Official Summary:

Tokyo, 1918. World War I is coming to an end. Yuriko Nomiya, aristocratic by birth, is suddenly struck by a series of misfortunes. Is this fate brought about by the changing times, or is someone plotting against her? The dark, bittersweet tale of Yuriko and five young men is about to unfold...

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Luna's Rating:

Plot: 10/10

Writing: 9/10

Gameplay: 10/10

Characters: 10/10

Art: 9/10

Overall: 9.5/10

Luna's Fave Character: Fujita

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Luna's Thoughts (Light Spoilers):

"Butterfly's Poison Blood Chains" is a tightly-written historic drama that focuses heavily on adult romance. While I found it a bit too sexy for my tastes, I enjoyed its surprisingly mature themes and almost therapeutic discussions of emotions and character motivations.

(Side note: This is a game that deals heavily with dark topics including murder, incest, rape and abuse. These are present even in the good endings, so be prepared.)

Yuriko is a young woman who harbors a crush on her family gardener. Her once-wealthy family cannot rely on the heir, Yuriko's philandering older brother Mizuhito, so her doting father and strict but loving mother are hoping a well-strategized marriage might save the family's status.

The story begins with Yuriko's debut as a marriage candidate, but of course she doesn't want to get married. When a quick succession of tragedies strike, she's forced to consider marriage to save her family.

The love interests in "Poison Butterfly" are pretty varied, both in personality and in status. Will Yuriko pursue the new-money pretty boy who wants to buy her, or the older gentleman who serves as her butler? Each route is heavily romance focused, so you don't get a lot of insight into the other love interests unless you're on their route. It made each playthrough very different, even as the same general events occur.

This is a story where, even if you don't like a character or agree with their decisions, you'll end up with some sympathy for them. Nobody's actions are purely malicious here. Everyone has some noble cause they're working toward, whether that's dismantling the nobility or simply finding a lost love.

Classism is an extremely common theme in the otome world. What makes "Poison Butterfly" stand out is its slow revelations. Yuriko is smart enough to know the details of her family's financial situation and seems to understand the Taisho-era class system better than most. But she's learned not to question certain things — like why her sweet father once had an affair — and she's naive in the ways you'd expect a rich, sheltered girl to be. She understand her duty as a daughter but has never experienced romance, and sexual desire plays largely into her attraction to her various suitors, though she can't identify it in words. Scent is focused on in an almost animalistic way.

I was impressed with the maturity of this game, even though I didn't always love what was happening on screen. Yuriko is a good protagonist with lots of personality, and it's easy to see why the men around her want to protect her.

My one gripe is that the artist for the CGs — of which there are many — doesn't seem to know how to make it look like the characters are looking at each other. Often Yuriko and her love interest seem to be facing each other but weirdly staring off into the distance. I think this is probably a result of reusing Yuriko's illustrations for different partners.

All in all, "Butterfly's Poison" was one of my favorite games this year. While I didn't necessarily love every character, the romance in this game is exactly what I like — full of angst. There's so much pining and longing. It's the otome equivalent of reading a slow burn fanfic.

Please find my thoughts on each route in the order I played them.

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Shiba Route (Spoilers)

Man, what is up with red-haired men in otoges being literal walking red flags? It's like their hair is an intentional warning that this guy is gonna suck.

That's more or less how I felt about Shiba. He starts off coming onto Yuriko super strong, offering to buy her family out of debt in exchange for marrying her. He makes really questionable decisions, largely involving wooing her with money and gifts, and outright sexually assaults her at times. He's even about to rape her at one point until she starts crying.

Yuriko is attracted to him physically from the beginning of the route, although she doesn't understand sexual attraction yet and finds it confusing. I was proud of her for reacting appropriately to Shiba's advances, shoving him away and yelling in his face for trying to buy her. It takes Shiba several rejections to realize he's going about it the wrong way.

He ends up properly apologizing for his behavior, explaining that he met her in childhood and has loved her deeply ever since. Apparently he just loves her so much, he had trouble keeping his hands off her. He's lived his life garnering rich benefactors and didn't mind using sex to curry favor, so he's just doing what he knows.

