Olympia Soiree - Review

Before Matsurika no Kei... there was Olympia Soiree. (Wait... that kinda rhymes?!)

Genre: VN.

Developer/publisher: Otomate.

Platform: Switch.
Official Site: https://www.aksysgames.com/olympia/

VNDB: https://vndb.org/v24241

Release date: 09-9-2021 

 

Alright, I was always kinda curious about this one and got this on a discount for 38$.

I generally played pretty slowly since there wasn't anything else I wanted to play.

It was quite long and I kinda missed the time when a route took me almost a week.

 

Disclaimer: This is purely my own opinion and it could be different from yours

this is not meant to be some kind of all-truth, just an opinion that came from playing this.

If you don't like what you're reading then close the tab, move on and just idk play it yourself. 

 

Pro's

- Interesting setting and characters.

- Gorgeous art and fitting music.

- A heroine that quite literally spits fire.

- Monologue haters rejoice cuz there's none!(except extra's)

 

Grey Area

- Character focused and can be repetitive to do all routes. 

 

Con's

- Long common route without choices, felt too rail-roaded.

- 3249432593 flashbacks.

- Clunky UI.

- There are plenty of CG's but the pacing for some was not balanced.

 ---------------------------------------------------------------

 

The OP was alright but not something I watched everytime I started the game. 

I liked the ED themes more for reason. 

The story hooked me easily but this do be one of those games where

I found my fav right away and most other LI didn't quite click with me.😔

The only reason I did all the routes was for story reasons really! maybe its due

to the heroine, who was alright but I did enjoy watching her interact with the LI's. 

I liked her self-concious and grounded personality and she certainly spoke her mind

however I think she was a bit much as well.😅  Olympia can be a firebreathing b!tch

who will take no shit and does as she pleases but atleast she was self aware which is rare.

I do not blame her considering how she lived, she had all the right to be assertive.

There was also a tender side to her and I loved how she confided in Daifuku

this reminded me of trouble magia and it was adorable. I'm glad I didn't sit on this

because it was surprisingly romance driven with some good worldbuiling to boot.

However not every route went into the plot and you will need to do it all to fully get it.

When I looked back on the routes after Himuka's the initial four were

hilariously self-contained only revealing things as necessary.

--- 

The common route is just a long intro, the focus is mostly on Olympia

and explains the way of the world. It wasn't really a bad thing but I can understand 

It could be too long for some. The whole game is about picking a husbando

and you have a whole year but... despite that it happens within 2ish weeks. GIRL. 

The story definitely drove on desperation and at times it could feel unrequited or some

mild angst of this never going to work but... for the most part the romance was believable.

It didn't seem like the story cared about what if she couldn't find a partner. To which I started

to think this game is some propaganda for japanese teens to get babies due aging population. 

The lore sure is rich but most of the routes were more character focused

and a lot of main plot threads are just left hanging in most route.

--- 

 Wasn't really sure what was up with the technology level of the island, I know

there's random stuff that washes up ashore but some stuff was never explained.

I did start to dislike the setting of this game the more routes I did.

I persevered for Himuka/Akaza and to uncover all the secrets the island had buried

but its rough when you already found your best boi which for me was Riku.😔

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Music/Art/System stuffs:

Music was good, it fit the tone of the scenes. Art was gorgeous for the most part.

 The sprites were great and most CG's were good, the awkward ones were few. 

Most characters had a near equal amount of CG's but they would include variations

into the total amount so it said there were 30 when the unique ones are like 13 or so.

Some routes like Riku also have poor CG pacing so you get a lot of CG at once

near the end, other route had better balance but it stood out to me when I looked back.

I knew some complains about kiss cg's but they had some good variations...

One of Himuka's looked awkward at first but it was fine due to he follow up.

Extra's screen was cute.

 System is standard stuff, there are choices and an indicator but only in

the character route, the common route is devoid of choices.

Heroine had a sprite too which was nice.  There weren't many monologues, the dialogue

flowed well and was easy to read. The translation was very good and it flowed well

and some dialogue was really funny too, any mistakes I found were really minor. 

Each route had two bad ends but I think they're better if you got them unawares

I found that by going back for them after the best end, that they were rather abrupt

some even had characters behave OOC. I only liked 2-3 bad ends out of all. 

 

At first I did find the UI to be kind of clunky, text log is accessed from the corner and

you can't select save or load separately like in other games. You first have to click

on history and then you can save but if you wanted to load to have to press R.

Also what is history? just from its name I thought it was a flowchart...💀

I did get used to the UI but something about it esp the save/load section doesn't

sit right with me. Though with the ability to backlog jump why are there still

quick save/load options? feels like that is a relic from a bygone era.

    It can be nice to quickly see the other choice but there were barely were choices. 

Also when you hide the text to look at a CG it didn't hide the menu's

in the top left&right which seems like a huge oversight to me. 

 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

More ramblings about common route:

--- 

I'm not bothered by the length but I was disappointed by the lack of choices in them.

Thankfully its a one time thing! you can start from the end of it on subsequent playthrough's.

 Tho suddenly I realized many otome gamers had fallen here...💀💀💀

After four routes most of it was generally unmemorable too. Like cool setup bro.

 Now what it did well was establishing the setting/lore and characters of the game

however it is 9 chapters long💀.  The average chapter length was maybe 30-45 min to an

hour some were short other longer. (9 common chapters and around 12-14 individual chapters.)

Olympia Soiree was a 50-70ish hour game for me.

---

At the end of the common route there is the choice of which LI to pursue.

 You can only do Riku,Tokisada,Yosuga and Kuroba first. Himuka unlocks after them and Akaza last.

What kept me going was the lore and the cast of characters.

I blasted through the first few chapters on my first day, but I continued

by reading subsequent chapters in the evening so it was pretty slow and chill.

By the time of the 8th common chapter I was like any minute now...

as I get bombarded with more lore upon already existing lore.💀

To make up for it, the final common chapter was rather short but ayyy sure took its time.

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There were too many flashbacks! thankfully the promise one

can be easily skipped  but they even used flashbacks for things that

were said a little while ago and that's just annoying.😠

I don't even mind stuff like callbacks at a later time to what a character says early on

but honestly  if Olympia remembered something just her saying so would be enough

so if they had removed over half of them flashbacks it wouldn't be so annoying.

---

 

Most LI had good routes but my favorite was Riku. 

Tokisada was just not for me, Both Yosuga and Kuroba grew on me then again....

when I really think about it they're also not for me but still great in supporting role.

Akaza was good enough to rank 2nd. Himuka was just OK I just have beef with his route.

Then who's 3rd? Daifuku of course!😊 

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Overall 

 I think I am rambling a bit much but it was a long VN so it evens out.

Cold and Cruel and HEARTLESS!

Overall Olympia Soiree is pretty decent but in terms of contents its not much

better than say Matsurika, both games got some nasty stuff inside of them. 

This game was pretty long it took me nearly a week to clear a route, I kinda missed this.

Every route was relatively interesting in its own right but damn I think this game

has some of the worst side characters I have ever laid my eyes upon.💀

That ***king Kiwi and Tangerine, ISTG Ryuki! lemme borrow that air freshener!!!! 

😠😠😠

 --- 

Much like Matsurika no Kei the setting of Olympia Soiree also isn't very kind

to the heroine or other people living in the world, in the beginning I found it even

more restrictive. There were no choices untill much later into the game. Though both

games sure did love their lore its just the way they handled things was entirely different.

While wanting to change things was hopeful... its terrifying women couldn't even go to school.

 Both games also kind of force the idea of having kids being a sense of duty for a woman

and to that end it really isn't much better than Matsurika with its old fashioned worldviews. 

Does that make them bad otome games? no not at all! but during my 3rd route I really

wondered why there wasn't a route that was okay with not having kids.

I did think Matsurika had more varied ends than this game, Olympia was definitely stronger

as a heroine than Naaya but not every heroine needs to be the same that would be boring.

Things that aged poorly.

What I liked the most about Olympia; seeing her grow! she can seem immature

but has the ability to self-reflect however I do think they reigned her in a lot which

mostly relates to her power. I can compare Olympia to Cardia... but Cardia was a bit better

in using it to her advantage. Olympia on the other hand felt like she was held bac

 by trauma, she hated her ability but honestly its handled well all things considered! 

--- 

 The beginning of the game already foreshadows the tone so it was not gonna be an

ultra happy game and the setting is sad. I knew the writer was known to

put mysoginistic stuff in their games but I don't think this is a bad thing?

They're are allowed to create worlds with problems whether or not

they overcome them is different matter entirely but it would be nice if it did. 

Though reading stuff about the island like culture/way of life was depressing... 

most of it is told through minor characters. It did make it feel like change had to happen.

Needless to say, its easy to get comfy in the first three routes of the recommened order

because most of the worst stuff only happens in route 4 and beyond. 

--- 

Felt like he gets fatter every route as well...

TL;DR

Well... its still a pretty good otome game its just that I found my

favorite LI right at the start and most of the others weren't for me.😅

It had a great cast of characters so despite the common route being choiceless

it still was interesting going through it! but sadly while some side characters were likable

there were a bunch who were just made to be hated especially in bad ends.

Most route do leave me satisfied but there was a lot left up in the air or not

explained well enough. I brushed it off as Riku being an early game route but even

Tokisada had loose ends, Yosuga felt the most progressive thus far. 

The only other drawbacks were the many flashbacks and clunky UI(but you get used to it).

Also Himuka's route frustrated me when it was over since it screamed the truth is in the next route!

Akaza ended up having the most well-rounded route, its sad but most others

including my fav Riku didn't quite execute all the storybeats well enough. 

I generally did have a good time with it despite some small grievances and in terms

of romance it left me more satisfied than Cafe Enchante but doing all

the routes just felt a bit repetitive, especially if you find your fav early.

8.5/10

I'll recommend Olympia Soiree to those who like assertive heroines that speak

their mind and grow over the course of the story! as well as enjoy more

meaty otome games with decent worldbuilding & don't mind darker themes.

Though if you prefer shorter games and settings that are not problematic then I don't

really recommend this because it does have some of the same issues as Matsurika.

((If Naya and Olympia met though... I think they'd be great friends.

While most of Naya's LI's are safe, Olympia will roast Ruwo till he's burnt for sure.))

 

I am not sure if Matsurika no Kei will ever get localized though

but I don't see why it can't if Olympia Soiree could make it over. 

 

Character babbles after the jump, while they're not summaries its just

commentary/impressions along with as some of my fav CG's.

Its nearly a 5 year old game and its in english so digests are not necessary.

To be safe if you don't want spoilers don't read further. 

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Digimon Story Time Stranger - Review

 Genre: RPG

Developer/publisher: Bandai namco.

Platform: PS5, PC.
Official Site: https://en.bandainamcoent.eu/digimon/digimon-story-time-stranger

Release date: 03-10-2025 

 

I always liked the digimon franchise and watched S1 and 2 of adventure.

