Category Archives: Visual Novel

Beastly Desires

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Alright, so it is well known that I love visual novels and romance stories. And honestly I really wanted to join Genius Inc’s Beastly Desires but I just could not. Allow me to explain.

Beastly Desires is your average otome game, I played it on the Android. And I have to say many of the otome games found on Google Play have amazing stories you can get excited to progress though. This game, however, was not one of them. Now I played my way through this visual novel as I assume most would, without paying for rubies to get through parts of the story.

Sure you can watch a video and play a game once a day to get points to trade for the rubies, but unless you are wiling $2.49 FOR 20 rubies (that’s the cheapest option), you are limited in what you can do. The way the story plays out, it feels as though you are missing enormous gaps in character development behind micro transactions. And I get it. Genius Inc needs to make money. A lot of games made for phones work this way, they give you a free game and cash in on payments you make to get more stuff. Sadly, this game seems to suffer for it.

Now the story in and of itself is not terrible, it’s not the best thing I have read, but it’s not the worst. The characters seem nice enough, though if you can not afford rubies you will not get to know them enough to make them feel like more than background props.

All in all, I’d say it’s an ok game. But unless you will dish out for the micro transactions, you won’t get much out of the story. Despite my dislike of this game, I will probably try more of Genius Inc’s games in the future as a comparison at the very least. Perhaps they did better with other releases.

Cinderella Phenomenon – My favorite otome game!

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Do you like fairytales? Do you like otome games? What about visual novels? Well, Cinderella Phenomenon covers all of these! 

The story begins by introducing the main character, a female protagonist named Lucette. Though you can change the name, I like to keep the default names when I play games that offer them. The character begins as an icy, indifferent young lady who was taught throughout her entire life not to trust anyone around her by her now deceased mother. A sad story, though realistic in some aspects.

She ends up cursed! As expected of most fairytale settings. No one remembers her, though she was crown princess of the land, except those who are also cursed, or the witches and fairies who can cast such curses. As stated, others who are cursed remember who she is. So, she ends up having to lean on these fellow cursed folk to help her cure hers.

Like many Otome games, you pick your romantic route. You have a choice of which of the five romantic interests will help your character get rid of their curse. I won’t go in to the characters in detail, because each route has a lot of story spoilers but they are Karma, Rumple, Rod, Fitz and Waltz. I particularly enjoyed the Karma and Waltz routs. You have to get two good endings with Karma, Rumple or Rod to unlock Fitz and Waltz storylines, but it is certainly worth the effort. This can be a bit difficult. The game offers a setting that shows a reaction when you have picked the ‘good option’ in dialogue, but if you have the game on Steam there is an achievement for getting a good ending without the help.

All in all, no matter how you play this game, you are going to find an interesting fairytale and a lovely romance story. And guess what? A sequel is in the works!

The Letter – Visual Novel

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The Letter is a supernatural horror visual novel developed and published by Yangyang Mobile. It is available on Windows, MacOS, Linux, IOS and Android. This means you can play it on pretty much anything you own as long as it uses one of those five operating systems, and lets be honest, that is pretty much everything except the various game consoles.

Though some of you may have some questions such as, what is a visual novel? A visual novel is a story accompanied by visuals, sort of like a graphic novel except with an interactive touch in video game form. You can often, though not always, choose how your adventure goes by making choices that interact with story. The Letter is one of those in which you have some control over what you do. This is mostly done through questions other characters ask and the answer you choose affects the relationship you have with the other characters, which determines later aspects of the story.

It should be noted that this is a horror visual novel, so not suitable for everyone, though if you are a fan of horror and mystery the images and descriptions in the writing are no worse than things you have already seen or read. Though I always feel a desire to warn people when there may be anything that could make an individual uncomfortable. Better to be safe than risk offending.

Now back to The Letter. This story starts off with a bang and keeps you interested in not only why supernatural things are happening to the characters, but the characters themselves. The story is non-linear so you travel through the story of seven individual characters who have their own tales but also interconnect with the others so eventually as you finish all seven chapters you get to learn the entire story. This may not sound like much for a ‘game’ but there is a massive amount of replay and rereading value as the story can change depending on non-linear you make.

There are a few different endings but I won’t spoil them, I only played the game through once myself but am looking forward to going back to it.

If you are a fan of horror and mystery, or just visual novels, The Letter is a must!