Crescendo (visual novel)

Crescendo ~Eien Dato Omotte Ita Ano Koro~ is an Eroge Visual Novel created by Digital Objet (creators of Kana: Little Sister).

It's the final week before graduation, and Ryo Sasaki is currently taking additional lessons at school to make up for multiple absences over his three years in high school. At the same time, there are several women in his life: Kaho, his friend and president of the literary club; Kyoko, a younger member of the literary club who has just recently confessed her feelings to him; Yuka, the teenage prostitute who is looked down upon by the entire school; Ayame, his stepsister who dropped out of college to support herself and Ryo after their parents died; and Kaori, the school nurse that Ryo has grown close to over the past three years. Graduation is in only four days, at which point they'll go their separate ways unless Ryo takes action.

Tropes used in Crescendo include:

• All Girls Want Bad Boys - Ryo is a gruff but honest guy with a bad reputation and a troubled past who sleeps through school enough to put his graduation in jeopardy. Tomonori's a nice guy who's captain of the basketball team. Naturally, Kaho has a crush on Ryo even though she's actually going out with Tomonori.
  • The girls like him because he's a good guy, not the fact that he can beat up 3 guys at once. Kaho's crush on him is due to their history together, which more than justifies it, especially if you consider how she started going out with Tomonori in the first place. Granted, it is isn't fair to Tomonori.
• Arranged Marriage - Kaori intends to go through with an omiai marriage unless Ryo intervenes
• Auto Erotica - Kaori's good ending
• Brilliant but Lazy - Ryo, despite sleeping in the nurse's office all the time instead of going to class, apparently got into a rather good local university. And he's only going there because it's close by.
• Brother-Sister Incest - One of the possible outcomes of Ayame's path
• Cannot Spit It Out Ryo and Kaho had feelings for one another throughout most of their three years of high school but because they cannot spit it out, things got a little complicated. I say most because Kaho had a crush on her senpai at first and should the player choose another girl, Ryo's feelings for Kaho probably subsided.
• Club President - Kaho, for the Literary Club
• Club Stub - At the time of the game, the literature club consists of Ryo, Kaho, and Kyoko. Tomonori and Yuka are "members" for purposes of keeping the club from being disbanded, but don't actually attend meetings or participate in club activities.
• Cute Little Fangs - Yuka, on occasion.
• Did Not Get the Girl - a possible outcome of most paths
• Distant Finale - Yuka's bad ending
• Driven to Suicide - one of Kaori's former students. Yuka also attempted this at one point.
• Heavy Sleeper - Kyoko
• Heroic BSOD - Your protagonist goes through this on Ayame's path. So does she, as a matter of fact, albeit both tend to be resolved around the same time depending on your choices.
• H-Game POV Character: Type II A/B, depending on routes taken.
• Hooker with a Heart of Gold - Yuka
• Huge Schoolgirl - Kyoko
• Ill Girl - Miyu
• I Want My Beloved to Be Happy - Tomonori willingly steps aside if the player chooses to be with Kaho
  • Tomonori steps aside no matter which of the two girls the player picks since he realizes and accepts that Kaho was never romantically interested in him. It's not clear whether he and Kaho will get back together should the player choose Kyoko but at the very least, it will take a long time for Kaho to get over Ryo.
• Karma Houdini - The guys who gang rape Yuka toward the end of her route.
• Last-Episode New Character - After completing the paths for all the other girls, the player unlocks a path revolving around Miyu, who up until that point had only a brief appearance and was never formally introduced.
  • If you only found out about her through a guide or this wiki, it wouldn't surprise us one bit. The only hint you get (and a very vague one at that) that she has her own route is a CG that is unlocked for the gallery at the beginning and then never seen again. Subsequent playthroughs just skip it.
• Like Brother and Sister - One of Ayame's endings has her and Ryo concluding that even though they are Not Blood Siblings, they prefer to live as siblings (as compared to the other possible outcome of that path)
• Love Hotels
• Love Triangle - rather than having distinct paths, there is a single shared path for Kaho and Kyoko. Technically a quadrilateral when Kaho's boyfriend Tomonori is included.
• Multiple Choice Past - Literally. Some of the decision points occur during flashbacks, which makes working out any back story not directly shown or explicitly mentioned in a given route kind of weird if you think about it.
• Multiple Endings
• Not Blood Siblings - Ryo and Ayame
• One Last Fling - Kaori's date with Ryo
• Optional Sexual Encounter - in many cases, it is possible to get the "good" endings without necessarily having encountered the H-scenes
• Porn with Plot: This game is rather heavy on the plot, and the romantic involvments are used as a vehicle to further Character Development between the protagonist, his girl of choice, and those around him to greater or lesser extents. It is quite possible to avoid seeing most of to almost all the porn depending on the choices made in the story, much of the sex scenes are played for drama and plot development, and many of the bad endings are achieved by actively angling for the hentai scenes.
• Primal Scene - Ryo walks into a classroom where Yuka is entertaining another student.
• Promotion to Parent - Ayame
• Public Domain Soundtrack
• Rape as Drama - Ayame and Yuka's paths
• Replacement Goldfish - Not a straight example, but it's heavily implied that Ryo reminds Kaori of one of her former students who committed suicide.
• School Is for Losers - Ryo attended just enough classes to meet graduation requirements (if he completes make-up classes)
• Shout-Out - The movie which Ryo and Kaori go to see, Look at Life, uses images, music, and dialogue from Kana: Little Sister. "Look at Life" is also the title of the book Taka wrote at the end of Kana based on his experiences, implying that Kana and Crescendo might take place in the same universe
• Shrinking Violet - Kyoko
• Stepford Smiler - Ryo and Ayame, who try to act as though Ryo never tried to rape Ayame
• Tall, Dark and Bishoujo - Kaori
• Teacher-Student Romance - Kaori, the school nurse
  • In fairness, she's aware of this, and tries to avert this trope (at least on the school grounds), but she eventually caves if you get her good ending. The good part is that she's aware she's stepped into this trope after this happens, and quits her job because she realizes the massive breach in ethics she has committed, althougth as pointed out before, none of her falling into this trope occurs on the school grounds, both are legal adults, and the fact you have just finished school when the relationship occurs is blatantly obvious does make her decision to leave seem a little overblown, but ethically speaking it was almost certainly a wise choice.
• Victim Falls For Rapist - possibly averted, possibly played straight. In the versions of her path where she was raped by Ryo, Ayame ends up being in love with him, but only because she was already in love with him before being raped. This is also what keeps your protagonist from looking like a Complete Monster who crossed the Moral Event Horizon.
• The Woobie - Pretty much everybody but Kaho and Tomonori. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but it may make pursuing her ending after seeing Kyoko's a little awkward.
• You Gotta Have Blue Hair - While they tend more towards slight tints rather than vibrant colours, Kyoko has green hair, and Kaho's hair seems to have a violet tinge to it.