I remember watching frontier too but that was kinda it. I also played

cyber sleuth OG on switch so this isn't my first digimon game.

 

I wasn't originally going to play this near launch but I saw the Gatomon costume

and was like this is it! this is my life now and got into it!

 

Disclaimer: This is purely my own opinion and it could be different from yours

this is not meant to be some kind of all-truth, just an opinion that came from playing this.

If you don't like what you're reading then close the tab, move on and just idk play it yourself. 

 

Pro's

- Decent enough story.

- Fun dialogue which makes side quests worth doing.

- Its fun to raise/build your team.

 

Grey Area

- Takes notes from PS2 era games, in good and bad ways. 

 

Con's

- Some pacing issues, obvious padding.

- Final boss was too scripted. 

 

This game 70% of the time...

Story was surprisingly solid? it has some cheesy moments and a lot of wtf is going on moments

but it only made me want to progress and find out what is actually going on.

 Which is a good thing in an RPG cuz if you don't want to learn more

then what is the point of playing it? Anyway eventually all the pieces fell into its place

so it started to make sense and it only took about 40 hours for that to happen.💀

 

Length? shouldn't take longer than 40-50 hours if you focus on the story

I dipped on some side quests near the end though as there were just too many.

If you do it all, it might extend to 60 hours... but at what cost? momentum of the story maybe.

Atleast the game had content if you wish to engage with it that is, so its not a complaint. 

TFW the game is pointing out my outfit choice...

You can choose between a male or female protagonist and the one

you do not choose becomes an assist of sorts which was honestly a nice touch. 

The MC is kinda self-insert and you get dialogue options to react

to story events and sometimes they're funny too which was great.

Inori and Aegiomon were fun characters as well, without them i'd feel lonely.

I liked how the story cleverly used existing digimons and incorporated them

into it all, it was such a treat even if I don't even know/recognize them all. 

There were however some things that I had a hard time wrapping my head around

and it mostly involves the protagonist, needless to say just keep playing and most things

will make sense eventually. Also male MC was voiced by Shimono Hiro

so it was nice to have him be operator, don't think he would have talked as much

if feMC was anything to go by when choosing him as MC. 

Relevant.

The gameplay was surprisingly smooth and it didn't feel like I had

to digivolve back and forth as much as with cyber sleuth.

Well uh unless your name was Aegiomon but he had some accessories

that could put him into a specific form. So it didn't detract from the experience.

Though I did find there were a bit too many enemies on the field and its easy

to run into them if you're not careful, leading to potential jumpscares.💀

 

TL;DR

 Mostly had a good time with this game but there were moments

where I thought, are you dragging this out? but atleast they wrote

a solid and somewhat consistent story about time travel.

This theme is not particular easy and I recommend not thinking too hard about any of it. 

Story and character wise there were highs and some low's. I don't dislike it as a whole.

Maybe next time a less scripted final boss? other than that the game was fine.

Very good if you come here looking for challenge especially on harder difficulties

but I am a casual player so normal or easy mode is enough for me. 

As said outside of a few gripes there's not much I disliked.

Also I can't help but think that if I had done every side quest at the end...

that I would have burned out during the final act. So i'm actually kind of glad

I just winged it and only the final boss was beefier than whatever was before it.

8/10

Anyway I had fun leveling my mon's and occasionally training them... on normal

nothing was too hard and they gave useful advice during combat too.

Had I trained even more I may've made it too easy so I am glad I restrained.

I was never really too overwhelmed by this games contents and its easy to choose

what to engage with, ok maybe a little choice paralysis as to what to digivolve too

but incase I wasn't sure I just saved before it.

 

Definitely gets a recommendation if you always want to play a digimon game

or want another SMT-like game to sink some time into.

 

There's not really any spoilers beyond but I do have some out of context screenshots.

More ramblings after the jump.

9 R.I.P Sequel - Review

I've had my fill of spooky season with this...

 Genre: VN.

Developer/publisher: Otomate.

Platform: Switch.
Official Site: https://www.otomate.jp/9rips/

VNDB: https://vndb.org/v52276

Release date: 25-9-2025 

 

I was a bit surprised when a sequel was announced for 9rip.

I mostly wanted to get this for Koyou but I will admit my memory of the OG

is already waning, thankfully there was a recap and plenty of callbacks!

As per usual I tried not to set my expectations too high and the only thing I am

disappointed by was the short length of the god after, I enjoyed mostly everything else. 

 

Disclaimer: This is purely my own opinion and it could be different from yours

this is not meant to be some kind of all-truth, just an opinion that came from playing this.

If you don't like what you're reading then close the tab, move on and just idk play it yourself. 

 

Pro's

- Wraps up the story and concludes the saga for most relatively well.

- Heaven afters are of decent length.

 

Grey area

- Focuses more on the heaven side than the god side.

-  Art mostly good but... you can notice the usual otomate shenanigans here or there.

 

Con's

- God afters except one are way too short.

 

Storywise it really varied whether an after story was interesting

and ultimately may come down to preference but that's just my opinion. 

 Each character has an after story for the heaven end and the god end.

With 9 routes, I realized by route 7 that not everyone was as relevant to the main

storybeats and the ones that executes them well (heaven side) were Seiya and Minami.

A lot of the others just didn't feel very... relevant or had some random plot. 

As for the OP I think it suited the heaven side more, its kinda funny but it is what it is. 

 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 

System.

