Heartspell: Horizon Academy

I really like this game! Great voice acting, amazing art, and super chill gameplay (except Amara's lol I was sweating a few times). I love how unapologetically queer it is. A truly comfy game with cute romanceable characters. You can date whoever you like or date them all! Even some NPCs! Can't recommend it enough, more games like these pls~!

Absolutely wonderful game, I’m completely obsessed! I like the story: every moment pulls me deeper in, and somehow it manages to be both exciting and comforting at the same time. It’s the kind of experience that stays on your mind long after you stop playing, making you want to come back again and again!

I am not a skilled enough gamer to play this game, even selecting the most basic menu options for whatever the hell reason requires me to REALLY REALLY mash left click, I couldn't even get to the normal gameplay before my finger was already tired. This sounds like a joke review but that is legitimately how the game played, perfect FPS, everything else seemed to work, selecting or pressing anything required HERCULEAN MASHING and was really inconsistent, I've never seen anything like it in a video game where "clicking on things" worked this poorly.

I loved the game! Fun cast and it's very impressive to have everything, even narration, be voice acted.

Match 3 meets visual novel with a well-executed story. Each character feels unique and your decisions truly impact your relationships with them. My only complaint is that once you beat the story, the home screen shows around 50% completion and all remaining content is just story, turning the core game into an optional element for achievements.

The game play is fun. I've not done much in the way of tile matching prior to this, save for a Plants vs Zombies mini game. The puzzles were simple and engaging, the extra rules placed on the situation by each character allowed for some times when I failed but after a bit I settled into a reliable approach. The dating sim elements are literally sign posted with symbols telling you whether a particular response is happy, joking, angry, romantic, or sexy. If you fail a particular "spell" (tile-matching) you can retry it without replaying the entire dialogue. Though if you misclick a dialogue choice I think you're stuck with it. Though perhaps there's a save function I missed. The events of each character's story are clearly scripted. There was one case I couldn't progress further on a character A until I advanced the story of character B, for instance. But there is some dynamic flex to the dialogue. More than anything, however, I want to get into how it approaches the relationships, because this game gets polyamory right. Dating sim style games that allow you to date all the characters are not new, Potionomics added this ability to its game within the last two years, for instance, but largely this is introduces no nuance to the relationships. The various possible love interests rarely if ever interact and there is no story acknowledgment that you're dating multiple people. It's more of a harem option than a polyamorous option in a lot of games. That is not the case here. If you're dating one character and they show up in another character's story, then they will treat you as if they are dating you and you have the option for a normal greeting or romantic ones when they appear. If a current partner shows up in another character's story while you're being actively romantic, they may very well comment on what a cute couple the two of you make. Even that would be an improvement over a lot of games that allow dating multiple characters at once. But this game takes it a step further than that. Because you will learn about the various possible partners' romantic lives and encourage them to start romantic connections of their own. The approach varies by character. One is very adamant about only interacting with you and no one else. Others are shy and reluctant to pursue options and have to be prodded to make the risk. Two particular characters have their stories heavily intwined having had a prior relationship that ended badly. You're able to not only repair this friendship but also their romance. And if you are also in a romantic relationship with both characters then you become a proper throuple. I am also very pleased with the fact that each character has around ten optional scenes where you can hang out with them even when you've completed their story and you're able to play the tile-game under their ruleset in the "arena" once you've completed a story. This avoids, as well as can be, the unfortunate tendency of games to treat achieving the relationship as the end of relationship dynamics. (in the case of the throuple, you'll occasionally find yourselves stumbling onto the other two on a date, or invited to join them on one.) Also, many of these optional dates have dialogue trees that can go multiple ways. Also... there's a lot of options for having just cute, date stuff after starting a romance without turning everything into a sexy scene so there's some nuance to every relationship. There's also the possibility of having hook-ups with two characters that aren't fully romanceable. But this is a pretty normal element of a lot of dating sims to have side-characters like this. All in all, a game that approaches polyamory with nuance and respect, includes topics of proper communication between partners, treats every relationship as its own thing that has to be approached in different ways, and gives each character an interesting story and personality exploring a variety of personal hang-ups and problems from extreme introverts to people pleasers that have difficulty not siphoning away their own life to help people.

Love this game so much! Would love to see more visual novels like this from the company!

Very charming game. Fully voiced (and voiced well), great art, great music, great gameplay. Stands far above other dating sims I've played (which isn't many, admittedly) in the narrative. The game has many choices (outside of just who you're dating) that matter, from choices that affect dating specifically (like how serious you want the relationship to be, what role you take in the relationship, if characters get involved in other relationships, etc.) to choices that don't, from super minor things (like whether or not you're a vegetarian) to more major things (spoiler things). The game is also very nonlinear and the order you do things in matters, but instead of in a way that makes it feel like you need to read a guide about the "right" order to do things, it's in a way that feels very rewarding on a second playthrough when a scene plays out differently because the state of the locations/characters. The only criticism I'd have is that finishing the game's overall story requires that you finish all of the dateables' base storylines (to be clear, you don't have to date them, but you do have to interact with them maybe more than you'd want to), although narratively there is a reason for that.

I really like this game, it's such a cute dating sim and all the characters are great. The match-3 gameplay can get surprisingly complex, it's a lot of fun.

A neat story, lots of cute characters to befriend or smooch, and a fun lil match 3 game. I think I need to be a bit more bolder and pick the flirt options more consistently, I missed out on Typhon even though I had wanted to romance him. D: