Basically, for a game like this that doesn’t have strong comedy, characters, interpersonal relationship narrative etc. the only real opportunity for the game to be good is in a bit of contrived magical drama at the end of each route and even that is unconvincing.
I would be hard pressed to say exactly what the biggest problem is with Clear but I think it’s that it failed to make me take it seriously. It’s the sort of eroge you keep at because it sort of grasps at - but doesn’t quite reach - something that has the potential to be interesting; but by the time you’ve Cleared Clear nothing has changed your mind in the meantime.
I feel that an otherwise ordinary eroge can be saved with a ‘true route’ if it manages to bring everything together in an exceptional way. One of those would have helped Clear. Instead it’s a bunch of disparate stories, none of which are very good.
Anyway, I sometimes discuss eroges with Ignosco while I’m playing them so here’s an excerpt from an old log about Clear I found. I hadn’t finished the game at this point but you might find it interesting:
Linked here so it doesn’t expand the size of my post drastically. (by the way, the ‘epic rejection scene’ really was fun. I still don’t suggest the game, or even just that route of it though. I meant it when I said that the writing is decent- not really all that much else is, though)
It’s a mark of how uninteresting Clear is that I can’t actually remember the story especially well. I remember the disappointment, though! None of the routes turned out to be good.
