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Thanks for the recommendation on Florian's route! I might consider it and I'll get back to you if I do (I kinda wanna get the Good End for every route at least).

I'm also glad I could put into words what was frustrating to you about Enix's route. It's just such a shame about it because Enix easily my favorite character. Him and Luna having a pre-established relationship allows for scenes and moments that other characters can't have with Luna. I don't even have a problem with drama in general (I do have a limit though. If it's angst/tragedy just to try to get the plot moving forward or just for THE SADS, I hate it), but it has to be done well and with a lot of care.

I honestly applaud the developers for episodes 1-8 of Enix's Story because they're amazing, but then the ball drops so hard. It's not that I couldn't recommend the game for anyone (I know there would be people who immediately feel sympathy for characters like Isla or enjoy antagonist redemptions because "eVeRyOnE dEsErVeS a sEcOnD cHaNcE" or whatever), but it really is only for people who feel okay with being dragged along by the hand from beginning to end. I think it makes it easy for people to pick favorite routes because there isn't much choice in where you're able to go, but if there was more choice involved, I could see people liking everyone's route more overall because they felt like they had agency and at least some control over where things went.

And the last three chapters don't even make that much sense? The whole thing with Isla crying her eyes out (Which still earns zero sympathy from me. She slapped Enix in the last episode and bullied Luna for dating Enix when "he was already dating someone else" except Luna didn't do that and tried to stop Enix until he explained that he broke up with Isla, so Isla is delusional, which is another sign that she can't be redeemed.) and telling Luna to let Enix go is her basically saying that she doesn't care about Enix's happiness. Then, like two scenes later, she takes it back because Enix is miserable, despite him being miserable for years beforehand???

(Also, it's weird to have a scene between Enix and Isla when Luna isn't there and this is supposed to be from Luna's P.O.V. I'm convinced that it was only to try and get the audience more onboard with Isla's redemption and it still didn't work. There are a couple scenes like that in Jamie's route too and I've always found it weird, but at least those are more Luna leaving the scene so she was there at one point. Just--why make a "His P.O.V" section at all if they're just going to jump to their non-Luna scenes anyway?)

And Luna trying to get Enix to go back to being a doctor is so forced. Enix even stares at her expression and asks if Isla talked to her (which tells us as an audience that Enix knows that Isla is terrible and full of garbage but sure, redeem her anyway) but Luna denies it. The whole scene has to go a very specific way because clearly neither of them want this and just a little edging from either of them would cause them to break. Luna's whole thing throughout this entire route was, "I don't want Enix to do anything that doesn't make him happy," and now she's doing the opposite? Yes, he won an award and yes, he's good at it, but Luna already knew that he would've made a good doctor and didn't care because his happiness came first and that's what Enix loved about her. Enix already established pre-Episode 9 that he tried to fool himself and tried to be happy with being a doctor and he couldn't, so this is just a waste of the player's time.

That's why I brought up my thought of Isla and the family directly involving themselves with threats and force, because Enix and Luna have come to too much of an understanding by the end of Episode 8 for this to happen without testing the player's suspension of disbelief. In the original here, when the player sees this scene with Luna trying to tell Enix to be a doctor after everything, they just go, "okay, this is dumb, this is just needless drama so that there can be Good/Bad Ending options," whereas the family interfering would instead bring a feeling of, "this is a terrible situation they're both in and it's understandable why they're conflicted on what to do about it," especially when Enix used his money to buy Luna that laptop and cutting off his funds + the threats would seem like a legitimate problem.

Leaving it up to Enix and Luna to cause the "break-up" isn't natural after they confessed, had sex, and were basically already onto making their game. Isla goes from an "I love to hate her" manipulative character to a plot device to force Luna's hand. The game basically has to do a 180 swerve to desperately drive the plot to where any sort of Good/Bad Ending is possible.

And I simply cannot forgive the game for punishing both Luna and the player for enjoying the moment. Isla was set up as an antagonistic character who the player was waiting to see get her just desserts, and then as soon as we get the satisfaction of seeing it happen, the game was like, "Yes but actually no. She's sad and you should feel sorry for her and Enix and Luna will be expected to forgive and thank her by the end even after she made both of their lives miserable for literal years."

Also, if the witch had this destiny book and Luna asked for a romance, why didn't the witch just look up Luna's soulmate and use her magic to put Enix and her into more situations together? Yes, the destiny book isn't for "mortal eyes," but she could've interfered without telling Luna directly that Enix is her soulmate.

The whole filler thing really just amounts to Enix's last three chapters not meaning anything. Marcello's (was told by a friend) reveals stuff about what's been going on behind the scenes and Jamie's actually reveals a lot about his backstory. Outside of what happens with Isla (which, again, I don't care about anyway), the only thing that happens directly between Luna and Enix is the reveal of what happened with the spell, which is just not enough content for three chapters.

I don't know if the DLC for this game will be paid or not, but if it is (and I know I said this before), I really do hope they go back one day and then release a "Deluxe" version of Love Spell, sort of like all those Wii U -> Switch ports.

All the DLC already being in there, more choices that actually impact the game, at least two branching paths for the Good/Bad End (like redeeming/not redeeming Isla for Enix's even if I don't think she'll deserve it regardless, and and maybe a path for Jamie's where he either continues to pursue music or goes with the Kitty Cafe that his bio hinted at instead), and just an overall experience that people would enjoy more because they have more agency.

Thank YOU for the compliment! I'm glad I was able to "review" things coherently despite how upset I was by what happened in the game.

Alright, so I basically ignored Florian's and Marcello's route because they're a little TOO old for my tastes (and I was never a fan of teacher-student stuff even if Luna is an adult), but I played Enix's and Jamie's routes and...

Okay, I have a lot of thoughts (spoilers below because I need it to get my point across).

For a first game out of this studio, this IS really well done. There are a lot of good ideas here and the art is honestly amazing. I really hope to see more games like this out of the studio, especially since it looks like you guys went out of your way to make an engine for it? I presume there's a reason why RenPy wasn't used and it'd be such a waste not to use the engine you made more.

...That said, there are some problems here, and they're not exactly small.

I should start with the basics, and I'll start with the concept of romantic routes versus a fully branching story that rely wholly on your choices to get the guy you want.

I do actually like the idea of just picking a guy and then getting a story revolving directly around them and the protagonist without having to jump through hoops for it. That's way easier and also just convenient because sometimes I don't want to have to deal with the other characters.

However, because of that, I can see players being discouraged to play other routes. Me, for example, I hated Florian and Marcello in the Prologue and I had no interest in pursuing either of them. Had they shown up briefly in Enix's and Jamie's routes with some likable lines, it would've encouraged me to go, "hm, okay, I'm intrigued. They're still a little weird for me personally but I could consider playing their route," (Florian sorta did that but Marcello's basically non-existent) instead of only playing their routes to get their money's worth.

The other thing is that it almost makes it worse that there aren't any branching paths at all really when the game already sets the player on a very clear path to one character. It already restricts and then it restricts more by having the choices not matter that much.

Part of the reason for that, I imagine, is the navigation system. It sounds great in theory, but it isn't in practice. From what I could tell from the game, the choices only impact the episode you're already in, further restricting the player from doing anything of value. The game tells you to "take control of your destiny by picking what you say and do in the story," but literally, I was on Enix's route and wanted to tell off the antagonist (which I will get into later), the game gave me the option to do so, and then did not let me actually go through with it. It was so immensely disappointing to think I had the option to control things and then I didn't.

The description here claims that the navigation feature makes it "easy" to go back in time and change choices, but... it really doesn't? I can never remember what episode I made what choices in and therefore I'd have to just let the game auto skip in every single episode until I find it (which becomes very tedious very quickly). A Save/Load feature usually shows screenshots of wherever you saved, making it easy to go, "Oh! There's the choice I made, I'll do that."

What makes it more baffling to me is that I saw in prerelease footage that there WAS a Save/Load feature originally but then it was discarded? Putting the stories into Episodes (speaking of which, this isn't actually a complaint but I just keep calling them "chapters" by accident in my head because it's listed as "[character's name]'s Story") makes it look really organized and nice, but hovering over them does nothing and first-time users (like myself) might go into the Navigation during a playthrough, click on one of the episode numbers just to see if it pulls up any sort of menu to at least describe the episode to jog the memory, only to then be thrown back into the episode they clicked when it wasn't their intention.

The Navigation system only really hurts the game. It's a theoretically good idea if it'd been fleshed out, but its inclusion like this means that your choices don't matter outside of the Good/Bad Endings (and I presume that some amount of "good" choices lead to the Secret Endings but I don't know for sure and it's not the point here). Plus, I can't imagine the hell it'd be to make choices matter and then make the Navigation work around that (like having Episode 2A/2B/2C based on options you chose in Episode 1, because otherwise episodes might delete themselves if you go back and make a choice that doesn't fit with the later episodes you already played before).

