[h1][b][i]Catgirls being a subject of pure terror within a fantasy world? More likely thank you think.[/i][/b][/h1]
[h1]Cliché setting coerced to blend up with irrelevant factors:[/h1]
This game does feature the so-typical Otome trope where our heroine’s existence does bear a secret kept covered by her family until it eventually shows up to the heroine and cannot be denied any longer.
The story is set at Leezera, the capital of Eroolia which is supposed to be a fictional setting. Albeit being presented as a world of fantasy, there is not much originality put in the world-building, thus that part did not really pick any interest of mine.
[b][i]We play as Lilia, the female protagonist of which we could choose to change the name in order to self-insert within the story.
Lilia is a composed young girl working at the bakery together with her grandmother. She does also have a cherished childhood friend, Ronan, whose received treatment is equal to one offered typically to a clumsy younger brother within anime media given his bashful and childish-like personality.
Ronan is in charge of stocking the bakery and that of course does offer him the opportunity to greet Lilia on daily basis. Of course Ronan doesn’t think of her simply as an “older sister”, unlike the girl claims to believe. This is one of the reasons that Juli, a regular from the bakery, keeps teasing Ronan.
We do not know much about Juli, if not that he keeps stopping by the bakery in order to receive some free food, which is certainly suspicious given how strict Lilia’s grandmother is.[/i][/b]
[h1]An offhand fantasy setting:[/h1]
Fantasy elements? Aside from the used character and city names, there is a certain species called Luccretias inhabiting the city. They are literally… catgirls. While being described as half-human and half-cat mysterious creatures, as much as the narration here could make us see them as creatures from this fantasy world, trying to tense-up the plot by portion of inhabitants hating on them because of pure fear is quite shallow as a concept, mainly given there was no utter explanation to it. Some circles were formed to get rebellious against Luccretias in order to try to dispose of them as they are not supposed to stay at their city – or so their beliefs do affirm.
[h1]The crucial breakthrough:[/h1]
What kind of Otome could it be if our gentle heroine would not have to bear a terrific fate to hide, right?
[b][i]One day Lilia discovers to have a horrible secret… that she is a Luccretia as well. The fact comes to light one fine morning when she wakes up as a minute catgirl bearing a completely different kind of speech and personality. Oh, and she can transform back and forth by sneezing with a magical girl-like transition within game.
From that day she will have to keep her identity a secret to not frighten Ronan, nor cause him any unnecessary trouble, given she has to be there to protect him, as an older sister would.[/i][/b]
[h1]Reaching the point even the assets could result unfitting:[/h1]
This short Visual Novel does actually present a relaxing light read, if you choose to not pay attention to how the story is arranged.
The featured art is very cute even though it is clear this title is a tad old due to the used font and art style. The dialogue window’s design is very refreshing and the graphics overall do present a pleasant color palette.
On the other side, the character sprites do appear to be quite stiff. The result during dialogues is a tad awkward, which is mainly caused by character sprites always appearing front-faced with same exact poses all the way and no different view angles will be offered in order to make the whole more dynamic.
The dialogues are voice in Japanese, but the story is not even average in my opinion. It is way too rushed and lacking details, in a way the whole results as a random sequence of events inserted for the sole purpose of making Ronan and Lilia become closer – which may actually be the main point in Otome/Visual Novel media, but still… not like this.
While resulting enjoyable as a light-hearted read, the moments of tension or the ones supposed to hold some drama to them, felt heavily awkward and I could not take any of them seriously due to the ambience, the used narrative style and the portrayed situations as a whole.
The BGM accompanying this mess of a script did result neither interesting nor annoying, quite neutral I would say.
The plot twists did not result twisted but simply unfitting, as in the midst of slightly chaotic scenarios random new information would be brought up suddenly all at once. The whole could’ve been introduced better and with an actual twist to the public, if the story were to be expanded smoothly.
The fact this title recounts all of the hidden secrets at once towards the end, also causes a noticeable lack of savouring coming to the story development.
[h1]An interesting insert realised blandly, taking us to an almost pointless feature:[/h1]
This game is choice-based much like most Visual Novels. It does hold however love points to collect, that once the bar is full we can unlock one of the given points of view – a human or Luccretia’s perspective. Given there are two bars to fill in, of which the first is the love point bar, while the second is whose POV will be unlocked, the POV that we will get to witness will be established by whose bar will be filled based on our choices, of course.
Otherwise, we can simply proceed by unlocking next chapter without reading through this little extra, that still would offer us different outcomes, that, in my opinion, won’t bring much to the player if not the satisfaction of having cleared this game fully.
This feature could result quite nice, if it were to offer more unexpected content and less of what the player can already predict by going through the main story. Essentially, it felt like re-reading portions of what we already went through but narrated by a different character. Nonetheless some CGs were added to them, it did not create such a difference to me.
[h1]Overall:[/h1]
Most of this game’s features did come out as indifferent to me, the story was quite bland however.
Quite a pity, I was hoping to read through something more interesting after coming upon the game’s graphics.
[quote]Discover interesting visual novels, indie games and more on my Curator Page!
🪴 [url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/46144642/][b]Gyepi Nook[/b][/url] 🪴[/quote]
