Rewound 101

Being a high school student is not an easy task, at least not at that age. Growing up makes it look obvious that it shouldn’t matter that much, but that’s the kind of hindsight children do not have. However, it’s also a period when you can learn a lot about yourself and other people, which is why it’s important to try and make friends, as well as concentrate on your education.

Rewound 101 is a dialog-driven visual novel in which you play the role of a high school student by the name of Shaizee, although you have the option to change it to whatever you wish. The whole game revolves around her life and the choices she has to make in order to keep her school life under control. Don’t expect too much role-playing, on the other hand, because this is still a visual novel.

It all starts when a series of events make Shaizee a very popular girl at school, which attracts a lot of attention to her. Since her main hobby up until that point was to study, she doesn’t really know how to cope with popularity. Naturally, other students start to hang out with her, which means that she needs to learn how to interact with them without spooking them off.

As it’s always the case, things get more serious later on when certain male characters make an appearance, and they start to get interested in Shaizee. You can make a few choices along the way that decide your character’s fate in the romance department. In fact, these choices allow you to re-play the game and reach different endings, so this part is pretty interesting.

On the other hand, it must be noted that there are still a few chunks in the game that are not translated into English, at least not completely. This is pretty disorienting, because the menu, the presentation and the first few minutes of dialog are all in English, so it’s quite the surprise to see Taiwanese a few minutes in. Thankfully, at least the artwork is very nicely done and quite colorful.

In the end, Rewound 101 might not feature the most intricate storyline out there, but it’s pretty engaging even so. Granted, you need to enjoy high school drama stories, because there’s nothing truly life-changing when it comes to the plot.