Love is All Around: Echoes of Yesterday Review

Connections to LiAA include a returning male best friend, Liu, who is great value again. One admirer from LiAA has a short voice cameo and another is referenced often. But the prequel mainly sets up the player character, Gu Yi, by explaining how and why he became an artist. The story is simple but jumps around too much. It focuses on Gu Yi graduating art college, while having a job as a programmer cheerleader, and also being a coach for an all-girl e-sports team. The e-sports element is a big part because there are a few cosplay scenarios that emulate PUBG where you choose which admirer joins you and might need to ‘shoot’ enemies.

One of the game’s strength is that it is hilarious. It creates many funny circumstances and occasionally breaks the fourth wall, like when the player-character brings noodles up to the camera and Liu tells him to stop eating with his eyes. Lots of laughs come from absurd situations, like when players choose to flip a table that is too heavy.

There are five primary admirers, although one is mainly featured in a dedicated flashback chapter that involves a destined romance. Just three admirers appear at the end choice, but the other has an earlier finale that is just as great, so it is unclear why she was isolated. All admirers are good. One is a junior student who knows everything about you, and her bonus videos are great. Another is an older student who initially hates you. Then there is an older supermarket owner, an older flight attendant, and finally a young high-school crush. One disappointing aspect is that most don’t have their own life or problems and are just infatuated. Only the flight attendant seems to have a rounded personality. While most dating games forgo giving the admirers depth, this is the missing link that would elevate EoY.

Branching paths are typical, with choices between admirers, some that skip interactions, and others that lead to early endings. EoY also features item collection, similar to Knowledge or Know Lady (not the only similarity). These can be given as gifts to open more story paths. However, not having some items will annoyingly halt progress, requiring trips back to earlier chapters. The romance endings are decent, but unlike LiAA they do not show a slice of life.

There is an option in the menu that alters the game’s length between cut and full. Cut removes a bunch of scenes and is sadly the default option. The removed scenes are mostly related to the PUBG cosplay, but it also removes one major romance ending, which is ridiculous. It is strongly recommended that you pick the full option before starting since the two modes are individually tracked. Value is good because it takes about 3.5 hours to get a main ending, and another 5-6 hours for all content.

Video quality is not the best, as encoding artifacts can be painfully obvious. (Update: 2K videos are available for free but I have yet to try them). Interestingly, you can actually fast-forward every scene, even if you have not previously seen it. Audio quality is great—live recording for practically everything. English translation has been recently been added and is fine. All bonus cast videos have been translated, which is rare, and the same is true for phone conversations. Echoes of Yesterday is strongly recommended for any fan of the genre and ideally it should be played immediately beside LiAA for context.