This is Symphonic Rain.
The story of this visual novel follows Chris, a third year Fortelle student at Piova Communal School of Music, located in a city that has none stop rain. His hobbies include staring at rain, talking to his imaginary fairy friend, and writing letters to his sweetheart, Arietta, who is in another town. It is in one of Ariettas letters that we are introduced to his plight: With the finals nearing, he must find a vocalist to pair up with for the final performance.
Symphonic Rain is known as breaking the mold compared to most visual novels in that actually has mini-games in a musical form. In fact, how well you perform in the games becomes a huge factor of whether you get a bad or good ending for the novel. All the songs you perform are vocal songs, and how much you like them depends on how much you like the sound of Japanese singers. There are difficulty settings for each song, and if you get tired of playing a certain song over and over you can set an option to have the game play the song for you. This visual novel mainly focuses on Chris's interaction with the female he is aiming for and on which song you do together. There is some drama, but it's usually at the end of each route, and it has plenty of heartwarming moments. Although all the characters are going to college, the art makes them look like they're in an elementary school. This is the only big problem I have with this novel, but other than that it is quite good and entertaining. I would recommend this for people who don't mind no plot and a lot of focusing on character relationships.
