LOVE BAKUDAN

[h1][b]💣 Love Bakudan — A Yuri Story That Quietly Detonated in My Heart[/b][/h1] [h2][u]This game [b]COULD[/b] change your outlook on life![/u][/h2] [h3]My Feelings (about the Game)[/h3] I bought this game after watching otome-isekai animes on Crunchyroll, so obviously I went into this game with expectations, expectations that I was unsure would be met. To be honest, I was certain these criterion I was placing in my mind [b]would[/b] go unmet. I didn't understand that this game was a masterpiece until I'm now knee-deep in the first love-interest conquest, and I can say without a shadow of doubt in my mind I'm thankful I gave this game a chance. What starts as a quirky, self-aware romantic comedy gradually blooms into something heartfelt, deeply human, and emotionally resonant — especially if you let yourself fall into the lives of its characters. I got Yuki as my first path—and I'm absolutely enamored with this story-line. I feel bad for my future endeavors, going for the other 5 Love Interests (L.I.); [spoiler] Yuki's story hits home even if you've never been in bad with a gang, I couldn't help but feel emotions for a video game character I've never felt for a human before[/spoiler]. [h3]❤️ Yuki’s Route (So Far...)[/h3] [spoiler]I've only progressed on Yuki’s route at the time of writing, but I have to say: her story hit home. Without going too deep, I’ve been in a situation in real life that mirrors what Yuki endured. Seeing Haruka step up — awkwardly, tenderly, but with real heart — genuinely moved me. The pacing of their romance felt just right: never rushed, but never dragging its feet either. [/spoiler] [h3]✍️ Writing That [i]Feels[/i][/h3] The dialogue in Love Bakudan is spot-on. Whether it’s the sharp humor, the warm internal thoughts, or the gut-punch of emotional moments ([spoiler]Haruka reading her grandmother’s last letter broke me to tears[/spoiler]), it all just works. These characters don’t feel like cookie-cutter tropes — they feel lived-in. [h3]🎨 UI & Visuals[/h3] Visually, I was iffy at first. The background art style struck me as oddly filtered or blurry… but it grew on me. The real stars are the character sprites — they’re expressive, well-rendered, and perfectly matched to the mood. The UI is clean, readable, and intuitive. [h3]🎶 Music[/h3] The score might not scream for attention, but it supports the emotional rhythm of the story perfectly. Certain scenes wouldn’t land half as well without it. The music knows when to swell and when to disappear — a subtle touch, but a powerful one. [h3]🔁 Replay Value[/h3] Even with just one route in progress, I can already tell this VN is worth replaying. The personality quiz and branching choices make me want to see every side of Haruka — and every girl she can grow close to. There's depth here, not just romance. [h3]📝 A Minor Quibble[/h3] My only suggestion? A bit of light proofreading. There were a few moments where I ran into odd phrasing — likely just small translation or editing oversights. Nothing immersion-breaking, but worth noting. [h2][b]Final Verdict:[/b][/h2] If you're even remotely interested in Yuri stories that balance humor, heart, and healing — Love Bakudan is a hidden gem worth your time. It made me laugh, reflect, and even cry. And I can’t wait to see where the other routes take me. [b]9.7/10[/b] — A surprisingly powerful story wrapped in comedy and connection.

