Birds with Santa Hats: Kite plays Hatoful Boyfriend: Holiday Star

It was on Steam Sale and I have zero self-control.
@Lazarae got the brunt of my spamming about the first game, but there really isn't more to say about that one apart from what Angie Gallant has already said.



The game starts with a vile band of christmas tree thieves, and for some reason the police can't do jack shit and so a ragtag bunch of students from St. Pigeonation's have to pick up the pieces. Way to go.
But also what. Why are people stealing all the christmas trees. No one needs that many christmas trees and if they do they should go and buy a piece of land and plant a fir forest on it.

Your name is YUKINO MATSURI and if BBL is canon to this timeline YOU ARE ALREADY DEAD.

We then switch to the parakeet café and Rabu and Ryouta talking about how it's hella late and already dark outside, and Kenzaburou joins that it's almost christmas. I might have bought this game a few days too late. Does anyone have a time machine I could borrow to post this thread four days ago?


IN MY HEART THE LESBIANALL-GIRL GANG IS CANON

Kenzaburou mentions how they put up the christmas tree today.

Let me guess, with the prologue and all, the tree is gone.

We also get a timeframe: It's Ryouta's sophomore year, and he's not frozen, so BBL might not have happened? I refuse to believe they only needed 2 months to get the science advanced enough to thaw him back out. It also means that Ryouta's mom is still alive.

Aaaand crashing sound. This was usually accompanied by Anghel's dynamic entry in the previous game, but let's see what it brings here.


Kenzaburou and Ryouta head outside to see wtf happened, where they find Rabu collapsed on the ground. I sadly did not get a shot of the beautiful out of context phrasing of "They got me from behind"

Called it.


You and me both, Matsuri. Also, hey, I'm alive!


You and me both. But you've lived here your whole damn life, unlike me!


Are you telling me you're going after them. Last textbox you said something about how you needed time for studying, which was the reason you left the december part time at the bird cafe to Ryouta.


A wild refrance objection appears!


Matsuri's obvious inclination to form a reckless plan and drag y'all into a wild goose hunt across town to find the christmas thieves, only so you realize that the real christmas is the friends you made along the way and you don't really need the trees because you have each other.

 

Turns out it was just Matsuri being Matsuri.

Ryouta the asks her to crank it down a bit lest he get a heart attack.


No.


Have you been hanging out with Anghel? Because I approve.


YOU CAN'T TELL ME WHAT TO DO.


I applaud your dedication to stay informed as you have stated a noblebird has to.


Look, it's not barking up the wrong tree if it's the only one left because all the other ones got stolen.


This thing's gonna get stolen.

This thing is so gonna get stolen.



If he starts saying "Ho Ho Ho", RUN


ABORT MISSION RUN

 

I'm gonna wake up the house cackling like this, you're terrible.

 

This isn't even my final form ::P

 

We make our way to the High Society Sea Gull Department Store and if you thought Sakuya was a snob, he at least has an excuse.

Classism, my dear, actually. I'm quite sure the crux of the matter is that you dare to look poor. Bad for business, you see?
I mean Matsuri's reaction is 100% understandable, but.... Not a good move.


Thank you.

He's a fantail. Which is a thing you know.


FATALITY
Does anyone else smell singed feathers? Because somebirdie just got roasted.

Leave...?
...
Who even am I kidding. Let me taint this place with my obvious poverty. Mwahahahaha.


Matsuri omg. Channel your inner minecrafter and build yourself the deep cavern dwarf mine home you deserve. You have a doorbell ffs, time to finish that wall.
Or maybe don't and make it part of an obstacle course / trap labyrinth to get to your hidden lair.


We also come across Nanaki-sensei who has fallen asleep on one of the beds. I'm kind of amazed, I never even dared touch display beds...
We remind him that we are not actually at school and he mentioned he wanted to get a new bed because it's cold outside. He then walks over to a display of woolen blankets, and damn I feel you. Blankets are a+


Christmas seems to be a smashing success this year.