While I did buy that he truly loves Yuriko and I do believe he's truly sorry for his behavior, that doesn't mean I forgive him. Yuriko might have, but I still think his actions were disgusting. This sort of character never sits right with me. I'm also ace, so I admit the idea of wanting someone so badly is very baffling to me. Regardless, I think it's very weird to just sweep sexual assault under the rug??

It was a well-written route that definitely added a lot of intrigue to the overall story, but I wasn't able to become attached to Shiba.

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Fujita Route (Spoilers)

Fujita is Yuriko's stalwart butler. As she seeks him out for comfort, she comes to learn more about him and falls in love with his hardworking nature, kindness and loyalty to her family.

His age is never mentioned but I suspect he's somewhere in his 40s, making his route the one featuring the largest age gap between Yuriko and her lover. Weirdly enough, Fujita doesn't ever seem to be worried about the age gap so much as their status as master and servant. Once they're together, the age gap is never addressed again.

This was pretty much the perfect route for me. It's filled with angst as Fujita and Yuriko dance around their feelings for one another. Yuriko ends up becoming the aggressor, confessing first and eventually bullying Fujita into getting angry enough to claim her. It's the fanfic equivalent of a big fight that ends with "because I love you!" (Insert flaming Elmo gif here)

My one gripe about this route is that Yuriko goes to consult Lady Kyoko about what the flowers her dead parents were discovered with mean. Kyoko starts to explain, but Yuriko is interrupted and we never revisit this plot thread. Annoying.

Other than that, I have no complaints. I loved getting to know Fujita, since we never see him outside of his usual butler duties in other routes. It's sad but understandable that her family is weird about Yuriko's relationship with him, but I'm glad they seem to be coming around.

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Hideo Route (Spoilers)

Hideo is a soldier and Yuriko's childhood friend. He doesn't make a great impression at the beginning of the game, but we learn later that he was just jealous that Yuriko is going to have to marry someone else.

Hideo is pretty obviously into Yuriko from the start. She finds out he has a fiancee and isn't into her, but won't fight it because there's already someone in his heart. They start spending more time together and she realizes he hasn't changed much. Their growing closeness culminates in a desperate kiss that ends with them yelling at each other, unable to be honest with one another. What a cute dynamic – perfect for these two loser childhood friends.

I do think they get together a little too fast. I wanted them to pine a little more. The angst returns though when Hideo volunteers to go to Siberia with the army for the express purpose of breaking off his engagement to the other girl, so he can return to Yuriko later.

Hideo's fiancee briefly appears before Yuriko, just to test her feelings, and she's happy to break off the engagement when she realizes Yuriko loves him, too. This was a little weird, pacing-wise, because it felt like everything had already been resolved at this point. Why have her show up at the end of the route? They gave her a sprite, so why not write her in a couple more times to make it seem more of a concern?

Still, I loved Hideo and his interest in birds. I also loved that Hideo and Yuriko were almost engaged, but he spooked Yuriko's mother by being a creepy little science boy, so badly that she vowed never to allow him to marry her daughter. Hideo harbored a grudge against Yuriko's family for YEARS because he thought they were stuck up, but really he just creeped out her mom lol.

Like Fujita's route, I enjoyed getting to know Hideo. There's a lot more than meets the eye in his case.

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Mizuhito Route (Spoilers)

Mizuhito is Yuriko's half-brother, and the product of her father's affair with a family maid.

I've played otoges where the MC dates her cousin before, but I figured a half-sibling was probably too much incest for that to actually be the case. I was right. They are not related at all. (This is extremely funny for reasons I will describe later.)

For a route that was set up to be dripping with angst, Yuriko and Mizuhito get together waaay too fast for my taste. He tells her pretty early in the game that he's always loved her, even when he thought they were related, and she pretty quickly agrees to be with him. They can't go public with their relationship, but behind the scenes they're lovey dovey. It felt a little too easy.

I did like learning about the fucked up dynamics of Yuriko's parents, namely that Yuriko's dad adopted Mizuhito and invented the affair story purely to make his wife jealous.

There isn't a ton of conflict once they're together, other than the general fact that they have to hide their relationship. They do a pretty bad job, as several people catch on, but nobody reports them.