This doesn't really follow the usual after story/continuation template

where you just select a character and get their story. Here you start a new game

and then via choices at the start get to the routes. It only takes a minute, you get a brief recap

at the start of the after too which was really helpful.

Actually its really similar to how you end up on routes in the original. 

 

My first route was blind and I decided to do Kureha. After that I used guides.

There are bad ends or... premature endings in some of the heaven routes.

I managed to avoid those first time thru Kureha's so I when I looked up a guide I was

a bit shocked choices actually seemed to matter. Always trust Koyou!

God after's have only one ending so you can enjoy that without worry.

 

They probably could have removed the map selection part as it felt pretty useless

there were times with more than one location but if there's only 1 spot why bother? /shrug.

Turns out some points are missable, 9 in total which unlock locations in a special mode

where Sayaka sends you all over town to find the perfect hiding place. 

Thankfully Choro's guide listed the locations you could recover

but if you miss them its nothing to worry over, the special mode

does NOT even have a CG just a fun scene for your efforts.

 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

Pacing was not too slow but it felt like there wasn't much time for anything especially

during god afters like it sure did try to deliver something but some didn't satisfy me.

The heaven afters felt like they were a bit more fleshed out and I enjoyed it the most.

With some like Hibiki I wasn't interested in the plot and new side character(s). 

 

In terms of length each god after was like 1/2 hours & heaven 4 so its 6 hours per character

you can probably already see what the problem is here so I will shut up about this.

I could probably have finished this sooner but that is no good for my menhera(mental health). 

 

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The heaven side feels like where most of the effort got put into and for some

it felt like it fleshed out more stuff. Others such as Kureha or Hibiki felt like a remix. 

I did think some had better outcomes but i'm gonna be real they just turned a less than

good end into a happy one.😅 I realized they didn't have all that much material to work with

and only a few of them were actually interesting, mainly Seiya,Minami and to some extend Koyou.

Wasn't sure if it was the writing but it kinda dipped and peaked for some of the heaven afters.

There were some new characters introduced, I couldn't care about most of them. 

Now I understand in the original heaven ends some things are up in the air so what

we get here is that the majority of the time is spend trying to make something of it.

 

God After's
Okay gonna remind everyone that over half the cast is dead

and Misa basically acts like an ankle bracelet for them, this shit is tragic.

Going to heaven doesn't sound like a bad deal for some. Its actually expanded

upon why certain things happened. So, no its not just random R.i.P bozo. 

Characters like Koyou, some demon or the ayakashi's got off better than certain others.

Shucks but it'll keep you warm for a minute.

 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

Uh yea have some mini character babbles.

Kureha's heaven after did have a unsettling vibe at times which is in line with the original.

I couldn't help but want to pray things would end up relatively well...

I wasn't convinced by his god after and for some reason prefer his heaven side.

I don't think there was nearly enough time to have much of substance and wish they just

focused their energy in one place. Now its like you get a burger but its divided in half.

There's moments that I like but before I knew it, it was over. Sad. 

For Hibiki... i'm mostly indifferent for his heaven after and I like slept through half

of it only to jolt right awake in time for the end and I loved the 深 ending so much! 

Hibiki's god after was kinda meh, shucks for Minami tho... he just keeps taking L's just like me.

I'm once again not completely sold here but what sort of better outcome would there be

for Hibiki and Misa when all's said and done? so at the end of the day it was OK at best.

 Like its definitely an after story but the majority of the time is spend reminiscing. 

This tells me, we don't know what to do with this but enjoy! also R.i.P.

Koyou: In a surprising way I actually ended up invested into his heaven after.

Dunno if good or bad, it scratched that supernatural itch. There was no Reika, since

she was already dealt with at this point! in exchange we got some weirdo spirit that likes

 collecting dolls, among other things thanks I guess. Koyou's god after was decent and for

once it felt like a proper after story...but even this felt like it was over in a flash...

Sena: Heaven after went on for too long about his past with S-crown, I sleep.

I loved his god after for some reason because it hit all the right tragic notes.😭

I don't even like Sena that much so that gotta say something. 

Seiya: I loved his heaven after cuz I got some vibes from the kdrama tomorrow so of course

I was eating that shit up though that was just at the beginning. Seiya's character can 

also be very entertaining so this was easy entertainment. They struck gold here amidst a sea

of bronze and silver. God after was more like the rest... 2ish hours of fluff whatever R.i.P. 💀

Minami: His heaven after was enjoyable, maybe it was because much like Seiya

there weren't many new side characters though Meimei did take some spotlight

but he never overstayed his welcome so I was fine with the creepy shinigami.

His god after was hilarious though but as per usual... over in a flash.

Koharu: I thought his heaven after was a little boring something happened

that wasn't on my bingo card. I have 99 problems and this isn't one of them. Very bakamitai.

Koharu is kinda dumb but a real man gotta be a lil stupid, I still love him but basically:

 If you can't handle him at his worst, you don't deserve him at his best.💀👍

His god after much like Sena hit like a truck and I thought it was one of the better ones

like I fully understood now why Misa ends up like that because they took the time to explain it.

I find it hilarious how with both Sena and Koharu I didn't like their heaven side.😅

Yukimaro had a calm heaven after and it was pretty chill but it didn't have much

going for it and I thought it was pretty much a nothing burger.

OK maybe that's too harsh maybe a bun with cheese on it?

His god after was pretty good but uh not like they could have done a lot with that.

I liked how heartwarming it was, in these trying times I accept it with all my heart.💖

Touka only had one after, for his god ending. It wasn't paced like the others and was

a heaven after in disguise. Also suffers from truth route syndrome, but honestly

I didn't really like Touka that much, he actually made me uncomfy the more

time we spend with him  but of course Misa likes him so uh yea it is what it is.

