The soft colour palette and interesting backdrops were beautiful to look at. I may not have fallen for its written charms, but I loved the visual presentation. LoveChoice is emotionally sterile, but its visuals are beautiful. They’re not groundbreaking by any stretch, but they broke up the flow of the story and encouraged you to be part of the narrative. You’ll grab floating musical notes, pick restaurants, match faces, search for clues, and so forth. The interactive elements were also aided by the unusual mini-games and point and click mechanics. I enjoyed how it dropped the usual voyeuristic manner and broke the fourth wall. This was fantastic and made me want to keep playing, even though I felt no emotional attachment to the plot. Yet, unlike other VNs, you are free to interact with the scenery, move characters, and discover hidden Easter Eggs. You experience positive, negative, and neutral finales, and reaching them requires some trial and error and logical thinking. Like other visual novels, LoveChoice has multiple endings for each of its volumes. Akaba Studio captured the ups and downs and pitfalls perfectly and this made the lack of emotion much more frustrating. I loved how the blossoming relationships were shown and how relatable the choices were. The bite-size novels with their unique views on love were intriguing to read. How will the relationship end? Short novels, multiple endings, and unusual mini-games. It’s a shame as the main elements were interesting and made it a fun interactive novel to read through. However, there was a distinct lack of emotional integrity, and I failed to build a rapport with the lead characters. The core concepts regarding mini-games, dialogue choices, and outcomes weren’t impacted. This callous style worked well with the moments of hatred or sorrow, but when adoration or love was expressed, it failed abysmally. Sadly, my concerns were realised almost immediately! The flow and pace of the text failed to match the theme, and most of the dialogue felt cold and disjointed. I worried that this would be the case with LoveChoice and was concerned about how much this would affect the story. I’ve played many visual novels across an array of themes, and the common mistake is poor translation. So messy! LoveChoice loses its emotion in translation. You’ll witness the early stages of each relationship and guide the process with your dialogue choices. The gameplay comprises three short novels about young love. It’s the winner of indie prize Asia 2019 for ‘best narrative’, so I was excited to see what was on offer. LoveChoice explores the highs and lows of meeting a new partner and you control how each situation blossoms or fails.ĭeveloped by Akaba Studio and published by Ratalaika Games, this is an interactive visual novel title. Mistakes are made, but how you deal with them shows your character. You want to be yourself, but you also want to impress. When you first meet someone, it’s an exciting, yet nervous time. Relationships are tricky and they take effort to make them work.
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