At the end of the route, Yuriko and Mizuhito move to France, where nobody knows them, but for some reason they introduce themselves as siblings????? Why? They were finally free and now they STILL can't be together publicly? Baffling story choice.

They also continue to call themselves brother and sister, even after they're together, which was certainly a choice lol.

I did love Mizuhito as a suitor, though. He's suffered enough and deserves to be happy. I just wish the angst went on longer.

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Kyoko Route (Spoilers)

This isn't really a full route — more like a side story that focuses on socialite Lady Kyoko, who is Yuriko's mother's friend. She is heavily implied in every route to know more than she lets on.

Kyoko's route has two endings. In one of them, Yuriko is raped by her creepy servant, Saburo, and ends up in a fucked up relationship with Kyoko. I don't love toxic relationships honestly but it's the closest we get to yuri in this game. I did appreciate that we got to expound on Kyoko as a character, even if she's not my favorite type of character.

For the other ending in Kyoko's route, I'll get to it in Majima's route.

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Majima Route (MAJOR Spoilers)

Majima is Yuriko's family gardener, and her childhood crush. He appears to be sweet and good natured, but in pretty much every other route, we learn he's actually an opium dealer who infiltrated the Nomiya estate years ago as part of a long con for revenge.

Majima's route is unusual in that you don't actually learn about him at all. All of his dark secrets and motivations are discovered in other routes. His own route is more like a victory lap for him, though bittersweet. His "good" ending is the only one where he and Yuriko end up as lovers.

The pacing is a little weird here, as Yuriko leaves her family home to work as a waitress, which she is convinced will help Majima see her as a hardworking woman willing to give up her status to be with him. It was a little too cutesy/comedic for this far along in the game.

In Kyoko's route, one of the plot threads ends up with Yuriko finding her mother's diary and realizing something happened at her childhood villa, which she surmises because someone tore out the pages strategically. I never figured out who did the tearing and a quick Google search did not help me, so if you happen to know, shoot me a message lol. I admit I didn't play all the bad endings so maybe the answer is in one of those.

Anyway, Yuriko meets someone who knew her mother from the past, and from all the information, she's able to piece together the shocking truth: Majima is her half-brother, the product of incest from her own mother and her uncle (her mother's brother). Technically that also makes Majima her cousin, so it's double incest. Yikes. (Remember when I said it was funny that Mizuhito turns out to be unrelated? Yup, we lose one incest route but gain another.)

In one of Kyoko's endings, Yuriko confronts Majima with this information, and he disappears on her after admitting he loves her too but deciding they can't be together. Some people might consider this the true ending of the game.

But in Majima's own route, Yuriko never finds out they're siblings. Due to Yuriko's confession on her birthday, Majima cancels the plan to attack the manor and kill Yuriko's parents.

He does get his revenge, though, when he asks Yuriko's parents to marry her. He knows they will say no, but confronts them anyway, providing juuuust enough information for Yuriko's mother to understand that he is her long lost incest baby and his revenge is stealing her daughter away.

Honestly, this was a brilliant narrative choice. It was subtle, without spelling anything out, as we know Yuriko's parents will eventually piece everything together. Yuriko's father is the man who had Majima's adoptive parents killed, and attempted to kill Majima as well, and Yuriko's mother abandoned her child for status.

Majima's revenge is multi-faceted. 1) They will never see their daughter again. 2) He gets to live out his incest dreams the way Yuriko's mother wasn't able to. And 3) Yuriko will live her life not knowing the taboo she is committing.

It was a dark, brutal ending that leaves Yuriko none the wiser. A perfect ending for this game that was, ultimately, always about forbidden love.

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Bonus Endings

There are three little comedic side stories that you can play after completing all the routes. One of them is called the "real true ending," in which all the love interests get together to serve Yuriko as butlers and make fourth-wall-breaking jokes. Once you play that, you get an additional "real real true ending" in which Kyoko uses some sort of magic to make all the suitors change bodies. This was hilarious, largely because every character gets a new sprite featuring their new personality. I cannot believe how far this game goes for the bit but I am here for it.

Lastly, there's a little side story in which all the suitors get Yuriko something for her birthday, and the fourth wall is once again broken as Majima asks what route they're on and establishes that nothing matters because he's just going to set the manor on fire later anyway.

