Amnesia: Later x Crowd Review

Review code used, with many thanks to Reef Entertainment.

This game contains spoilers of the original Amnesia: Memories, so beware if you have not played that one yet.

What’s it contain?

This game is a combination of two earlier steam and PS Vita games of Amnesia, Amnesia: Later and Amnesia: Crowd. You should keep in mind that this is a fan disk. It does not delve deeper in the Amnesia world. Plus I want to stress that you will need to play the Amnesia: Memories first to be able to enjoy this game to the fullest.

Amnesia: Later starts with a new story called New World. In this world you are not involved in any romantic relationships and the date is August 10. With this new storyline you will be able to unlock four different story scenarios: After Story, Waka’s story, Girls Party and one secret route that can only be unlocked after finishing the first four games.

Amnesia: Crowd continues the After Stories from Amnesia: Later. Once again, this game has a few different story scenarios: Suspense scenario (this one takes place in the first game’s timeline), Work scenario, Love story and an Orion story. And on a side note, the mini-games have returned! The Working scenario unlocks mini-games with the men.

The Boyfriends

I choose to keep the same order of men as the first game. Shin -> Toma -> Kent -> Ikki -> Ukyo.

This will be a shorter description of the love interests, if you want to read a more detailed description you should read the review for the original Amnesia game here.

Shin (Heart World)

He is a year younger than the heroine and her childhood friend. He is not the type to show his affection very often, but that makes him adorable. In the original game he knew about the heroine’s amnesia right away and helped her in her quest to regain her memories. All the while trying to solve a sort of mystery.

In this game Shin is studying hard to get into his dream school, while trying to juggle making time for his girlfriend and work through previous issues. He is super hard working and I really admire this about him.

Shin and the heroine walking hand in hand

Ikki (Spade World)

Ikki is your ladies’ man for all intents and purposes, he even has his very own fan club. He is very charming and caring but cares a lot about what his fan club thinks. The heroine is not just in a relationship with Ikki but also with his girl group. This was a big theme in Amnesia: Memories, but in the end they did fall in love and Ikki had to confront his fan club. This game will continue with the heroine trying to figure out how to be in a relationship with a ladies’ man.

Kent (Clover World)

Kent is an analytical nerd type, who is very blunt and says whatever comes to mind. He can seem a bit arrogant at first, but later we find out he just really knows his stuff. In the first game we learned that he only dated the heroine for three days before her amnesia. While dating they were constantly arguing, but after the heroine’s amnesia, they grow to understand each other and build a healthy relationship. Last time we also left off with Kent going to work in London at the end of August, in Later x Crowd this topic will be a big part in them working out their relationship.

The heroine awkwardly leaning against Kent

Toma (World of Diamonds)

Toma had been a childhood friend of the heroine, together with Shin. He is overall very kind and really cares for the heroine. But his personality can take “caring” for the heroine a bit too far. In the original game, he finds out the heroine was being bullied by a group of girls. As a result, he tries to hide this from her and tries his hardest to keep her inside, so that he can protect her (his good intentions go south real quick). In these fan disks he tries to make everything right with the heroine and start anew with a healthy relationship.

Ukyo (Joker world)

Ukyo is a bit of a wild card. He seems to have a split personality, which he does know about, and he can go from being innocent and kind to creepy and saying how you will die. But in the Joker World, which is Ukyo’s route, we found out all the blanks about the amnesia world. And as it turns out he has been through a lot, and this really made me feel for him. In Later x Crowd the heroine deals with being in a relationship with someone who has a split personality. This reminded me a little of the Gollum Smeagol situation in Lord of the Rings 🤣 (Ukyo is a lot better, so don’t worry).

Visuals and Sound

The CG’s (Computer Graphic) were once again stunning. They always have a soft glow and the lighting hits just right in the images. The images also have movement in them and that makes the CG’s dynamic and satisfying to look at.

The beautiful flow and sunset in this image

The background visuals were kept simple like the original game. It uses different colors for different times of day. And the background seems to have a high exposure, this makes the images a little non-descript.

The background music was good, and it fit the theme, but it did cut between soundtracks a little clumsily. It didn’t flow well sometimes.

Overall thoughts

I think it is a good thing that they combined these two fan disks in one game. Because if it were two separate games, the content would not be enough. But having said that, I do think that they have tried their best to give you a lot of varied content. Aside from the After Story content with the love interests, there are also stories with the beloved Waka-san, with girls and Orion makes a comeback. These stories were refreshing in the game and were nice to play in between the love stories. Another plus was that the main character finally had dialog in this game. This made reading so much nicer because the characters could talk to each other.

One thing I enjoyed was the dynamic between Kent and Ikki throughout the games. Normally their personalities would be an unusual pairing, a nerd and a ladies’ man. But they really complement each other, and I have smiled numerous times at their interactions.

I also loved Waka’s route, which I did not expect. He showed a lot of different sides of himself while trying to “protect” the heroine from uncomfortable situations.

Of course, in most fan disks there are not a lot of actual plots in the stories. Not a lot of exiting things happen anymore, because in the fan disks they are trying to make their relationship work under normal circumstances. And I have to confess that sometimes the game got a bit repetitive because they confessed their love about a hundred times…

But in saying that, I am a sucker for last CG’s (Computer Graphic) in Amnesia: Crowd in the love stories (I won’t spoil what it is).

Conclusion

I did enjoy the game and loved to see that the characters got their happy ending. But I must add that the original game was better. The reason for this is that it just lacked an actual storyline, and it was a lot of the same lovey dovey dialog.

Some positives for this game were definitely the side character stories, the beautiful CG’s and the happy endings of Amnesia: Crowd.

Final verdict: I like it