What the shit

 

-excited squealing-

 

To be fair, they look like the unholy offspring of a human and a dove, sculpted from mochi. Which means they're a bit too early -- mochi is a New Year's food.
... Have they come to the past to ensure the protagonist aka their future mom to hook up with the right bird? Who knows, let's never find out.


In the meantime they're playing Katamari Damacy.


And get arrested by mall security. Thankfully they do not attach themselves to Ryouta and Matsuri, and instead leave.
Also, dear gull guard, did you get that job for being gullible? High Society and rules, hahahaha.


We then return back to the bird cafe which is infinitely more chill. Kenzaburou relays a message from Rabu that he got a picture of the thieves and--

DON'T I KNOW YOU LITTLE SHITS


Matsuri dismisses the thought though. Gurl, you go up the food chain by being a suspicious sonovabeach and trusting your gut instinct. Your hunter-gatherer instincts should tell you that YOU HAVE SEEN THIS BEFORE.

I also noticed, and I didn't get a good shot of it as it's obscured by the text box, but the table in the front has a figurine of Azami and Rabu.

We then cut to One and Yuuya discussing the situation.

Apparently the Dove Party, for whatever the fuck reason, has declared this an Important Thing. The only reason I can think of why is that they suspect it's a ploy of the Hawk Party to eradicate the Human Holiday that is Christmas. Not even because of its pagan roots or that it's the celebration of the Birth of the Human Saviour in the western world, as it's more of a lover's holiday in Japan. But just because it's a Human Holiday.


Presented without comment.


You're one to talk, Mister Bright and Massive Whose Introduction Was Him Posing In Front Of An Explosion.


Also presented without comment. And I'm going to hell.


Oh dear.

And then there's a crash. No glass sounds, more like a thing that goes Bump In The Night.

 

No, really.

Shit.


And then the scene cuts to next morning. Matsuri proceeds to lament that she doesn't have winter plumage and that her skin is as bare and exposed as her human heart. Gurl, do your hunter-gatherer heritage proud and WEAR THE FURS AND SKINS OF YOUR SLAIN ENEMIES. And maybe stuff some feathers in there too idk. Not like birds don't molt them out every year.


And he doesn't doze off once during the conversation, too.


I was about to suggest something other than these flimsy and thin windows, but if the C4 takes the wall with it, no chance. Such an obvious way in, too, and apparently the windows were not alarmed.


... Not sure he's that charitable towards strangers.


Matsuri picks up some sort of clue from the snow, a white tuft of fur. How she managed to see it in the snow, who even knows.


Who are you, Sherlock Holmes?


And probably comfort him about the loss of his immaculate office and beautiful christmas tree.

Matsuri decides to check in on Nageki first though. He doesn't have much to say on the matter of the break-in, as the Student Council Room isn't close to the library. She leaves him a pocket warmer.

After she leaves, she notices that he doesn't look as fluffy as he probably ought to, and promptly dismisses it as him being "the slender type" and yes that's a quote.

Man, I really love the Nageki BGM. Calm and a bit somber.

 

Off to the Crime Scene!


Wait, you mean the whole thing doesn't have a permanent atmosphere of seriousness simply because Sakuya wouldn't tolerate anything but??


... Uhm, Ryouta, weren't you the one of the two birds who was interested in uncovering the culprits...?


ARE THOSE CRAYONS

Also how has that feather not been blown away, and why the fuck is there an old cabled telephone there. Sakuya pls. Next you drag in a tube monitor because it's more traditional.


THIS!
IS!
SPARTAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA



Sakuya continues having a meltdown. I almost feel sorry for him.


Yes, rub some more salt into the wound, Matsuri.


... Ok he deserved it.


I dunno, the kind who does not believe in noblesse oblige because they're not gentlebird thieves?
... Sakuya. Sakuya, what kind of novels have you been reading.


And here we have the remains of the christmas tree. I have to say you guys have been really fucking lucky, because christmas tree fires? Can go south really, really quickly. One of my profs showed us a video during the last lecture before christmas. No five minutes between spark and an inferno you couldn't breathe in.