Official Summary:

Shunlin lives in the thriving martial arts kingdom of Kayu where she’s a Daoist priestess in training. This year is especially important as the Tournament of Valor will decide the strongest fighter in the country. On the day of the tournament, however, a horde of assailants appears at the arena and attacks the spectators.

Experience the conflict and betrayal amongst allies and confront the challenges ahead. As she struggles alongside her rivals to protect those important to them and their pride, our protagonist fights for her beloved country and for the warrior that she loves! What will be their fate in the end, and what will the future hold?

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Luna's Rating:

Plot: 8/10

Writing: 7/10

Gameplay: 10/10

Characters: 8/10

Art: 10/10

Overall: 8/10

Luna's Fave Character: Longli

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Luna's Thoughts (Spoilers):

With a simple but surprisingly dark plot and a cast of energetic, colorful martial artists, "Otome Daoshi" is a fast-paced, straightforward game with a lot of heart.

Protagonist Shunlin is a priestess (daoshi) in training. Like everyone else in the kingdom of Kayu, she's also trained in martial arts, but being a daoshi gives her special powers — namely, the ability to control jiangshi, which are effectively malicious zombies of people who died unsatisfied. The job of a daoshi is to protect others from the jiangshi and lead them into the afterlife by way of either purification or burial.

Shunlin doesn't have a sprite on screen, so I found it hard to become attached to her. She's a cutie and seems pretty energetic, but there aren't a lot of chances to see her, so this was a bummer.

While there are several different mysteries to be explored in this game, the routes don't interweave much, leaving a different goal for Shunlin on each character route. The plots are simple and straightforward, which suits a game about martial arts just fine. This is not an intellectual game and more an otoge for fans of sports manga.

The story is interspersed with manga panels showing fights and other action sequences, which was a fun and creative solution to scenes that would be difficult to convey with sprites. But even the fights with sprites weren't too bad, as character sprites all come with action poses.

There's also a myriad of punchy sound effects, which may sound obvious but there are weirdly a lot of games that don't invest in action sound effects. (If you want an example of that, check out "Temirana," which has numerous fight scenes accompanied by offputtingly calm music and no sound effects at all lol.)

"Otome Daoshi" is a straightforward game that knows what it is. You're not going to be mulling over the plot twists for months after playing, but it's a colorful romp while it's happening, and it pulls everything off decently. It's not ambitious but it's successful with what it tries to do. I liked it!

Please find below my thoughts on each character route in the order I played them.

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Shaowu Route (Spoilers):

Shaowu is the stoic tough guy of the game. He meets Shunlin during the common route when he protects her from a random asshole on the street. He claims he was doing it for his own convenience, but we quickly find out on his route that he's used to looking out for people who are smaller than him.

Shaowu entered the tournament of valor to achieve an audience with the king and find out who caused an army of jianshi to attack his village 20 years ago. His mom became some sort of living jiangshi and she's been hanging out in Shaowu's basement ever since. Shaowu sorta kidnaps Shunlin, knowing she's a daoshi and might be able to help, and the good-natured Shunlin hears him out and agrees to help anyway.

The two definitely fall in love too quickly — over just a matter of days. I hate when the feelings feel rushed in these games because how difficult would it have been to just say they were adventuring for weeks instead of days?? That said, I do think Shaowu and Shunlin make a good pair. Shunlin is naive and too trusting, but her willingness to help charms Shaowu.

I do wish we got a little follow up to this in the "secret" route, because that's usually considered the true ending. I'm assuming Shaowu would eventually ask Shunlin to help, but it would have been nice to see it happen officially. Shaowu's route is the least connected to the others and the only one whose problems aren't resolved by what happens in the rest of the secret route.

This route also introduces Shiyu, the living jiangshi who turns out to be interested in Shunlin's death on the other routes, so it doesn't make a lot of sense for him to be so benign here. He can't physically kill humans, but he can control other jiangshi, so why do she and Shaowu have such an easy time in this route?

At the time I thought this route was pretty decent, but looking back after playing the rest, it has some issues.