Imma be real, this game turned me into a Minami enjoyer. 

  ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Me with over half of the LI's whenever a route ends.

Honestly while I am not satisfied with most god afters, an attempt was made and I accept it.

Though the heaven afters was where the meat of the game was.

Not sure if my expectations were wrong but was it wrong to expect more of the former?

I wasn't completely sold on the highlighted moments thing, since it leaves a lot

open to imagination but I wouldn't say it was awful either, just not my thing. 

They focused more on supernatural side of things because heaven afters

were far longer than the god afters which was really short.

Whether or not 9rip sequel is worth it depends on how much you liked the original

and if you want more content with Misa and ALL the guys.

---

It was nice they provided an opportunity to follow up on some things

or spend more time with specific characters, I could appreciate it for some

but after sitting through 1 character and a half I was like, damn have I really cleared

almost 2 characters already?! at this point I hadn't even touched Koyou my best boi.

Its only after I cleared my 7th route Koharu that some things that happened in other god afters

actually made sense. I guess you could figure it out but its nice there was an explanation.

--- 

Kinda sad one after or route can seem really short but I think its only normal

that with like 9 LI's you aren't gonna spend a lot of time with all of them. 

Overall if you do all it'll take you 50ish hours. That's still a good deal.

Much like the original nothing overstayed its welcome but I got tired by the time of 9th route.

I got the feeling the director wasn't especially focused on more romance focused

scenario maybe it not their thing and that's why everything felt so brief.

If I had to choose between no sequel at all or what we got, I'm still grateful we even got this.

7/10  

Its a little difficult to recommend if you only like one character but if you

really dig supernatural stuff and like the majority of the cast its actually OK.

To that end this is only something I could recommend if you liked over half the cast

but who knows maybe you didn't and still end up with a new favorite! 

 

This game will likely be localized and I will be disappointed if it doesn't.

Though with iffy I am not sure anymore, seems they're just bringing over

random games now while hoping its better received in ENG than Japan.

 

Gonna sneak in this edit but: 9rips sold out on release and charted in famitsu

but there's barely any reviews for it, now having played it... there's not much to even

write about but it seems oddly quiet compared to how they raised the pitchforks at MonoChi. 

 

My play order: Kureha > Hibiki > Koyou > Sena > Seiya > Minami > Koharu > Yukimaro > Touka.

Like with the previous game I decided to keep the pairs together and go from there. There's no

restrictions and you can mostly do whatever but I recommend Koharu and Touka for last. 

 

Character rambles after the jump there's spoilers in there as well as some of my fav CG's

so stop reading here if you don't want any of that.

Cafe Enchante - Review

Oh the misery.....

 Genre: VN.

Developer/publisher: Otomate/Aksys.
Platform: Switch.
Official Site: N/A.

VNDB: https://vndb.org/v24240

Release date: 5-11-2020.

 

Since I wasn't in the mood to start a completely new game, I decided to continue

on something from my backlog and that was Cafe Enchante. I started this earlier this year

but due to this games long common route I took a break after Canus's route.

Going back to this did make me feel productive as well as appreciating what I already have.

I wasn't constantly playing it, I frequently put it down after a chapter ended. 

 

Disclaimer: As this blog is just a place for me to write about games I play, if you

don't like what you're reading just close the browser/tab and move on. Its okay if not

everyone likes a game or certain aspects of a game. Yep it was time for a disclaimer again

maybe its better to add this permanently as a reminder its okay to not like

what everyone else likes both for myself and others.  

Pro's

- Interesting premise and setting.

- Great cast of characters.

- Gorgeous art and really good OST. 

 

Grey area

- Plot over romance type of otome. 

 

Con's

- No skip to the next choice option, making it hell to sit through the common route on subsequent plays. 

- Game ends up being far heavier than it initially appears.

- Sloppy translation.

 

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I loved the OP movie but I think it mostly suited the common route + first 2 chapters of a route

as there were moments where letting this play would not match the mood of the story.

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It was pretty long, the prologue and common route do a good job at setting the stage

but it was kind of repetitive. NGL this game false-advertisted itself about a cute story

about a cafe, which it can seem like it is but it goes far deeper than that.

If I had to give this game an award it would be most misleading.😂 

Cafe Enchante is a good example of don't judge a book by its cover, I wasn't

attracted to this game for heavy themes, it just seemed fun?  but alas a cute story

with some light drama it was not. However it knew when to have fun and when not

but I can't help but be a little disappointed by how short the individual route

was compared to the common route and how unsatisfying the ending was at times.

Like it just felt like something was missing or it left to be desired. 

 

Everytime you complete a route you also unlock a sort of extended prologue....

on its own I didn't really get what they were about, it hinted at something

which doesn't seem to be related to the original four routes. I figured Misyr

would go into it since he is locked but every time I saw a piece I was just confused. 

Art was great and I can't complain, the music was also one of the better ones.

In some games its just kinda there but Cafe Enchante had some really good OST. 

I do wanna add that while the BGM is good, you often go from the upbeat

title screen music to... the middle of a route and the mood whiplash is real. 💀

So when I was in the latter half of a route I would not put my headphones on till I loaded the save. 

 

The system was just standard stuff, nothing write home about.

Everyone has 1 best end and 1/2 bad ends.

I used a guide but this seems hell to play without one as there's no correct choice indicator

and its difficult to even guess what route you would land on so GG's to guide makers.