What kind of thief blows up the very thing they want to steal. THERE WERE TWO WINDOWS FFS.

edit: images should now be visible. there was a small technical mishap.

 

There is also an "ultimatum" as Sakuya put it.

I don't know what I was expecting, but it wasn't this.


Matsuri supplies the lines that didn't fit into the crayon smudgings, and it appears that at least part of the tree has survived.


Thank you. Also, at this point, the identity of the culprits has been made so clear that I'm starting to look around corners for potential twists.




SHIROGANE SAKUYA HAS JOINED THE PARTY IN OUTRAGE!


Not find, but very much identify.


I approve. Best protagonist is best.

Matsuri and Sakuya leave to get One's testimony. Ryouta stays back to look for more clues.


Oh shit



asfdgjjhdfghjkäjlzadsfhg

eta: also i would like to mention that i wrote the past 2 posts to the bgm of dance of the sugar plum fairies.

 

This left me wheeze-cackling into my keyboard until my family came over to see if I was OK. +1, appropriate reaction.

 

This has very little to do with the game in question, but I'm fairly certain* the gulls seen in the department store are adult Black-headed gulls.

*

Spoiler: Rambling about gulls

I say 'fairly certain' because, even amongst people who are into that sort of thing, gull identification is nonsense. There are a lot of gulls and most of the variables in each major category (Big, Medium, and Small Gulls, basically) are in fairly subtle differences in bill colours and tail patterns. Also, gulls have long maturation cycles (compared to, for example, songbirds) so the distinctive plumage can take up to four years to come in, and until then they're all mottled and brown. Also most of them can interbreed so there's a 15% chance that whatever you're looking at isn't Gull 1, but rather a hybrid of Gull 2 and Gull 3 that just happens to look exactly like Gull 1. With that said, the gulls in Hatoful seem to be Black-headed Gulls going by the black-tipped red bill. They are in non-breeding plumage, but by February these gulls will molt into the striking black head feathers for which they are named. I would describe it as 'distinctive' but almost all of the 'small' gulls have black hoods like that, I can list at least six. The Black-Headed Gull range is basically wherever it wants to be, including all of Europe and Japan and the east bits of North America.

This was YggiDee's 'More Information About Birds Than You Care To Have'

 

Having never played birb dating, why is fat birb bad news?

 

Spoiler: MASSIVE HATOFUL BOYFRIEND 1 SPOILERS

Shuu Iwamine (a Chukar Partridge) is a doctor in the original Hatoful, and a romance option. He's not interested in appearances, though, only what's on the inside. He likes seeing what makes people tick. I should clarify that this is not metaphorical, and he dismembers classmates on the regular. He sends you a roasted classmate as a Christmas gift. If you date Shuu Iwamine he will murder you and keep your head in a jar. Not in a cackling mad science sort of way, just a 'I'm confused by your interest but your organs are to interesting to leave in there' way.

There's a whole whack of other stuff going on in the Bad Boys Love plotline involving secret identities and tragic backstories and forgotten childhood promises and such but all you really need to know is that Shuu is totally down with murdering people for medical research.

Spoiler: Less spoily option

Doctor Shuu Iwamine is the physician at Saint Pigeonation's. He's an incredible doctor, but he's super creepy and has the personality of an indifferent cactus. Sometimes students go missing though, and maybe it coincides with an uptick in chicken dinners at the cafeteria, and maybe there's fancier quills for sale at the gift shop. Probably just a rumor. He's the only person qualified to treat your chronically ill Best Friend.

 

Time to go talk to Mr One about what he saw.

Except he's not there.


Oh you sweet dove of summer. Also, I'm fairly certain Matsuri's poverty rubs off on you far more than this quaint room.


The fuck are you supposed to do with someone who's already worn out before they even get to you.


Sakuya has opinions, and Yuuya is having none of them. You really get the feeling that this conversation has happened one, or two, or twenty times.