The other unique feature of this game is the "His P.O.V" sections of the game. Again, this sounds good in concept, but not in execution. I can't say anything about Florian's and Marcello's, but for both Enix's and Jamie's P.O.V sections, it only seemed to hurt the routes.

Enix's requires a bit more explaining. Basically, I feel like the whole reason why the spell "worked" the way it did seemed more like a cop-out. When I first was playing, I thought it was because Enix was already in love with Luna and, therefore, the spell is null and void.

But that twist couldn't have been done, because Enix's P.O.V told the audience specifically that he'd already loved Luna, so it wouldn't have been a surprise, and instead it's like, "oh, DESTINY," instead of something either Luna/Enix did themselves ("soulmates" could've been something they accidentally made each other instead of something written in the stars; like they were so close and loved each other so much and that is what made them soulmates). I could've seen Luna still thinking that it's just the spell making Enix act this way until the witch explains that the only reason he'd remember is if he already liked her.

As for Jamie's, the problem comes from the fact that Jamie is the one causing the misunderstanding in that particular episode. We're seeing his thought process so we already know this is a misunderstanding, making it more frustrating when Luna is revealed because we're just waiting for Luna's thoughts to catch up with the audience's. Had it been from Luna's P.O.V, it could've been played off that she didn't know Jamie well and maybe he's telling the truth because he was always keeping secrets; obviously we wouldn't buy it but it makes it less groan-inducing.

In terms of Jamie's route overall, it's not bad and I actually had fun, but for a romcom, it's really sad and angst-y. The tonal shifts hit hard and fast (like the transition of the confession to "what happens afterwards," which I realized was only because things go from 0 to 100 immediately so there wouldn't have been room for "that scene" at any other time) which wouldn't be a problem on its own, but the mood swings happened so frequently that I became numb to it. Luna got excited about the viral video and I was just shaking my head because her and Jamie are supposed to be in love by now but she still doesn't get that he wouldn't be excited by this?

I'll fully admit that part of my problem with his route is just personal preference (translating music into a novel of sorts is very hard and I usually don't like lyrics/singing being thrown into things I'm reading), but I do think some of the choices are legitimate problems. Excess magic is used to save him and I feel like it could've been a team effort between him and Luna to try and get a recording of Cox admitting to everything or something instead of an audience having to be exposed to Jamie's life/torment (which was rather unsettling, even when it was just Luna seeing it. I felt like I was prying into something I had no right to).

Enix's route though, is a very different story. Through basically the entirety of episodes 1-8, I was having fun. Pure, simple fun. I was laughing, I was feeling, I was everything. Luna and Enix were so cute together and I was extremely invested. When I was in the middle of Episode 8, it all felt so much like an ending to the point where I was legitimately confused and like, "This is already perfect? Yeah, technically there are still questions but I'm satisfied right here???"

And then, the antagonist got redeemed, and in one of the worst ways possible.

Redeeming antagonist/villains seems to be a popular thing in media these days, and while I get that maybe it seemed like a good idea to do it at least once in this game (I don't know about the other two but I know Jamie's didn't have it), the way it was done left a sour taste in my mouth for the rest of Enix's route to the point where I could no longer enjoy it.

It's not earned. It's not enough. Isla goes from yelling at Luna to let Enix go, to suddenly feeling bad about Enix being depressed (after years and years of Isla manipulating Enix and annoying him and telling him what he should do with his life and overall not caring about how he feels). She can't talk about how much she loves him after dismissing him when she's not the one with a problem, dismissing his break-up with her as "him not thinking," dismissing his dreams and goals, and also slapping him.

This "redemption," above all else, was what made the lack of choice in this game the most infuriating. When I initially saw "the accident scene," I just sighed and immediately went, "okay, she's getting redeemed, it's so obvious, they wouldn't do this otherwise," but when I got the choice between "SCREW YOU!" and "I'm sorry.", I got excited because it finally felt like I had a choice in where things would go. I really thought this was going to be the "yell at Isla and the game will adjust so Isla won't be forgiven/feel sorry for her actions" or "apologize and make Isla reflect and make her realize that her getting injured was karma (which would've made that accident at least mean something) so she gets redeemed instead."