The UI was also pretty nice and stylish but not as eye-popping as Cupi-Para. 

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Story?!

If Virche had a light-hearted tone, lost some of its extreme nature

but knows when to step on the gas pedal of angst. There it is! Cafe Enchante.

I'm late to the party as it is a rather old game already but to me this is like a cute version of Virche.

 Anyway the heroine Kotone inherits from her grandpa with its visitors being

from other worlds which sounds like it could be a simple but fun story yet it isn't

while there were some cute scenes this was not a romance focused game

but more of a plot-driven one. At most the romance part is woven into it. 

 Due to that it never really felt like an otome game and even when it was time for confessions

it wasn't that satisfying and in the end I found the LI's better non-romantically.💀

The common route also ended in such a way that I was actually fine with dropping out there

but still I wanted to check out Canus route so I continued! and eventually the others.

Also I gotta admit that they did craft a wonderful setting.

Canus route was one of my favourites, Ignis&Kaoru were OK in comparison.

Il had a good routes as it had some nice surprises, I'd say Misyr did as well

but I think it tried too hard and suffered truth route syndrome.

 ---

The length was such a double edged sword and just simply playing this game

1 hour before bed meant I was going at an absolute snail pace. So I had to plan longer sessions

to literally get anywhere early on. Its one of those games that loves to set the stage and

spend time with its characters, which is good but there were times I got bored

so this game is definitely not for people with short attention spans.

I started this game on january 10, the common route was SO LONG that I took

a break midway and didn't finish that and Canus route till like a month later.

This truly was my backburner game of 2025! because I didn't come back till september.

Of course in VN common routes come in all sorts of shapes and sizes! but Cafe's Enchante

was just too long for my tastes. At one point during the common route I thought I had already

entered a character route but then I looked at the guide and it said main chapter 4 out of 8.💀

Canus route was about as long as a route in fuyuzono sacrifice which is 5ish hours at best

other routes were slightly longer but after 3 of them I started to noticed a pattern.

Canus route was arguably the shortest, Ignis&Kaoru was slightly longer and Il's route was

significantly longer than any of the former with Mysir doubling down on that.

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As for the heroine; Kotone was alright, I can't be too hard on her due to her past

and I generally liked her. She was proactive and spoke her mind.

There are at times moments especially very early on I was like eh? i'm glad

she got better once she actually accepted and understood what was happening.

I found her to be surprisingly adult/level headed and down to earth with

a little bit of baggage, she can't handle tense situations at all it seems.

Sure Misyr's greeting was awkward but Kotone's initial reaction was kinda unjustified

not sure if it was the localization but it wouldn't surprise me if it was.

Thankfully moments like that were only a handful so it wasn't a big deal

a lot of the times I could omit a line and read it as if it wasn't there. 

Overall I thought she was a pretty normal girl and i'm willing to forgive

the nonsense mid Ignis route due to bad translations. 

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Localization rambles

This was the most random and apparently the original was but... lack of QA is apparent.

As you already know yea the localization was awful but most of the awful was

at peaks and the rest generally read pretty well, I think had they actually handled this

game with more care there wouldn't be any problems. Now we have stuff like

the infamous box pusher, it read as terrible as when I found out years ago.💀

At times the dialogue in Canus route started to read like haiku's... and there were

odd line-breaks where there shouldn't be any. I've heard after this game's release

aksys has been getting better and I sure can get past the odd typo here or there

but still the damage these sort of things do remain ever a stain especially

when they don't get patched out which is the case here. Like people paid for this.

I often make a lot of typo's when I write stuff but I always fix them when I see them.

Perhaps putting out patches for games is expensive but I'd prefer it they

release the game a month later QA'd instead of releasing them like this.

I actually really liked how they translated Utakakata no Uchronia as Illusion of Itehara

which is very fitting for what the game is about, like Aksys can do it if they try! 

Sad we may need a port of this game for it to get patched up like norn9...

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TL;DR 

Do I recommend Cafe Enchante? sure if you can get passed the sloppy translation.😅 

Cafe Enchante is for those who don't mind seemingly light-hearted settings that can turn out

to be deeper than it appears to be and want to be surprised by potentially mindblowing twists.

However I suggest beginners of the genre or those who seek shorter or casual experiences

to steer away unless you love angst&bittersweetness. I saw some people say this is

a cozy game but that only really applies to the majority of the common route and 1/2

chapters of a character route. I can however praise it for its plot twists but idk why

I just find myself not satisfied with Cafe Enchante as an otome game.  

i

Looking back at some routes this actually fits perfectly.

TBH I am glad I got to experience it... and its by no means bad, I am a little unsatisfied.

It has good content value, the common route is repetitive in nature and one could get bored during it.

The setting and characters is what pretty much saved this game for me and it was

still an enjoyable otome game to come back to!  its just at times I don't think it was too sure

of what it wanted to be? did Cafe Enchante wanted to be a cute SoL story about a cafe

with some drama? or an isekai action packed adventure?! because it seems it wanted to be both...

Romance was kinda lacking and not main focus but atleast there was, something.

Atleast it didn't make me wait for the best outcomes till after the final route.

Plot twist; the tape did not hold...

In terms of characters I generally liked everyone and didn't particularly dislike anyone

so at the end of the day you could say the characters carried this game really hard. 

I really liked Canus even if it ain't his route and I don't even care he has no head!