This review is written after having competed all routes, so there will be spoilers (skip to the bottom for the tl;dr). Routes in order I completed them: Yuki Miyanagi (Dusk's Rose Route) I was greatly disappointed by Yuki, given she's advertised as the childhood friend that's always had feelings for Haruka (the protagonist), and I found her design to be the most appealing in regard to the various faces; but right from the word go she irked me. The game establishes that she would constantly date thug/gang members in her youth, [i]despite[/i] being head-over-heels in love with Haruka, who is nothing like a thug. She's also just been moping around pining for Haruka rather than having the guts to just ask her out herself, despite knowing that Haruka can be a bit dense when it came to women. The drama of this route was believable, and you learn the most about [spoiler]how she's a debt slave to Teru, who won't let her go because she has some twisted love for Yuki and expresses it through ownership and what is effectively abusive relationship tactics[/spoiler]. My fourth favourite route overall, which is a surprise because I was expecting it to be at the top. 6/10. Teru Tokugawa (Midnight's Orchid Route) I was honestly blown away by how good this route was, and it was my favourite for a long time. The quiz says that you'll hate her in the beginning, but I honestly never did, and my only criticism is that she never gave up smoking in the end. [spoiler]Showing that she approached Haruka because she thought she might be connected to her long-time rival Hazuki Mishima (same surname as Haruka) was a really nice bit of lore to learn, and after being introduced to Ayame in Yuki's route, it was nice to see her relationship with Teru further explored in this route. I loved that Teru broke good at the end and came back to Haruka, but I was dubious about how realistic it would be that she could stay away from the underworld, being a former yakuza boss[/spoiler]. My second favourite route, 8.5/10. Himeko Kurosu (Dawn's Primrose Route) Utterly boring and cliche snoozefest. I was uninterested in Himeko even before doing this route, and holy crap was it painful to get through (I ended up turning on the 'skip unread text' option to skip through the final CG scene, it was that bad). Himeko is the typical otaku weeb character who can't get a word out without stammering and falling quiet because she's terrified of social interaction, and literally her whole storyline is [spoiler]that she wants to be a mangaka, enters in a competition she has no hope of completing a manga for the deadline, and drags Haruka in to help her[/spoiler]. The problem of the route that needed resolving was nothing but shallow melodrama that tapped into every UwU animu cliche on the planet. Also, [spoiller]the fact Yuki gets together with Teru on this route is REALLY gross, given what you learn about their "relationship" in Yuki's route[/spoiler]. Hated this route, 1/10. Hyojin "Angel" Park (Morning's Hibiscus Route) I hate idol culture. It's toxic and gross, and this route does a great job of highlighting that, given that the drama is around [spoiler]Hyojin's step-mother-come-manager being toxicly abusive[/spoiler]. Unfortunately, I just couldn't get interested in Hyojin as a character given she's effectively a creepy stalker. [spoiler]I knew right away that she would have been the one to put the tickets in Sei's mailbox, and she reveals that she actively stalked and followed Haruka all over Tokyo after Haruka had helped her out one night[/spoiler]. Honestly, I wouldn't have been surprised if this had gone yandere, though it almost did with Yuki. There were a lot of typos and errors in this route, though (such as Himeko's name being used despite her never telling it to you), and [spoiler]how/why Himeko was perfectly safe going out with Yuki when on Yuki's route, Teru was ready to murder Haruka. Also, Yuki went off with Himeko almost immediately despite supposedly being head-over-heels for Haruka, and Haruka hadn't begun a relationship with Hyojin yet when it'd happened[/spoiler]. Second least liked, 5/10. Akane Hasegawa (Noontime's Hyacinth Route) I enjoyed this route quite a bit. [spoiler]It revolves around Akane being eaten alive by guilt over a fireworks accident in the past that she felt responsible for, and the child victim's mother turning arsonist to try and get revenge. Akane tries to push Haruka away, but Haruka won't have a bar of it, and helps Akane catch the arsonist so they can all move on with their lives. It was also quite cute that Sei and Yuki got together on this route[/spoiler]. A genuinely well thought-out story, and my third favourite route overall. 7.5/10. Sei Itou (Daytime's Sunflower Route) The surprising dark horse of the heroines, and this route ended up being my favourite. At first, I felt a little unsure about it given Sei was very much the best friend character and it was difficult to see how that would translate into romance, but it happened surprisingly well; it was also the ONLY route to do things in (debatably) the correct order, where they kiss first, then decide to be a couple, THEN move on to sex. The drama around the route was that [spoiler]Sei didn't listen to Haruka's warning about her leg, which she then blew out in a baseball game, so Haruka had to pull her out of her depressive funk and point her toward the path of music instead[/spoiler]. It was a very sweet story overall, and felt the most complete (with hints of others' routes being dropped, as well as Hyojin actually showing up again when she never did in any other non-Hyojin route). 9/10. Now, for writing overall, this game has its issues. There were typos (as mentioned, specifically in Hyojin's route), and felt like it wasn't proofread a great deal because some of the dialogue didn't mesh well and got confusing as to what it was referring to. Yuki was also the [i]worst[/i], and hung around like a bad smell. I understand she was probably the intended OTP for Haruka, but barring her own route and Teru's, she shows up on all others moping and guilting the PC over the fact someone else was chosen. She also never told Haruka about her situation outside of her route, but constantly showed up complaining about it. Even on Hyojin's route - which should have had Sei as a more prominent side character - she's given centre stage as the source of Hyojin's jealousy. There was also an EGREGIOUS amount of repetition - the amount of times it says a character tucks a strand of hair behind their ears or runs a hand through their hair is almost offensive (like, it's almost every second sentence). The writing in general is a 5/10, which - when totalled with the average of all the routes - gets to a 6/10 overall. Art - honestly, it was rough. The sprites were quite good, but the faces weren't (the eyes were creepy given they had no outlines to the irises, and the full-toothed grins made the characters seem more facetious or aggressive than they were), and some of the CGs were amateurish (the toilet stall scene with Akane, and the first three CGs for Teru are the worst). 5/10. Music - possibly the saving grace of this game, given it was quite good. There were a few too many silent spots throughout, and the intimate scene music really only worked for Teru (and possibly Akane) given the context of their scenes. A solid 7/10. TL;DR - Overall, this game is has three good routes (Sei, Teru, and Akane), and three not-so-good routes (Yuki, Hyojin, and Himeko). The art is decent, but has issues, as does the writing, but the music is fairly solid. Overall, 6/10. Given the three decent routes will take a solid 10-12 hours to get through (provided you save at the beginning of the quiz), the price point might be a little high, so maybe wait until it's on a Steam sale. (Note - I have sunk around 24 hours into this game; the hours displayed is bugged)

