Blue Skies peaked at Yuri's route

Man. I don't even like Yuri that much because Yuri Lowell from Tales of Vesperia is objectively better and he'll always be the cooler Yuri, but I'm unbiased enough to think that her route is the best-written one. Where do I begin?

I like how you play MC's dynamic with Yuri can affect how the route ends. If you choose to help Yuri in all sorts of stuff such as ordering food and tickets for her, it leads to the bad ending route in Act 3. Yeah, MC seems like a nice guy, an ideal boyfriend. But once he slips out into talking about Sayori in white day, it leads to their fallout because, at that point, Yuri thinks MC too highly that she develops a level of anxiety where she can't ever take back that level of kindness to him. The worst part is that at that point, the contract was sealed. It only gets worse then and on as MC keeps failing to understand Yuri's problem and the latter's anxiety becomes so severe that her self-harm coping leads her to excessive loss of blood eventually killing her, leading to the bad ending. Playing through blind and I remember doing Yuri's route last, I did think helping her with some stuff would lead to Yuri's anxiety problem because I thought it could be solved anyway. Boy, how that got me.

This leads to a small issue I have which is exclusive to the bad ending route. MC is a bit too oblivious to the problems. On one hand, I get it's the point, and adds to the unpredictability factor which is what I like in Blue Skies in general, but on the other hand, man is he a dense mf. Why it took long for MC to open up his problems to his mom out of all people? A person that he should be most comfortable with opening up to. His hiding the situation for long until it becomes too late seems a bit forced for my liking. At least give us a choice that lets MC be more considerate of the situation and have him not be pissed at Yuri. It doesn't have to lead to the true/good ending. Would have been more interesting if there's a third ending that isn't as happy, but averts the bad ending. I mean they gave Natsuki's route four possible endings so I think they could have done it with Yuri's as well considering she's a complex character to write.

Now to get the good ending, you have to let Yuri do stuff on her own in Act 2. That way, her anxiety wouldn't be as severe and it portrays MC as a helpful boyfriend who also wants Yuri to grow as a person. Apparently, you also have to make her hang out with Natsuki, which then would improve their friendship. Good stuff, not much to elaborate. But the highlight for me was the playground scene where everyone in the literature club talked about all their problems and opened up to each other. A small simple scene maybe, but it gave every character the spotlight they need and made them important in the story. A problem I have with Sayori and Natsuki's routes is that not every doki is relevant to the plot. In Sayori's case, Natsuki was shafted and relegated to comic relief while in Natsuki's route, it was Yuri which is odd because they have that compromise with the tea set accident which we didn't even see resolved. Well not here in Yuri's route as everyone got the chance to do something substantial in the plot even if it's small but powerful moments like the playground scene. I also think it's a neat touch it had MC wrote poems for Yuri in valentines and the festival at the ending. Guess it doesn't forget that it has "literature club" in the title.

So yeah. I don't feel the need to mention the smaller good details and issues because those apply to the other routes in Blue Skies anyway. But after playing through every possible ending, I gotta say, I enjoyed Yuri's route the most even though I'm not fond of the character, mods, and vanilla DDLC alike.