I saw people complain about the headless part but I'm loving him.💕

I thought Kaoru could seem like one of the more logical choices, but eh

when I really think about it this ended up being one of those otome games where

the romance left me so wanting and while I am happy with the best outcomes

I actually like mostly all of the guys more non-romantically outside of their route. 💙

Definitely a recommendation for those seeking to dip their toes into the misery porn genre.

7/10 

''Man... I don't think there's ever been an otome game where I said... I liked all the guys

outside of their routes and I don't need anything more than the common route.💀''

 

I wonder though... will the day come more smutty or fluffy otome games will get localized?

I know honey vibes was not perfect but it seems the ones with lotsa angst always make it over...

Is it that difficult to bring over something like Shinobi Koi Utsutsu or Tlicolity Eyes?

its mostly the plot focused ones from otomate but never the fanservice ones.

  ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 

There's apparently a locked route which require all others so

my play order ended up being what most people seemed to recommend:

Canus > Ignis > Rindo > Il fado> Misyr.

Route babbles and my fav CGs after the jump, its generally light in spoilers

and mostly just commentary if you want  no spoilers then stop reading here. 

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AI: Somnium Files - Review

  Genre: VN.

Developer/publisher: Spike Chunsoft.

Platform: PS4,switch, PC.
Official Site: https://www.spike-chunsoft.com/ai/

VNDB: https://vndb.org/v26532

Release date: 17-9-2019

 

Honestly I wasn't sure what I was going to play next

so I picked another game I bought on a PSN sale.

I thought it might be a good pick for something different from the usual VN's

and because AI is all the rage these days. Didn't quite feel like playing Yakuza 7 yet.

Since its a mystery type of VN I decided I was going to not use a guide till I

really got stuck or something. Nothing appeared to be missable as you could go back

later for certain things but man this game got surprisingly dark despite having a lot of fluff.

 

Pro's

- Great cast of characters.

- Pretty good mystery, you won't find it out till almost the end.

- Decent graphics, the character models were pretty good.

 

Grey Area 

- Route system was interesting but early on it can feel disconnected.

- Jokes are fine and dandy but it did hurt the scenario at times.

 

Con's

- Somnium's were annoying to progress through.

- Point and click segments for the sake of having them.

- There was no need to replay mini scenes of certain major events.

 

As for the story its a mystery VN so I won't be writing about the story.

You're sort of thrown into it and as you play you will get to know

the protagonist and the people in his life while trying solve a murder

which leads to other things but it was definitely a whacky ride.

Sometimes the game likes to joke around like during some investigation or dream part

which ultimately killed any tension the game had at that point.

I guess they wanted to keep it light-hearted despite touching upon deeper subjects.

It is what it is. 

Some of it made me smile/laugh and other times I was just oh...

 

By the time I finished the second day/chapter I was pretty much completely hooked

and wanted to see where it was going so this wasn't at all a bad mystery VN.

NGL the reason I kept playing was because I wanted Mizuki to get better

which lead to me wanting to find out about whatever the hell was going on. 

 

There are point and click segments and you can examine objects in the room

which sometimes lead to fun dialogue, during blue and red route I tried to select everything

but eventually stopped because it added nothing. Only very few moment I thought

they used it right which is such a shame for a mystery oriented game. 

Okay this was useful info, heheheh.

There's apparently an achievement for finding everything in Boss's room at a specific

point and I am like wew lad... never doing that without a guide.💀💀💀

New mononoke chigiri lore just dropped!

 The game is basically full of random moment if you try to select everything

but thankfully most of that is optional and sometimes it gives an achievement. 

Like Kaname tried to sniffle a shoebox at some point or staring at a stereo set

and being reminded of boobies. I did xray'd the mermaid during story

but not enough to trigger some random achievement.💀 Thankfully through

the flowchart you can easily replay any segment in the story so I got that postgame. 

 

There were a few moments were you had to interrogate a character and most of them

were fairly easy except that politics guy, idk its the way the evidence

against him was presented? very easy to make a mistake

and you get an achievement if you do it correctly.

Probably just a me problem... but that one was the hardest for me.

 

For my first route I decided to stay blind but you basically have to do all of them

to really get what's going on. I ended up on blue route first..........

not sure if that was ideal but eyy... lmao. Honestly I found the story to be whack here

and I wasn't sure wtf I was even playing anymore.💀  Red route had IMO the better narrative

as it actually felt like we were going places especially on other branches during it, so while

the first route I did seemed like hot garbo the rest was pretty good.

The only time I disliked the route system was when I did green route, thankfully I did it last

or almost last but I don't understand why that stuff wasn't locked entirely till you do

red and yellow routes since by the time it does lock it reveals way too much.

After green route locked I had to jump to pink route and then back to green... then pink again.

I suppose they wanted to create a more serious route but also a true end route

but they couldn't do it both at the same time. This just lead to it being a hassle. 

  

Aiba in a box out of context.

The somnium sequences is where the game is more trial and error as opposed to just

point and click stuff. At times it is really obvious but you can select wrong choices

which often just lead to funny moments and ultimately wasting your time.

Those somnium sequences have a six minute limit, granted there are checkpoints but they

felt the need to make the retries limited so more often not you have to restart completely. 

You can fast forward but if you can't figure it out it can still be frustrating. Also these

sequences can serve as route splits and on my second play I almost ended up on green route 

when I wanted to go to red route. Thankfully at this point I was loosely following a guide.

Loosely because I still wanted to figure stuff out on my own. 

 

I want to try to explain the somnium gameplay because hoo boy it had some mechanics?!

I can deal with having to retry during a somnium but time moves quite fast.

Every action costs time, some more than others and through random TIMIE's can help

reduce that but you can get screwed over because you can get negative TIMIE's.