Not to mention the fact that having an antagonist get injured in any sort of dramatic way like this isn't the way to redemption. All it does is manipulate the audience into feeling sympathy and it's the easy way out. Luna claimed in Prologue that Isla was her "rival and friend," yet I did not see a single instance in any of the flashbacks that showed that Isla cared about Luna. All I was remembering throughout Isla's "redemption" is that Isla practically set Luna up to be sexually assaulted by Chaz and I just--I don't know who buys a romcom game hoping for a redeemable bad guy? I was waiting for more roasts and Philia to let loose on Isla and for Isla to get hilarious payback for everything she'd done, but that didn't happen.

And it feels like a punishment. Luna finally stood up to Isla and then the story punished her for it by having Isla get injured right after. It's just drama for the sake of drama and I felt so bad for Luna because here she is feeling guilty for making Enix happy and standing up for herself and that's wrong.

It didn't have to be like that. Heck, Isla could've faked an accident by setting up some big scheme (so Enix would get a bone-chilling call instead of Isla just moronically running into an intersection in front of them). It could've been a joint effort between her, her family, and Enix's family to manipulate and guilt Enix into coming back to them and convincing him to become a doctor. They could've threatened to freeze his bank accounts if he didn't comply (maybe they even threaten to pay Luna's school to mark Luna's finals as a failure to further threaten him, which brings back the mention of finals from an earlier episode), which makes Enix nervous because he's always had money thrown at his problems (and Enix would've either left himself or he and Luna would've actually talked about it instead of Luna having to be at fault for things again). Then, the Good Ending could be Enix abandoning Isla and his family officially and going back to Luna with little to no money now but promising her that he'll start from the ground up again and it's okay because he wants to be with her as long as she's alright with that too.

The game expects me to suddenly feel sympathy for Isla because she got hurt and I don't. She could've dropped at Luna's feet and begged for forgiveness and I still wouldn't have given it to her because she's been nothing but selfish, violent, uncaring, and manipulative for 95% of the story. I don't care if she's experienced unrequited love for so long because she's ultimately just out for herself (and seems to sort of gets a love interest as a reward in the end, which just furthered my irritation). The game clearly banks on the player wanting Isla to be redeemed and that's a gamble it shouldn't have taken.

There could've been ways to redeem her but this was not it and I just end up feeling gross inside because Luna and Enix took so much abuse from her and then suddenly they both have to forgive and even thank her because "she's sad and hurt and that makes everything okay." Isla is the one to convince Luna to break it off with Enix and even during her apology to him, she doesn't admit that she was the one who told Luna to let him go, presumably because the story would be ruined and Enix would've gone charging back to Luna. It makes Isla's "redemption" come off as even less convincing/acceptable because she didn't even fix the mistake that caused Enix to suffer in the first place.

It's to the point where I would literally pay more money to have content cut out. There's a phrase I heard once about writing, and it's basically, "start 10 minutes late and leave 10 minutes early," which means that you have to be watchful of your beginning and ending because what you think you might need in those parts, you don't actually need and it ends up being boring.

This is exactly what Enix's route ends up as, because the last three episodes feel like padding. The episode before them was so sweet and hearfelt that there was honestly no way it could be topped, but then the game kept going. I'm not saying that Enix's route needed to end at episode 8, but the story could've been rewritten to have the stuff in 8 be the ending, just adding in the witch afterwards and her explaining things, maybe when everything's wrapped up and there's still just that lingering question of the spellbook (which would make the route unique since the witch didn't have to interfere to make anything happen, unlike the other routes I presume). The story, as is, comes off like a draft, or like the story was supposed to wrap up at episode 8 but then... I don't know, the concept for the Good/Bad Endings came in and this didn't reach the episode limit so it had to keep going? I just can't shake the feeling that something happened between episodes 8 and 9 and that's not a good thing. It almost feels like there were multiple writers for Enix's route and no one could agree on what to do with Isla, which I don't think is true either because the Kickstarter seems to imply that there was only one writer and one editor? In which case, dang, that's impressive, but also sounds like an overwhelming burden for one person to have to write four whole and unique stories.

I know I just spent a long time complaining and I'm sorry, but I do it because Enix's route was so perfect and and then just... it turns into a trainwreck.

I don't know if "Deluxe" versions of visual novels are a thing, but if this game was ever expanded on with more impactful choices and more thought out routes, I would buy it in a heartbeat. I love this idea and the heartfelt moments and (some of) the comedy and that's exactly why it hurts so much that I had to end the game feeling empty inside.

Hi hi! Commenting from my comment-only account, considering commenting about/reviewing the actual game later.

