Today is the first anniversary of the Japanese launch of otome visual novel Utakata no Uchronia. Aksys Games is celebrating by announcing its English title, Illusion of Itehari, and confirming its release on Nintendo Switch in late 2025. It will be available physically and digitally, with physical pre-orders open now through the Aksys Online Store for the standard edition and…
What if Harry Potter was an otome love game and not written by a horrible woman who seems obsessed with being a one-person “can you separate art from artists” talking point? Battlefield Waltz is a bit like that. It’s a story about a bunch of teens in a special, magical…
Otome visual novel Hakuoki SSL ~Sweet School Life~ first launched in Japan…
It was only a few weeks ago that heartfelt game Hanako’s Flower…
With the same creative team behind it as Olympia Soiree, Tengoku Struggle: Strayside was always going to be an interesting visual novel. As it turns out, it’s going to be particularly interesting for people that are students of Japanese historical figures and spirituality, and perhaps a little befuddling for those…
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Dating visual novel games often have somewhat unique stories, but generally tend to use the same formula: of one person meets a bunch of people, said one person likes said bunch of people, and said one person must choose one from the bunch of people to live with harmoniously forever.…
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The Rose & Camellia games first launched as one hit online Flash game in the 00s, gaining popularity as sequels were released. They are odd genre mash-up of visual novel and slap’em up (if that even counts as a genre). I only heard about the series last year during Limited…
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Mere days ago, I was whining about how a new trailer for Cupid Parasite: Sweet and Spicy Darling didn’t quite make up for the lack of a known release date. Someone somewhere must have heard my cries, because today Idea Factory International announced the game’s release date. It also dropped…
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I absolutely love detective games featuring strong, smart women. I think there aren’t enough of them… but that could just be me. Hauma – A Detective Noir Story fits in this category. It launched for PC last September but I was never sure it would come to consoles, until today…
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Japanese romance visual novel Memories Off launched for PlayStation in 1999, spawning an entire series that goes by the same name. The mainline series currently includes eight games (I’m not even going to get into the extended world of direct prequels, sequels, and spin-offs). Seven of those are available in…
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Idea Factory and Otomate have brought us some incredible flights of fantasy over the years. There are the historical dramas, allowing us to hang out with and romance the Shinsengumi or Beinke. Then there’s the bright and bubbly Cupid Parasite, where you play as Cupid herself, or the almost brutally…
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Death Mark deserves better recognition than it gets. The first two games in the series (Death Mark itself, and then Spirit Hunter: Ng) are both incredible horror visual novels, through which Experience Inc. has given us some of the finest art and suspense narratives that we’ve seen. And yet to…
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Well, Konosuba: Love for These Clothes of Desire certainly has its eye-opening moments. This is a game that likes to get downright dirty in places, and embraces (with gusto) every possible sexualisation trope you can imagine in anime. It has a ball doing so, and as long as isekai-style narratives…
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It is finally happening! For years and years now, Fate/Stay Night has been perhaps the most important visual novel to never be released (officially) in English. Despite launching a massive media property, including untold numbers of games that have been localised, the original visual novel has languished, only available to…
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