great game if you love women ! clearly surpassed my expectations i tend to loose interest in visual novel this long but not this time ! Doing all the routes was a real pleasure. was brought here by god most lesbian soldier LD can't wait to see renai bakudan !

Note: My listed Steam time is incorrect, it took me a bit over 31 hours to fully complete the game (all routes + all extras). Love Bakudan is a yuri visual novel about a young woman who returns to her hometown in order to inherit her recently deceased grandmother's erotica shop. As you can imagine with that kind of premise, it's a firmly adults-only game; aside from the explicit sex scenes, there are also frequent references to sex in the plot, sex jokes, etc. It's very refreshing compared to a lot of yuri stuff, which either is extremely chaste [i]or[/i] where where there's sex but it feels almost completely disconnected from the experience of being a queer woman...I don't think either of those types of content are inherently bad, but it becomes obvious pretty quickly that there's not a lot outside of that false binary. This game is long--that said, a fairly large portion of the text is in the unlockable text-only erotic stories (which have no connection to the plot, characters, or world of the main game), so if you skip reading those the game will "only" be about 20-25 hours long. Still, that's a lot of content for an indie VN. Where Love Bakudan shines is in its characters--especially the main characters, although the supporting cast is also really interesting. The story makes sure to give the non-MC characters the chance to interact with each other, and in contrast to most romance games where the love interests are never interested in anyone but the MC, the LIs in Love Bakudan have their own histories and desires and pair off with each other when you're not in their route--which helps contribute even more to the feeling that these are fleshed-out characters, not just archetypes. The friendship-only bonus route seems like it could clash terribly with the rest of the game (no romance, no sex scenes, no CGs, and [spoiler]supernatural/fantasy elements[/spoiler]) but instead it feels like the game reveling in what it does best--showing off its characters and how they play off one another. It gives the game the excuse to gather all 7 main characters in the same location, with the chaos that implies. While it's unlocked after finishing a single route, I would recommend playing it after finishing all the other routes. Gameplay-wise, Love Bakudan is very straightforward. Basically, the only choices that affect the progression of the story are the soulmate quiz that Haruka takes, which has ~30 questions that decide which route you'll end up on. In the routes themselves, you get scenes where customers ask for erotic book recommendations, and you have to pick which one to sell them based on their summaries. Whether or not you successfully sell books only affects whether you unlock extra stories; all the routes only have a single ending. (Also, to be honest, the selling minigame is [i]really[/i] easy.) The common route is fairly short compared to the routes themselves, keeping in mind that this is a long game overall. One of the things I noticed is that the game can't decide whether Haruka has a cell phone or not...the common route says she left her phone in Tokyo, and in a couple routes she either buys a new one in Akiyama or goes without and can only be reached through Bakudan Books' landline, but in other routes she just...suddenly has a cell phone again? This bothered me a lot more than it probably should. I kept thinking, how is Haruka getting sexy photos texted to her if she doesn't have a phone that can receive texts or display photos? But this is a fairly minor complaint in the face of everything. Overall, this is a great game that anyone interested in adult yuri should check out. For more romance game recommendations, feel free to check out my curator, [url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/32080131/]Games for Hopeless Romantics[/url].