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Yuhang Route (Spoilers):

Yuhang should have been my favorite character, being both a childhood friend and a tsundere, but his characterization was a little over the top for me. Shunlin isn't a tsundere so she doesn't react or become embarrassed in return, making their interactions seem a little one-sided.

That said, I did find him adorable. His genuine affection for Shunlin that stems from childhood was very sweet and and I could feel his pain. I felt the feelings were rushed in Shaowu's route but here, they felt natural, as these two already knew each other.

After escaping from the jiangshi attack at the Tournament of Valor, Yuhang and Shunlin head out to meet with Yuhang's mentor, Seisetsu, whom Yuhang has long feared may have had something to do with the attack.

The main conflict in this route is from two warring factions. The Pro-Wushu group believe in the country of Kayu's motto "Might is Right!" and continue to support the strength-based merit system, whereas the Anti-Wushi faction believe people who are less athletically inclined should be treated equally.

While I didn't necessarily dislike the writing here, this conflict is a good example of how unambitious this game is. It's brain versus brawn. The writing is very simple and the plot does not get overly complex or attempt to muddy the waters with additional subplots. You get what you get. I appreciated that the writers didn't attempt to do anything beyond this, as I feel that attempts at subtlety would have been unsuccessful.

All in all, this was a better route than Shaowu's. It felt like the quintessential teen romance. Yuhang fighting for the right to confess to Shunlin at the end was a nice touch.

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Haoran Route (Spoilers)

Haoran is also a childhood friend of Shunlin's, but with different vibes to Yuhang because he's her self-proclaimed "brother." The best part of the route is when Haoran has a little freakout because he realizes he's started to see Shunlin as a woman. It was super cute!

Unfortunately the rest of the romance in this route is kinda boring, as Haoran pretty much immediately confesses and they spend the rest of the route more or less together.

This was the least successful route in terms of lore, as you don't really get to learn much about what's going on behind the scenes.

This is the first route where I felt like the writing got particularly lazy. There are a lot of questions that come up in Haoran's route that Shunlin should really be asking, but she doesn't. What does it mean that she "stole" Shiyu's powers? How has Shiyu existed so long as a literal corpse if Shunlin stole his powers when she was a baby?

This route also takes Haoran and Shunlin into the spirit world, where we learn that eating a special peach from a tree that grows there will bring you back to life. But if that's the case, why aren't people coming back to life all the time? Doesn't that seem a little too easy?

Also in the spirit world, Haoran fights with his former master/father figure over the last remaining peach on the tree, only for Haoran to suggest splitting it. It made the entire interaction fall kinda flat because why would you not think of that earlier?

There wasn't technically anything wrong with this route, but I felt it had some flaws compared to the others.

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Longli Route (Spoilers)

Longli is the elegant royal assistant of the game, and the only locked route other than the secret route. He's pretty helpful on all the other routes, but his personality comes across as a bit bland. He's just sort of a nice guy and that's it. I was hoping we'd get to see a different side of him on his own route.

Oh boy, do we. Longli is the closest this game gets to a yandere. He's a milder version of those guys who lock up the love interest in a cage, because this time the cage is a house. He does still lock her up, though.

Longli cannot feel human warmth, but Shunlin is an exception, which leads to him becoming obsessed with her. His personality doesn't do a complete 180, but Shunli instantly detects something is off. He attempts to protect her by shutting her away, but she pretty quickly convinces him that she's strong enough on her own, and that she'd rather fight alongside him as his equal than be protected by him.

I appreciated this. A lot of otoges have a love interest who literally locks the MC into a dog cage ("Amnesia Memories," "Virche Evermore" and "Birushana," off the top of my head ... there's def more) and somehow she still forgives him enough to date him at the end. At least in this one, Shunlin is given more freedom and they talk it out early enough that Longli's actions seem at least understandable if not justifiable.

After they decide to be equals, Shunlin realizes she's crushing majorly on Longli, and everything he does becomes really cute to her. We get to see more of her personality than ever before. Longli pouting because he realizes characters like Yuhang know more of her than he does was super adorable.

This route has some magic bullshit that isn't explained very well, but because they don't focus much on it, you're inclined not to question it. For example, we know from Haoran's route that Shunlin "stole" Shiyu's power as a baby, and we go into a little more detail in this route, but we still don't get any more of an explanation of how it works. Why did her simply touching him result in his powers getting taken? Also, what does he mean when he says he was "storing up" his powers? Do jiangshi with souls act as batteries or something?