I believe I didn't even understand this crap till I was at the end of my second route.

This just didn't feel right to me, some dream parts were of course easy

but some others were like LOL good luck! so if you constantly failed

trying to figure it out a more difficult dream this just gets too frustrating.

This action takes a lot of time but with that TIMIE it will only take 10 seconds.

 But yea to get those TIMIE's you have to look for them and do actions preferably

those who do not take much time, some of them are fixed and others random.

Let's not talk about negative TIMIE's though... let us not. (Traumatized.)💀 

 

I will say that the one thing I hated about this game was that they sometimes

would replay mini scenes everytime the subject came up so you see someone getting

stabbed over and over which wasn't funny. It was especially bad in the 3rd dream

(if we count prologue). Thank god for fastforward in dream sequences though

but it was just annoying if this happened in VN segments.

Even in the pink epilogue they felt the need to replay a movie of someone dying

and I was like please can we not do this? we already know this. 

 

 

In terms of characters; I liked the protagonist Kaname and Aiba wasn't that bad either

her name is actually a pun since she's literally an eyeball. Though at times it felt like Aiba

was more or less the brains of the duo not that Date was incompetent he can be a bit of a dork

 and he is constantly roasted for his antics sometimes deserved other times not.

Kaname really does have his heart in the right place and he's not a bad person

but I did think the narrative actively tried to present him as such which I disliked. 

Honestly I was perfectly in sync with Date when he said those words.

Mizuki... I sympathized with her however she was a bit of a brat but kids

are allowed to be a bit bratty and she goes through a lot so I forgave most of it

especially by the time of yellow route cuz holy shit she went through hell.

God bless Kaname for being the adult in the room and taking her in.

Mizuki doesn't seem to care and their relationship seemed really stiff

like whatever atleast she had a bed to sleep in? Ok I guess.............

but that is mostly because she is a tsunderella and for some reason Kaname is too?!

yea two tsundere's in one house is going to be a party wew lad. 

I will say that at first I didn't get why he adopted her but it all makes sense

I would too take this kid into protective custody because holy hell.

 Iris the vtuber did grew on me and wasn't too bad but her route was

and at the end of it I couldn't really say I liked her much either.

I think this game had an anti-vtuber narrative because holy shit she's loco.💀

However despite her route being seemingly random... it was still important. Pink route

was much better in completing her story and after it I honestly wish her nothing but the best. 

I neither liked or disliked Ota, i'm just really indifferent on him

to the point I don't even have many screenshots of him except where an NPC

is yelling like gordon ramsey and 1 other. I did like some developments

in red route. The family stuff made me sappy but that's about it.

Aww yea! finally a likeminded girl!

Boss; I liked her but due some story developments I was never really

sure about her. I would've liked to see more stuff with her but the story

went to other places beyond my imagination.

There were other characters like Pewter who is apparently gay or Moma

but I don't really have much of an opinion on them, like they played their part

in the narrative but that's about it really and I don't wanna go into spoilers too much.

I do gotta get this off my chest but while some it could be deserved this game was

way too focused on making Kaname look bad when he didn't even do anything.💀💀💀

Oh he talks to himself because of his AI eyeball and makes a fool of himself.

Some moments were deserved because ''gotta make a quick whiff'' was embarrassing.

Though somehow even lines like this were relevant in some way.

 That Moma guy was worse though since he even... incriminated Kaname during

some dialogue which turned me into a Kaname apologist because he did nothing wrong. 

I find myself thinking other characters are always making Kaname look worse

when he is actually a half-decent guy.  Side note; I found out Kaname is voiced

by the same guy (in JP) who voiced the priest in Trouble Magia so that was a revelation. 

Needless to say Kaname was generally a good guy with his heart in the right place!

Gotta respect him for that tbh.

 

 

TL;DR 

The main villain in this game is exactly that.

Anyway overall this was a satisfying mystery VN with great characters but there were

some caveats such as the point and click segments being just there for the sake of it.

Also while some jokes are fine I feel that there were too many dumb jokes

so it was hard to take it seriously. At first it felt more like a comedy game with a mystery. 

Despite some somniums being annoying I still enjoyed progressing through the routes so

it wasn't too bad. I believe my play order made the story actually better because blue route

 set the bar so low red route and beyond was smooth sailing for the rest of the narrative.

Also there's a theme of found family which was really beautiful, I loved yellow route.

Green route is where everything slowly started to fall into its place

and I really do think the mystery was well crafted, everything was revealed

at the right time, it was beautiful. However I didn't really enjoy psychin in the refrain

because it sucked if you made mistakes, you had to start over since there was very little time

but even then I noticed a pattern and there was definitely a way but this made me hate

the TIMie system and it showed that if you don't use it in a specific way you'll never clear.

7.5/10 

I think i'd rate the story a 9/10 but the gameplay was just kinda eh so I have to subtract some points.

Also I cannot believe that if you play with JPN VA and eng text then the ending song will be in english.

Now the song itself wasn't bad but I can't believe they never fixed that... also there was a bug

where if you saved in Psychin in the Refrain it would give an error and fail. Thankfully

I could still load an old save and overwrite the failed save but it gave me nearly a panic attack.

TBH you cannot release a game in that state! maybe its not a big deal as long

as you don't save in somniums and keep a saves before it but its not a good look

to have a bug like that in the game, this game is 5-6 years old but the lack of QA is apparent.

 

I do want to talk about the routes so there will be light spoilers after the jump

because it is impossible to talk about them without spoiling something.