History and Details
Development of Dear Mom: My Letter to You started in 2012 as “Kawasaki Chronicles” but would go through revisions, starting from being a romantic comedy, to being reborn as “Project Kawasaki” in 2019, and including RPG elements and character stats. After an initial failed Kickstarter in 2021, development resumed thanks to a second successful crowdfunding campaign!
I actually backed the $15 tier on the Kickstarter, so it was nice to follow the development of the project with the intention of getting around to a review! Oh, and seeing my name in the credits was also nice.
Back in the “Chronicles” days, Ayame’s mother, Nao, died of an “unknown illness”. But this time around, I wanted to try something different that not many people go over, and may relate to some people suffering from this. And that was suicide. Researching this topic took some time, as I wanted to get a good understanding of the psychology around it, what’s on people’s minds, and learn how their family and friends react to it. And let me tell you, suicide and depression are no joke.
One of the biggest things I wanted to achieve with this game was for the audience to deeply connect with the main character, Ayame Kawasaki. Having lost her mother, she now suffers from anxiety, depression, and guilt, negatively affecting her well-being. We follow her struggles and witness her grief, allowing us to resonate with her at a whole new level. And that’s what makes relationships so powerful. Ayame starts to come to terms with what happened with her mother and begins to heal with the help of the friends she makes after returning to school. And if you know me, you know I love characters and character development.
The reader takes the role of Ayame Kawasaki, just as her final year of high school is about to begin. The death of her mother still fresh in her mind, she has to navigate through school life again and reforge relationships she hurt during her depressive state. If she plays her cards right while she learns to deal with her grief, she can find new friendships, or perhaps love.
Mechanics/Features
Dear Mom features partial ENG voice acting for all characters, including side characters! I personally had all voices turned off during my playthrough, but it’s still a great option for those who enjoy it. This VN also has all the things you’d expect from a VN such as a CG gallery, partial controller support, etcetera.
The RPG mechanics are a major selling point of this VN. In between non-major story sections, you’ll be able to choose between different activities to pass the time which will in turn raise one of five stats for our protagonist.
At Kawasaki’s home these activities are the most varied, ranging from taking a bath to increase Charisma, drawing to increase Craftsmanship, Reading, Watching TV… There are fewer activities during school; aside from studying or reading, you can spend time with characters to raise your stats with them. It’s important to raise these stats, because some choices are locked behind this system.
(e.g Ayame doesn’t have enough craftsmanship to help for the school festival)
As mentioned, Ayame has to repair her relationship with a couple of characters whom she seemingly burned bridges with during her seclusive depression; I won’t say who these characters are for spoiler reasons. These characters, as well as all romance-able/friend-able characters, have a star level meter. You can raise this by making certain dialogue choices or by actively choosing to spend time with said characters during free time after class. It can be really rewarding, as you could get extra scenes of character development or even side-stories, but sometimes you only get a short time skip to after Ayame has “hung out” with said friend. It’s worth mentioning there are only certain days of the week when said characters are available.
When it comes to the two characters Ayame is required to repair her relationship with, the game will outright tell you to do so, and if you fail to mend your bonds with them after a given date it’s game over. Furthermore, you need to increase a specific stat to accomplish this, such as Kindness. I think it would’ve been better to allow the story to continue without said character in the picture, as these events in the game feel a bit tacked on and only happen twice. That said, I really like the RPG-like system overall, and think it serves a good narrative purpose of allowing the character to experience Ayame’s growth and feel like they’ve played a part in it.
Story talk/Spoilers
In this section, I will touch upon spoilers, so feel free to skip to the outro if you’d rather have your playthrough be blind.
According to the official descriptions, Dear Mom is a “yuri romance dating sim,” but that never felt fitting to me as the romance is optional, doesn’t come into play until the end, and there’s a guy to romance. I like that the reader has the choice to either pursue a romantic or platonic relationship with whichever character they are closest to, but ultimately the choice just effects a few bits of dialogue and narration later on, you never get to explore a romance between Ayame and the gal or guy in question. There aren’t any sex scenes either, which is a good thing as they would’ve been out of place and would have made the tone feel misplaced.
For overall story and execution, I think the creators mostly managed to pull off what they were aiming for. My biggest criticism is that a lot of the dialogue feels either too lighthearted to take seriously, or occasionally too dark and heavy, to the point it feels thematically inconsistent. Some moments are just straight up melodramatic.
Another small nitpick I have with the setting is how in spite of Dear Mom taking place in Japan, it really didn’t need to. It feels that the only reason for the Japan setting is because that’s the stereotypical setting for a VN, especially a dating sim. For example, the narrative doesn’t really incorporate elements of the Japanese view of death, which would’ve made sense. It’s made worse by some characters having very obviously non-Japanese names like Chip or Paul… though Perrine gets a pass since she’s established as American.
Another small nitpick I have is how the stretch goals, if only a tiny bit, led to feature-creep and unnecessary additions. There’s a character with only a single appearance, which apparently was a backer character.
These additions aren’t entirely bad though! Some are clearly great additions, such as extra CGs.
Final thoughts/Outro
This VN has lots of replay value and player/reader freedom. The RPG elements strengthen the narrative, too. Overall, I had a good time reading Dear Mom: My Letter to You, and can recommend it. I may have seemed critical in this review, but don’t let that stop you from buying it; there’s a good chunk of heart-touching material here!
Final score – 7.5/10
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