The story does get a little silly, but it's kept vague enough that you can overlook it. It's also pretty funny that Longli is the only character with a bad ending, where it's implied that he'll lock Shunlin up again to protect her.

Overall, Longli's route was my favorite of the main four boys.

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Secret Route (Spoilers)

The secret route shows up after you finish Longli's route and branches off of Longli's first chapter if you interact with the random man who appears.

I thought at once that he resembled Prince Yoki, and of course, in Yuhang's route there was mention of Seisetsu training twins, so ... Yeah, I figured out what was going on right away.

Uro, as he calls himself, is your typical anime amnesiac. He has no memories older than five years ago when he woke up in the forest. He bonds with Shunlin right away when she treats him with kindness. They fall in love a little too fast, but in this case I felt okay with it, circumstances what they were.

This is the only route wherein we learn the true nature of Prince Yoki, who apparently was in on the conspiracy to kill the king the whole time. In the end, he's not able to be saved, and remains locked away in what I assume is the Kayu equivalent of a mental ward.

Shiyu, who we learn is the King's twin brother who was killed the same way Yoki tried to do to Uro, gets to have his revenge, watching the king die painfully. He then promptly passes on, transferring his powers to Prince Yoki for the final battle so that he might do the same.

This was hilarious. We never get to see successful revenge plots in these games. Usually there's some bullshit about kindness or family and the bad guy gets defeated without accomplishing his goals. But not here. Shiyu gets to have his cake and eat it, too. Honestly, good for him. The king was a dick, anyway.

We did completely give up on the whole "I need to kill Shunlin to regain my powers" thing though. Where did that plot go? Why didn't he try to do it earlier when she was younger and easier to kill?

off the clock by SakiCCS btw

Official Summary:

It is an era shrouded in darkness — the world sealed off, and a deadly plague ravaging the land. A peaceful village is ruthlessly attacked by a knightly order, leaving your home in ruins and your family slain.

Saved by a mysterious figure, you are led to a magical city floating upon the sea. There, the stranger proclaims you to be the Moon Witch, destined to guide the people toward prosperity. But amidst your newfound safety and status, turmoil begins to brew. Friends turn on one another, alliances falter, and blades begin to clash.

You wish to end this tragedy. To take root in this land and live on. Who will you trust...? Who will you choose to face the end with?

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Luna's Rating:

Plot: 6/10

Gameplay: 6/10

Characters: 7/10

Art: 8/10

Overall: 6.5/10

Luna's Fave Character: Melodie

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Luna's Thoughts (Spoilers)

On a surface level, this game seems like it would be straightforward but decent. Protagonist Fiena was worked to the bone by her adoptive mother, who never managed to treat her like real family. At the start of the game, 18-year-old Fiena returns home from the market to find her adoptive family slain by knights. Just before she dies, her adoptive mother asks Fiena to take care of her younger brother, who is studying to be a priest. This sideplot is promptly forgotten as Fiena flees for her life.

Fiena is picked up by mysterious sorcerer Olivier, who grants her entry into a city that is otherwise closed to protect its people from the Shadowblight plague. Olivier introduces her to the kingdom as the Moon Witch, who appears in a time of turmoil to give prophecies to guide the people to salvation. Of course, Fiena figures out that there are no prophecies, and she's just meant to be a mouthpiece for Olivier to keep people calm.

After the king dies suspiciously, Olivier is stripped from his position as Grand Sorcier, and Fiena's journey continues with whichever character you've cozied up to the most. There's about a year time skip here, during which it seems Fiena has not learned a single thing about any of her suitors lol.

"Volontes" is, unfortunately, a palace intrigue story that doesn't quite seem to know what it is, or what it wants to be. The clothing and characters are a mishmash of cultures, making the setting unclear. There are somehow two separate plagues that would make one think this is supposed to be Europe during the dark ages, but the heavy reliance on non-Christian religious themes and magic gives it a Celtic vibe. There are also characters who wear Arabic or African-style clothing.