I've read the page on the Kickstarter and thought that it was interesting to see that there was a GIF mentioning a potential route with Sergio, but I also see that the DLC Goal titled "Aslan's Route," while being mentioned on this page, has not actually been achieved yet? Is this because you guys are counting the money from people who bought the game afterwards and that's why there's a preview of Aslan's route, because you know you'll get there/have already gotten there?

Also, wouldn't it be beneficial to have this "social media map to Sergio" that you have on Kickstarter on your itch.io page here so people know about it? Or was Sergio a cancelled goal? People would probably be more inclined to like+follow+share if they know that there could eventually be a reward for it, hence my asking. I imagine not a lot of people check on the Kickstarter page so maybe they don't know everything they could possibly be getting by donating and such?

For a free game, this is FANTASTIC! I was disappointed by some other visual novels and this lifted my spirits. I still didn't want to go for Souma (his character type isn't my cup of tea) but I will admit that I didn't dislike him by the end of the game; I just didn't want to romance him.

Spoiler talk below:

I see all these comments about stabbing the president and I'm really curious what dialog choice causes it (if I had to guess, maybe the "Nothing" answer when Yuki sees the garden, or maybe picking the wrong options when choosing if he takes care of himself or not ("soldier on" instead of "take a nap", and then "take a cup of hot milk" even though he doesn't like milk that much). The first ending I got was with Izumi and Yuki running away together which... I don't know, that FEELS like the best ending you can get (just gonna presume that stabbing the president leads to consequences so I won't do it even if I want to lol) but I'd hoped that there was a way to save the bakery too, and I'm afraid of doing another run because getting bad endings make me feel like such a failure and I don't know what I could've done better anyway.

I just find myself really sad because I wanted Izumi but I also wanted the bakery; like, spite the president AND take the president's son, y'know?? Like, "HA, YOU MIGHT HAVE YOUR MONEY BUT I HAVE DETERMINATION AND A MAGNETIC PERSONALITY FOR ATTRACTING BLONDE CITY BOYS."

My whole strategy was, "Be nice to Souma when he's reasonable (I might not like his character type but I don't just rudely dismiss him when he doesn't deserve it), let Izumi help when he wants to, try and take care of Yuki's needs whenever possible." It sounds... well, sound, but maybe I'm missing something? The whole thing where, "oh, Izumi's actually making up with his grandfather," caught me COMPLETELY off-guard and kinda made me angry (let's just say that I have some family troubles so things getting patched up with the guy who literally took the bakery away from them left a sour taste in my mouth), so I was hoping there'd be another ending I'd like more? It just feels... wrong that the whole point of the game was to get the bakery back but that's not what happened. I'd take Izumi over the bakery, sure, but it doesn't leave me feeling wholly satisfied.

(I know that sounds like a lot of complaining but I really enjoyed the game; it's just that the ending is the freshest in my mind but I'd gladly gush if given prompting to.)

(slight spoilers for the game's ending)

So I think the idea for this game is totally creative and everything. I had a lot of fun and I was amazed at how long the game kept going with how many different ways it could take advantage of screen wrapping.

"Serenity Forge" had looked familiar but I couldn't place it. I wish I'd looked it up because I'd actually played another game from there: The King's Bird, a game that I also found very creative and had a lot of fun with in terms of length and gameplay, but that cut my fun short immediately by the ending (or more like 95% of the way through the game) to the point where I felt like the game had been false-advertised to me.

This game suffers from the same problem and I feel as if the only reason is for the shock value. There are definitely a long of darker levels that hint that something's wrong, but the thing is, like... the game already starts with the two player characters being unable to truly interact due to the screen wrap. I'm sure there's some deep meaning about trying to make things work but never being on the same screen page, but I'd thought the whole point was to find a way to get them together. Instead, I just tore them apart through seemingly no fault of my own because even the New Game+ has no alternate ending or way to get out (which makes it feel like a waste to play). Like King's Bird, I feel punished rather than rewarded for playing the game, because there's a narrative that forces you onto a specific path no matter what (I'm aware that King's Bird has two paths but those aren't what I'm referring to).

It again feels like it's only for the weirdness/shock value except I ended up just not feeling anything because the juxtaposition left me feeling disappointed rather than happy for the fun I had. I know that sometimes it's more about the journey than the destination, but that wasn't the case from me.

Final verdict: HIGHLY recommended for unique and interesting gameplay, but not at ALL for the story elements.