Operation Backlog Completion 2025

Valentine Video Games Festival: Meeting in the Flesh

 Celebrating All Things Romantic, Reviews, Video games  2 Responses »  Tagged with:
Feb 072022
 

At first glance, this next title might look like it belongs in our October celebration rather than this one, but that is not the case.

Meeting in the Flesh is a free visual novel set in a horrific world of monsters… but it’s not a horror story.

You play as Vil, whose job is to deliver salt to the inhabitants of this town since they need it to live. Over the handful of days in which the story takes place, you interact with several of Vil’s monstrous associates and get to know them. A key choice puts you on one of three monsters’ routes, with additional choices that then lead to either a romantic ending or not.

(The love interests are all male, but Vil’s gender is never stated, so I’m not sure if it would be considered otome.)

It’s fairly text-heavy, with dialogue and narration written on one side of the screen while character sprites appear on the other side. Most of its worldbuilding carried by its writing, therefore, although there are a handful of CGs for important moments as well.

Despite being set in a world of flesh and blood and a fair amount of body horror, it’s surprisingly sweet and wholesome.

All three of the love interests are nice and personable, despite their monstrous appearances and everything else that comes with this setting. Each route follows a similar pattern of being introduced to the character’s situation and then having a choice to make at the end, but the conflicts faced by each character are pretty distinct.

While you do need to be okay with some unsettling descriptions and situations, it’s a very sweet visual novel. I’d go so far as to call it fluffy.

Click for Meeting in the Flesh spoilers
I never thought I’d say “my love interest just ate me, what a sweet and fluffy ending,” but here we are.

To be fair, the eating occurred in order to fuse into one being.

…but it still happened. And it came across as sweet.

Crafting a nightmarish world in such a way that it feels cozy and comfortable is an impressive feat of Meeting in the Flesh, and it’s worth checking out if you’re looking for a monster romance.

Valentine Video Games Festival: Adventure of a Lifetime

 Celebrating All Things Romantic, Reviews, Video games  2 Responses »  Tagged with: ,
Feb 042022
 

Let’s kick off this Valentine’s Day (month) celebration with a look at a visual novel called Adventure of a Lifetime.

Adventure of a Lifetime follows a young man named Hiroki who returns to the islands where he grew up to help his grandmother during summer vacation.

There, he reunites with his childhood friend Chisa, and also meets a mysterious girl named Emily who has come to the islands in search of sunken treasure from an old shipwreck.

The three of them soon make it their quest to find the shipwreck and retrieve the treasure that is so important to Emily. Scuba diving is a key part of the story due to the sunken treasure focus, and it puts in a surprising amount of effort into explaining details about diving and safety measures.

As someone who loves treasure hunt stories, I found that to be an especially enjoyable aspect to the story. It really did convey a sense of treasure hunting and, well, adventure, as promised by the title.

A small handful of choices made throughout the visual novel will determine whether you end up following Chisa or Emily’s route. I thought Emily’s route felt more central to the story due to the focus on the shipwreck, but Chisa’s route had its share of great moments. Romance didn’t feel like a huge focus, but was still an important part of the routes and felt believable enough.

The art is also beautiful, and I liked how many CGs it had for a visual novel you can finish in a few hours. It has a good soundtrack, too.

Adventure of a Lifetime is a nice visual novel to play if you’re looking for an island-set romance with a focus on diving and treasure hunting. It’s also the first game to be added to the list of prizes in this year’s contest, if you’d like to dive into this romance yourself!

Valentine Video Games Festival 2022 (New Name!)

 Celebrating All Things Romantic, My Games, My Stories, Video games, Writing  9 Responses »  Tagged with: , , ,
Feb 022022
 

Welcome back to another… well, last year it was called Celebrating All Things Romantic, but in light of the fact that we do not in fact celebrate all things romantic, only romance-themed video games, I’ve renamed it!

The celebration’s tentative new name is Valentine Video Games Festival, but if you can think of an exciting v-word for the end, do let me know.

(I considered Valentine Video Games Vacation, but “vacation” just didn’t seem to fit. …I was calling it Visiting Valentine’s Day Video Games up until about five minutes before publishing the post.)

Anyway, this celebration is not quite as exciting yet as our annual horror celebration yet, but it still includes a month of reviews and prizes to win!

My work in the romance genre is still growing, and includes a short story in the Christmas romance collection Love Under the Mistletoe, the isekai visual novel Ascendant Hearts (PC/Switch), the supernatural otome The Last Act, and other visual novels you can find on my list of games.

Contest

Moving on to this year’s contest, some things have changed since last year, so be sure to read everything carefully.

The available prizes are:

  • LoveKami -Divinity Stage- (Steam code)
  • LoveKami -Useless Goddess- (Steam code)
  • Ascendant Hearts (gift sent through Steam)
  • The Last Act (gift sent through Steam)
  • Nekopara bundle (gift sent through Steam)
  • Adventure of a Lifetime (gift sent through Steam)
  • $15 sent through PayPal
  • You pick a game for me to review!
  • …and possibly more game prizes to be added throughout the month!

If you choose the review option, your chosen game must be something I either own or is easily obtainable, which you can discuss with me beforehand. It must be a single game, not a collection (although the chosen game can be part of a collection). I will start playing it in March.

Rules:

  • No purchase is necessary.
  • Only comments made between February 2, 2022 at 12:00 PM EST and February 28, 2022 at 11:59 PM EST will be counted.
  • 1 non-spam, non-anonymous comment on any Valentine Video Games Festival blog post = 1 point.
  • Comments on past Celebrating All things Romantic posts also qualify.
  • You must use an email address or website URL (or include another way of contacting you) in your comment so I can contact you if you win.
  • The person with the most points will get their first pick of the prizes. The person with the second most points will pick second, and so on, until all prizes have been given out.
  • The winner will be contacted by March 2, 2022.

Valentine’s Day might be partway through February, but you’ve got all month to enjoy reviews, leave comments, and earn points to win a prize at the end! Let’s have a great festival focused on romantic games!

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