Magic is present here but not treated as anything cool or special. The protagonist didn't know magic existed but starts learning it right away, almost unenthusiastically. Even when she learns the forbidden art of necromancy in a few of the routes, it's not given any sort of weight. She's literally allowed to "major" in necromancy at her school. What is necromancy in this universe? It doesn't seem to be related to raising the dead, and she only uses it a few times when it comes in clutch to control evil ghosts.

This is also one of those games where the protagonist just doesn't ask enough questions. Fiena is shown to be very intelligent, often puzzling through things on her own, so why does she not think more about who killed her adoptive family? Where did the promise to pick up her brother go? It'd be one thing if she was written to be the sort of character who prioritizes her own survival, but she really isn't. She also has no sprite on screen, and the CGs are rare, making it hard for me to sympathize with her emotions.

Both the common route and the individual character routes are pretty short, further making it difficult for relationships to develop smoothly. I didn't buy into most of the romances in this game, nor did I feel like I got to know any of the characters. Characters rarely talk about their past or share memories with Fiena, and she mostly doesn't share anything about herself either. Honestly, this game plays more like a mystery than a romance, which I would be okay with if that was done successfully, but it's not.

I wanted to like this game, but it was just kind of there. I didn't find it to be engaging or particularly fun or interesting. Even after playing it I find it difficult to describe any of the characters or their motivations.

As per usual, please find my thoughts on each route below in the order I played them.

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Ismail Route (Spoilers)

Ish, the palace doctor, is the flirty guy character of the game, although we don't see a lot of that after the common route. In his route, Fiena becomes his secret assistant while they investigate Fantomes, cursed ghosts that create more of their kind by killing people with a disease called Purple Death. He cozies up to her really fast, but this is explained later so I'll give it a pass.

He ends up getting framed for the death of the king, and even Fiena suspects him for a while. She eventually realizes that Ish probably kept her close because he suspected HER of killing the king, and that's enough for her to decide he's innocent. He's eventually released off screen for unknown reasons, and together he and Fiena find the true culprit.

Magic is already nebulous in this game, with spells not given shape or description, so you can probably guess my thoughts when Fiena is casually given permission to try necromancy as sort of a college thesis kind of thing. We never really find out what necromancy is in this world, but somehow it involves absorbing the evil spirits into her body, which is how Fiena takes care of the Fantomes. We're then told, very abruptly, that she is dying because of this. She apparently knew the whole time but did not convey that to the audience, which is very weird because we're supposed to hear her thoughts???? Wouldn't it have made more sense for Ish to have that plot?

I didn't dislike Ish as a character, but I didn't like him either. I felt like I didn't get to know him, or his motivations, at all. Why did he like the king enough to try and solve his murder? How did he end up at the castle at all? None of this is evident and I just couldn't muster enough thought toward this dude at all. We get zero backstory aside from knowing he was childhood friends with Emmanuel and Olivier.

Ish's route is a good example of this game in general. It's got the framework in place, but it's too short and not fleshed out enough to have any impact.

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Emmanuel Route (Spoilers)

Emmy is the proud knight who becomes king after the old king is killed in the common route. His first act as king is to dismiss Olivier for failing to protect the old king. In his own route, he takes Fiena as his personal Moon Witch and feeds her prophecies through his new Grand Sorcier, his cousin Ciara.

Emmy is the sort of guy who is charmed by honesty, so I found him to be quite cute. Unfortunately his route suffers from the same issues as Ismail's — it's too short and we don't ever really learn who Emmanuel is. We do at least get a few flashbacks to his younger years with Ish and Olivier this time, but it still wasn't enough.

In Emmanuel's route, he attempts a military gambit that fails and ends up harming Ciara, and she's out for the entire rest of the route. Fiena must step up as the new Grand Sorcier in her absence, and together she and Emmy fight against Nouvelle Ere, a terrorist group aligned with Olivier, whose plan is to steal the Grand Cloche, a big crystal that protects the city, and use it to end civilization or something. Oh, and Emmanuel is a werewolf, which ends up having almost zero impact on the storyline other than that he can spy on people with spectral wolves. Fiena can see the wolves but almost never questions their presence, which I found irritating.