As someone who has played BBL it's probably distributing bribes and calling in favours, in the secret janitor club I mean dove party headquarters. Making sure some people get hindered, and others don't. After all, we're all friends here.


You're a bird.


Yuuya mentions that he and Mr One have seen the culprits. Sakuya demands to know why he wasn't contacted at once, and we get this gem.


As long as it's just the beak... I remember a certain doctor and a few certain storylines in which you lose your meat and your feathers as well.


Neither Sakuya nor Matsuri are having it, though, and swear vengeance. Yuuya acquiesces, and is quite possibly secretly glad he has those two running about and out of his hair.

 

Then he pulls out the photo he took of the culprits so we can get down to business.


Asking the real questions here. I stand by my earlier assessment of "unholy genetic mixture of a human and a dove, made out of mochi and not fully grown yet"


Matsuri finally connects the dots, though. Yuuya misinterprets but she clears it up in the most ass-backwards way that makes them think she's friends with the walking mochi. This, too, gets cleared up. I hoped Sakuya as noblebird could go collect information at the high society department store (as if someone who is truly high-society would buy something off the rack or display...), but no one came up with that idea yet.


Like the damn toddlers they are.



And then Yuuya proceeds to manipulate Sakuya into going along with the scheme of using the Le Bel christmas tree as bait. Sakuya himself gets baited by what is basically "but think of the PR" when objecting on grounds of "but we can't let the filthy masses in!".


And it needs made public.


Super High School Level Spy, and since he's alive around christmas not on his way to become Super High School Level Fried.


Presented without comment.

 

We return to the semidemolished student council room to plot our enemies' demise, because Sakuya is about as stubborn as an old sow.

Spoiler: For those of you who don't want to figure out the stealth pun

pig eon headed

Such a beautiful friendship. And I can see why people ship it romantically.


Sakuya please don't shoot at family vans or school buses.
Also I'm calling that there'll be a helicopter. ((There was a picture of the two mochi birds in a tank. Which would also be hilarious. Neutralize that.))

There wasn't much more to the conversation, so we skip to later-- oh dear, last time I saw that background, I got trapped locked in a disused filing room by fat bird. The same filing room, incidentally, that holds the door to the old medical research facility.

... Anghel pls
Anghel walking sticks are not secretly legendary swords


Oh shit. I, uh, have seen nothing? (Those test tubes are massively suspicious tho)
The doctor asks wtf Matsuri has been doing here and she answers that she was just about to go home, what's he doing?


Nope, nothing suspicious at all.


He's talking about the stuff the mochi birds left behind isn't he. He's in on this. This is all his fault and the mochi birds are his creation / children and they grew up delinquent because daddy didn't love them. Maybe they're fridge science and just randomly sprung to life from a project he had lying about and suddenly called him daddy. SCIENCE RESPONSIBLY.

Also you have now read 100 screenshots of me talking to birds at bird school for birds.

...

Are... are the mochi birds collecting christmas trees for a big nest/tree house...?
It's half past midnight, you're getting the next update which is already screenshot (I whittled 48 shots down to 20 aka 2 updates, I'll try not to post every line but some are just too good to pass up) and resized and then go to sleep. Oh my birds.

 

Godsdamnit Matsuri that is your cue to run like hell


THAT IS THE OPPOSITE OF WHAT YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO DO


Happy holidays to you, too, fat bird


The doctor proceeds to walk off, presumably still hiding the test tubes behind his back, aka now in plain sight. Also, Matsuri wtf.


He thinks of something to ask Matsuri, though. Matsuri is healthy as only a fool can be, though, but now I wonder if the mochi birds aren't mochi at all and instead tofu. Tofurkeys?
Fatbird, why do you even want to know this. Are you planning on sending me one of my classmates, plucked and roasted, this christmas? Again?


Well, someone's getting murdered. Ain't no christmas without a corpse, even if the doctor has to supply it himself.

Now there's an idea.

 

Kite, to the pungeon this instant

 

ftfy