will be able to follow my progress in the stream section as usual. This time, I will read Pieces: Yurikago no Canaria, the sequel to Pieces: Wataridori no Somnium, which I played long ago. I will make a post about the first one later this week before starting the new one.