The best part of the route is when Fiena's magic teacher shows up randomly to deliver the final blow, only to tell her she's going to have to repeat the year because of all the classes she missed. This is the only time we see the teacher without his mask, and it turns out he has glowy blue Gojo Satoru eyes and is insanely powerful. This will never come up in the game again.

Emmy's route definitely had more of a plot than Ish's route, but again, I didn't feel anything toward the characters at all. We just didn't get to know anyone and nobody is allowed to feel things or talk about them enough. I wasn't impressed.

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Melodie Route (Spoilers)

In Ish's route, Mel is outed as the killer of the original king, and then promptly goads Fiena into killing him before we get any information out of him. He also implies that he knew her in the past, so I had hope for this route. Fortunately, it panned out. Mel's route is the best in the game.

At the start of his route, Fiena joins a group of knights to help the people, but mostly to hang out with Mel because she thinks he's cool. She brings along with her Marie, her maid who looks exactly like her, which is never addressed lol.

This is the only route in the game I actually liked, and the only that felt decently written. Fiena and Mel actually share about their pasts, and it makes sense that Fiena starts liking Mel because he reminds her of her childhood friend. Of course, it turns out later that he IS her childhood friend, so it's no surprise that I liked this route hehe.

Eventually Mel is outed as a spy for the church and the killer of the king, and is imprisoned. Fiena strikes a deal to spare him the death penalty in exchange for killing Olivier, who is also the big bad in this route. I'm glad I played Emmanuel's route earlier because he is an absolute monster in this route.

Honestly, I liked Mel's route a lot. For the first time, I felt like I got to know a character in this game. Not to mention he's more or less a tsundere AND a childhood friend. Mel was a big win for me.

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Olivier Route (Spoilers)

This route started out pretty strong, with a similar vibe to Mel's. Fiena gets to hang out with her knight friends while Olivier schemes in the background. This time, he's forced to hand over the key to the Grand Cloche in exchange for Fiena's life, so he doesn't get to do his rebellion stuff. It felt weird for him to give up on such a grand scheme in his own route, but weirdly that's not even my main issue with this route lol.

We finally get answers to a lot of major questions here. Why was Fiena's village attacked? Who killed her biological family? What happened to her little brother, who is mentioned in the beginning of the game and then promptly ignored forever?

Olivier's route is more or less the true end of the game, so I knew we'd get these answers. Unfortunately, his route also introduces several plot twists that seem to be there just for shock value.

For example, we learn that time within the Grand Cloche is different than time outside of it, so while it's only been a year since her village was attacked for Fiena, it's been 18 years for everyone else. What was the point of this? Just so we can be randomly reintroduced to her little brother, who is now older than her? It didn't really affect the plot in any way. You could argue that people outside the Grand Cloche see her as a witch because of her youthful appearance, but wouldn't they see her as a witch anyway because she has magic? We've already established magic isn't common outside of the Grand Cloche so the time stuff seemed unnecessary.

We also find out, literally at the very end of the route, that Fiena caused her own parents' deaths because of a "magic burst" she performed to protect herself as an infant, which is why she has the scar on her back. Olivier confesses that he had a similar experience, and also has a similar scar, and that's why he picked Fiena up in the first place.

While all of that is just fine, why did we wait until the entire story was wrapped up to explain it? The battle is over and everyone is happy, so why slap us in the face with this horrendously sad piece of lore? It should have been revealed mid-route. It would have at least allowed Fiena to become more attached to Olivier.

I have other issues with this route. The big bad church guy who ordered Fiena's village's destruction is given no sprite, meaning we're just staring at an empty desk during the entire revelatory conversation. We find out Fiena was targeted for her appearance, at which point I thought surely we'd learn why Marie, who also has red hair and green eyes, looks exactly like Fiena ... but no, we do not. There is zero explanation given as to why this similarity exists.

Also, my favorite character Mel DIES on this route, even in the good ending :(

Lastly, the mysterious man Nils, who we find out is a ghost Fiena accidentally raised when practicing necromancy, is not fleshed out enough. You only meet him a couple of times, and you only learn who he is if you fuck up the Olivier route enough to kill him. Nils should have been included in the route more instead of just dropping a bunch of lore at the end of a bad ending.