The Radiants

It feels rather hollow, the story is not fully fleshed out, it feels more rushed than anything. The artwork is beautiful, however it feels like the only reason you would play is to see the art as the story is compacted into 12 weeks and not a lot of story is given other than small bits and pieces you get along the week that leaves you wishing for a more developed story of all these character's lives and connection. Comparing this to romance games with similar price points it feels like you are only paying for the art but not the personality and, unfortunately, to me personality is more important than something looking pretty. That is only a personal opinion

Well the artwork is gorgeous and the characters are interesting enough but you can really tell that English is not the first language here. There are mispelled and misused words all over the place. Its also a little buggy. In the demo it felt like we had access to more panels about romance and unlocked skills but they don't appear available in the full version. There's also an issue where the 'composure skill' skyrocketted above the +4 numbers it was giving me and I wasn't sure what my skill level in that stat really was anymore. I dunno. I think its over priced at 20 dollars for just a nice art book and story.

I play a lot of otome/romance/story games, so I'm pretty picky about what I play, and to its credit The Radiants did hold my attention for 13 hours as of this writing. However, I doubt very much I'll go back to it in the future. On the surface, this game looks like it should work. It's an academia romance with a bit of a mystery. But the more time you spend in the universe the more the game unravels to show there's little underneath it. First issue is the writing. There is so much exposition in every conversation that it slows the game down to a crawl. While I understand there are limitations to the genre where most of the story needs to be told via inner monologue or dialogue, it doesn't excuse the huge amount of text you need to go through just to know what's going on. The world is not revealed for you through story events or through the dynamics of the characters, but it's literally told to you explicitly in a dialogue that may or may not be related. The game takes place in another world/plane of existence where all the people around you aren't human but are some kind of "fairy tale creature" like sirens, dryads, kitsune, etc. However, all the radiants look human, and the school is mostly just a normal Hogwarts-esque school and very few people care that the MC is human, if they mention it at all. So... why did this need to take place in another plane of existence? If anything, this just creates more details that the game needs to explain via dialogue, but that never comes into play in the game. Beyond this, the art is inconsistent - the art in the CGs looks like it was made by a completely different artist from the character art, as does the cover art, which is jarring. They were also a bit lazy with this - for a scene on the beach, wherein the MC describes the bathing suit she is wearing, you still only see her in her normal clothes. Little oversights like this hurt immersion and pull me out of the game, even though it's small. My final gripe, which is just a personal one, is that the MC is way too prude. Nothing beyond kissing, and even this seems to fluster her. She frequently "verbally rolls her eyes" when the LIs flirt with her like she's thinking "ugh, not this again." Which would be cute for a minute, but gets old. This is an Otome, flirt back for God's sake! Anyway, I think this game had promise but at the end of the day it's inconsistent, a bit dull, and has way too much to say about things that do not impact the player at all.

I don't really want to give a bad review since it's clear a lot of work and love went into this game, but I ended up not really enjoying it. **The Positive:** The story started off interesting with a nice premise, and the artwork is nice, though I could have done without the character movements. I wish more effort had been put into the story and character development. **Things I Would Improve:** The mystery was quite predictable if you're familiar with crime shows or movies. None of the love interests really stood out to me, so I only played one route. In that route, "Arien," it felt like he and the MC weren't really a good match, which is odd for an Otome game. I didn't like the way they handled stat raising. It was very repetitive and tedious, as I felt like I was looking at the same screen with the same text over and over again, with no way to speed it up. Overall, I didn't enjoy it as much as I hoped, despite liking the premise. However, if you're into light-hearted mystery games, it might be worth checking out.

