is a Japanese adult visual novel developed by Studio Mebius for Windows PCs on January 31, 2003. It was later ported without the erotic content to the Dreamcast, PlayStation 2, and PlayStation Portable consoles. The story of Snow revolves around the life of Kanata Izumo, who is revisiting a village to help his relative manage a hot spring inn. The gameplay in Snow follows a branching plot line which offers pre-determined scenarios with courses of interaction, and focuses on the appeal of the female main characters by the player character.
The game was successful in both sales and popularity, it was ranked as the best-selling PC game sold in Japan at the time of its release, and charted in the national top 50 several more times afterward. Snow was voted as the twenty-sixth best bishōjo game by the readers of Dengeki G's Magazine in 2007. A manga titled Snow: Pure White based on the visual novel was serialized in Comptiq between the September and December 2003 issues. Five light novels and several comic anthologies were also released, as were audio dramas. Studio Mebius went on to release a visual novel called Tomodachi Ijō Koibito Miman on September 24, 2004, which shares the same setting and characters from Snow but takes place years later and focuses on Meiko Tachibana.
Gameplay
Snow is a romance visual novel in which the player assumes the role of Kanata Izumo. Much of its gameplay is spent reading the text that appears on the screen, which represents the story's narrative and dialogue. The text is accompanied by character sprites, which represent who Kanata is talking to, over background art. Throughout the game, the player encounters CG artwork at certain points in the story, which take the place of the background art and character sprites.
In the original Windows release, the player must first complete Sumino and Asahi's story routes in order to unlock Shigure's route; after Shigure's route is completed, Ōka's route becomes available to play which serves as the true ending to Snow. Throughout gameplay, the player is given multiple options to choose from, and text progression pauses at these points until a choice is made. Some decisions can lead the game to end prematurely and offer an alternative ending to the plot. To view all plot lines in their entirety, the player will have to replay the game multiple times and choose different choices to further the plot to an alternate direction. In adult versions of the game, there are scenes depicting Kanata and a given heroine having sex.
Plot
Story
The story of Snow starts when the main protagonist Kanata Izumo revisits a small village from his childhood called . He is revisiting Ryūjin-mura to help manage a local inn with hot springs, , alongside his cousin Tsugumi. In the village, there is an old legend: In ancient times, Ryūjin-mura was protected by the dragon goddess. However, one day the goddess fell in love with a human, which is strictly forbidden, and this incident caused the village to be always covered by snow after that. The game then tells the daily life of Kanata interacting with the village girls and ultimately links the story to the legend. Snow follows a branching plot line with multiple endings, and depending on the decisions that the player makes during the game, the plot will progress in a specific direction.
Main characters
The player assumes the role of , who is visiting Ryūjin-mura as a part-time worker of the local inn owned by his cousin. During his stay, he meets his childhood friend and the main heroine of the game , a soothing and gentle girl whose father has died. She loves anman (a kind of mantou) and claims that it's a source of life. Kanata also encounters a young energetic girl with a tomboy personality called , suddenly appearing before Kanata and claiming that she will repulse the evil from him.
In the outskirts of the village, Kanata meets the mysterious ; Shigure has a shy personality and is extremely silent. The protagonist also finds a little girl called waiting around the jinja for her parents. She likes to play with her cat called . The physician of Ryujin-mura has a daughter called , who is a close friend of Sumino. She likes to tease Kanata, and acts bizarrely in front of him. In Snow: Plus Edition, a new character referred to as is introduced, bearing many secrets.