gakuen heaven 2
the story of the ace
Everything from here on out will be massive spoilers.
← retreat now if you don't want to be spoiled!
spoilers ahoy!
So everyone piles into the director's office and Tomo's there, so everyone is like... where's the director?
Tomo: *siiiiiiigh* The director is right here.
Yuki: Huh, where?
me & my wife: AHAHA I KNEW IT *hi5*
Naturally, because this is Gakuen Heaven, Tomo IS the director. (And you are a bad, bad person if you choose NOT to believe him.) But this time he really is a legit first-year student, not someone older who's pretending to be in high school. Everyone has a hard time believing him, even after he shows a picture of himself with the previous director, who is actually Tomo's older brother. Tomo's brother was always sickly and ended up dying in the spring, just after inviting Yuki to the school. One of his last wishes was for Tomo to become the next director, and he accepted.
In a brief aside, Yuki has an odd feeling that he's seen the previous director before. (protip: play/read Tomo's route for details)
Okay, but there's no need to panic about the board proposing to close the school, because whenever there's a major decision to be made and the board and the director are opposed to each other, there's a third, tiebreaking vote - that of the student council president.
Except Yuki's not the student council president anymore because his armband is missing! Coincidence? Joker thinks NOT.
Yuki doesn't want to hear any talk about the armband being stolen. He doesn't want to believe that anyone would want to harm the school, and he still believes that he simply misplaced the armband. At dinner, there's the option to tell the other students who are eating, or to keep it a secret. If Yuki tells them, there's an assortment of silly explanations for the armband being missing. Sonoda's is my absolute favorite - he suggests that a "fan" (wink wink nudge nudge) of Yuki's has taken it as a token, and Yuki is all BUT THIS IS A BOYS' SCHOOL, which is now my random objection to everything on earth I don't like.
When he gets back to his dorm room, Yuki receives a suspicious email from an unknown sender. All it contains is a grainy video of someone in a Bell Liberty school uniform removing the armband from Yuki's jacket. Holy crap!
The next day, a school assembly is called early in the morning, and Yuki has a VERY BAD feeling about it. He and Takato head backstage instead of waiting in the audience with the other students, just in case they need to intervene. Sure enough, once the students are assembled, Sakaki introduces himself as the assistant director, which surprises the hell out of Yuki. It's not a secret, though, and Takato points out that his name was on the proposal from the board - Yuki was just too flustered to notice.
Anyway, Sakaki gets right to it and tells everyone that the board has decided to close the school. Naturally, everyone is all WHAAAAT, and Yuki is all AWW HELL NO and runs out on stage to register his formal objection as student council president. Except Sakaki knows the rules and rejects Yuki's objection - he has no right to say anything since he doesn't have the armband. But guess who does?
That's right, Sakaki has it. Yuki objects, first accusing him of stealing it (lol rude) and when that doesn't work, he pulls out his phone to show the mysterious video he received, the one showing a student taking the armband from his jacket. They argue a bit until they're interrupted by an odd mechanical voice...
I fucking love this game, yo
Just like the bear plush representing the director in GH1, we have a panda plush representing Tomo. BAM. So basically the idea is that just like the MVP Battle seven years ago (where Keita was about to be expelled, but won and wished to stay), the panda is suggesting something called the Bell One Grand Prix (just roll with it okay) so Yuki can prove he's fit to be the Ace. Like Keita, he'll choose a partner and participate in the competition, only this time the fate of the entire school rests on if they win or lose.
Of course, this is IF the board of directors agrees to the plan. Yuki won't know until after school. Kuya and Joker are the ones who came up with the plan - they stayed behind at the director's office to plot something with Tomo, and they came up with the Bell One after studying Keita's situation from seven years before.
Naturally, the board agrees because if they didn't, there wouldn't be a game. Backstage after the announcement, Tomo suggests that Yuki should go talk to Keita for advice on choosing a partner. It's not required, but if you do, you get the option of unlocking special bonus scenes featuring Keita and one of the guys from GH1, depending on what you have Yuki think while talking with Keita, and which character route you end up following. It's a little tricky because you have to match Keita's "special someone" to Yuki's partner, and some of the matchups are kind of odd. (check here for details)
literally the most options you will ever have in this game
After chatting with Keita (or not), Yuki heads outside to think about who to choose as his partner. If you've been pursuing a particular character up until now, selecting that person will make them Yuki's partner... with one exception. There's one character who will always refuse until his route is unlocked by completing several others first. Sorry, bro.
From here, the game splits off into the character branches. Check the GH2 script translations for all the juicy details!
Keep reading for a generic summary of what happens after choosing a partner.
After this, Yuki explores his partner's backstory / tragic past / emo feels / all of the above, and they compete together in the Bell One. There are three rounds in the Bell One. The first is made out to be a super hard trivia/quiz thing in the game, but when you actually encounter it as the player, it's either a ridiculously simple pattern matching game, or an obnoxiously card matching/ordering game. (Fun fact: We thought it was bullshit that there were two versions of the quiz because we didn't encounter the card version until we were almost done with the entire game.)
Just pray for the pattern one, it's way less annoying.
The second round is a HORRIBLE TYPING MINIGAME that you can purposely make even more annoying by choosing to "do it myself" instead of cooperating with your partner. You know, if you hate yourself. And the third is super simple - there are two boxes, and you have to choose the one the armband is in. If you're set up for the good ending, it'll be in the box, Yuki saves the school, mends his partner's broken heart, wins the lottery, cures cancer, and establishes world peace! If you've been a douche to your partner, you'll lose and the school will be closed.
Unlike some other BL games, it is extremely easy to get the ending you want. All characters have a good/romance ending and a bad ending, and a select few also have a friendship ending. Be a decent human being to get the good ending, a douche to get the bad ending, and kind of wishy-washy to get the friendship ending.
color coded for your convenience!
Oh, yeah, those three grey endings aren't character endings, they are FAIL endings that you get if you lose any of the minigames - blackjack, the quiz round of the Bell One, or the EVIL TYPING MINIGAME of the Bell One. They are short and crappy, but you should get them anyway to fill in the ending list and unlock stuff. If you don't care about that sort of thing (why not??), at least get all the character endings, as the bad endings are just as interesting as the good/friendship ones.
Also, the last two endings (23/24) cannot be accessed through the main game. That route takes place AFTER the events of the main game, so you have to go out of your way to play it. It's on the "this and that" menu on the title screen, and it's the first choice on that submenu. (Interface spoiler, I guess.) It's not available right away as it's the "secret" character route, so you have to complete several other characters first.
It's recommended to leave the secret character for last since there are minor spoilers for all the other characters in there (depending on one minor choice made in the route) but if you want to go for it as soon as it's available, it's not a real problem. When you have the option to talk to someone, just pick a person whose ending you've already finished.
The secret character's route answers every damn question your brain has accumulated over the course of the game, so that information is on yet another spoiler page. Click below, noob.