Edit: I played a bit recently after the 2.0 drop. My old CGs are not unlocked, only the ones you unlock from that point onwards. So far no bugs and I'm doing Rheala's route, but I can't tell whether magic has any meaning in this game - I dont know my abilities or skills. Consider this a more neutral review. The Radiants is a fantasy stat raiser with a small romantic element. Much in the vein of Stray Gods, The Radiants is about a normal human receiving the powers of a special being when they die in proximity to the main character. In this case, the MC (default name) Emmalyn Ash is teleported to a fantasy world and forced to attend an academy for 12 weeks, raising stats to be able to overcome challenges and succeed at school and reach the ideal ending - the assumed canon is that they become the oracle for the Council (the governing body of the fantasy world). The game features 4 love interests (Kai, Grey, Arien and Rheala) and some secret romantic options, as well as 12 stats that you can raise through weekly class schedules and weekend activities. At this stage I've only finished one route and I did have some thoughts about the game overall. They have different artists for the sprites and for the CGs. Sprites move in a set animation each time they say a line, much like B-Project Ryusei, and I do find it a little creepy but it's easy to ignore. The CG art is absolutely gorgeous and very anime-styled, much like that of Code Realize, however with the serious / mature style of the sprites, it contrasts strangely. And then one of the characters has an animal sprite which looks even more cartoonish. Furthermore, Kai's character artwork in the CG is lighter-skinned than his sprite. The game is not voiced, which is totally fine, but does have some background music, which I enjoy enough to keep playing. The story goes down a direction that I really enjoyed and I had a lot of fun following the mystery. There are many random events that can occur after classes and on weekends where your stats come into play. There's so much potential in the world but we barely get a glimpse of it in the time that the MC is there. I saw that there are maybe 12 different endings that can be achieved. Also mentioning that close to the end of the game, you can unlock "abilities" from having your stats reach a certain value. I have absolutely no idea what these are for as there is no menu that they show up in and there's no section that you use them in at all. I should mention the characters as well; there is some interesting potential especially in the backstory of them but the twelve weeks feel like they go at warp speed, which is not helped by the events after class being totally random. After finishing Kai (and Grey's route), I felt like I could understand their character and see where their motivations would lie, but that the romantic development just wasn't there. I can't buy that the characters are falling head over heels for each other, there's just not enough interaction between them to really give that feeling. Maybe it's more of a case that trauma can draw people closer together? I also found that the game lacked the major draw point of even playing a dating sim: a CG gallery. (?!) Why can't I go back and see the artworks that I unlocked through my routes??? There are no achievements, which I found a bit disappointing and no ending gallery either, so I can't keep track of the beautiful tarot card I get for my received ending. There's also no visual feedback for choices that you selected already - only the ability to skip dialogue you've already read (except for classes, for some reason?). That's a feature often utilised as there are so many bugs in this game. Sprites halfway up the screen, text boxes coming out of the wrong area, cut off text and characters where they don't belong. Sometimes the game completely breaks, sometimes my stats don't match what I think their value should be? I was overall quite confused playing this game even when following a guide. I think this game can be great, I think it has a lot of potential. But fans from the start have waited 1.5 years for an update, so I can't recommend it right now. I'm really looking forward to the DLC drops that allow you to romance your classmate Dex and the professor(?!), but until then I hope that the 2.0 update drops this year.

Thus far, this game has had a lovely branching system. This game is fantastic. I can't wait to find out more in the story line and I feel like there's so much of the game that I haven't seen yet. Def recommend if you're into witchy VNs. ETA: Please consider making this compatible with Steam Deck.

Although the artwork is amazing and I like the stat component of this game, I would only recommend it if it was on sale. There isn't a lot of CGs. Probably only two per route. Also, there are far to many glitches to ignore. After you play the game once, glitches happen constantly. Images that appeared the first time disappear. Then, backgrounds seem to glitch out. Music will sometimes overlap if you press the skip button. Even the final scene where you chose what you want to become glitches out so that you can't see the choices. I feel like this game could have turned out even better if the glitches were fixed.

i kissed a ghost who could ask for more

Just bought this game and have finished all but one romance option. All I have to say is my favorite pairing thus far has got to be Adventure Oracle and Zereth.

I just love this game. The love interests are all so nice, I acutally wish there was a harem ending!!!!