I like Love Bakudan's art and writing and characterization. I don't like the 30-question multiple-choice personality quiz Love Bakudan uses to decide which character's route you get onto. If that doesn't bother you, then you should absolutely buy it, because until I hit the personality quiz I was really, really looking forward to reading it.

Surprisingly cute. Typically wary of stuff with such blatant emphasis on sexuality, but a good chunk of the routes here were adorable, if a bit overly long a few cases. Keep coming back to this after not being overly enthused by the sequel.

LOVE BAKUDAN is an absolutely delightful yuri visual novel. Filled to the brim with interesting characters, captivating romance, and beautiful art, this is one of my favorite games of 2021. You can play just one route, a couple, or all of them, but you will have a good time no matter what. I wish I could play it again for the first time so I could laugh, cry, and be surprised with my favorite routes. Maybe I'll be able to experience that again once I replay it in a little while. I wholeheartedly recommend it to any visual novel fans out there.

Only like 2 hours in, but am absolutely loving the experience! It's managed to put a dumb smile on my face a time or two already. I'll update my review if anything changes that opinion, but judging by the other reviews, I think I'll be good with leaving it at this. Highly recommend.

The writing was filled with too much exposition and too much telling and no showing. For instance, we keep being told Haruka is "handsome," but for the entire front part from traveling to Akiyama to opening the book store, we are never shown WHY Haruka is handsome. Simple things like, "Haruka noticed the wouldn't stop staring at her short bob hair," or "I noticed when I spoke the woman hung on my every word." SHOW me why Haruka is handsome, don't keep TELLING me. Another example of fluff writing is making a call to Yuki. It took the story 7 or 8 lines of meandering to finally call Yuki. That could've been accomplished by a few sentences such as, "I wasn't sure whether to call Yuki or not, I paced around for about an hour, staring at the wall, pondering what it would mean to give her call, but finally decided, 'screw it' and picked up the phone." The whole first scene with Sei is painful as well. All that dialogue and all we establish is that Haruka and Sei are friends, Sei is dating a firefighter with nice abs, likes vinyls and is messy and maybe has a hot mom. That could've been done so much more efficiently. Every conversation, ever line, needs to show something, have a point, or it's just fluff and you lose the reader quick. The writing just needs to be tightened up, it's too much Telling, too much exposition, too much fluff, it's long winded and it doesn't DO anything. I couldn't get pas the first couple hours, it was too much. I found myself clicking through most of it and noticed I didn't miss a thing and that's not good. If the reader is skipping line after line and they aren't missing any the story, get rid of it. This needs better editing.

I LOVE WOMEN (Sei is the cutest girl failure there is)