Jan 292025
Today we’re going to talk about something new – a demo for an upcoming indie otome game.
I recently had a chance to play the demo for Saintess of the Golden Bow, after the developer provided me with a Steam code to preview it.
Saintess of the Golden Bow follows a young woman named Celine who gets hit by a truck and wakes up in a fantasy world she recognizes as the setting of one of her favorite web novels, with her taking the place of Celeste, a minor character who was supposed to die early on.
Yes, it’s a standard isekai premise through and through, and Celine’s knowledge of the original story means she has plenty of questions about how her survival will change things.
Celine is chosen to be the Saintess who must fight the Demon Queen, in place of her devoted knight Levi who was chosen as the Saint in the original story. The demo is fairly short, but long enough to provide a look at the world, basic plot premise, and a decent introduction to each love interest. The final game is supposed to be 30 hours long, with three romance routes and a fourth planned as DLC.
None of the love interests completely grabbed my attention at this point, but a couple did enough to intrigue me.
The art is quite nice, and it especially stood out to me that there were a fair number of CGs even in this short demo. I don’t know if the quantity of CGs will stay that way for the whole visual novel, but it would be nice to see.
CG scenes also have voice acting, which felt a little jarring to me. I’d just as soon have the whole thing be unvoiced rather than have voices just for CGs. That’s just me, however. Other players might feel differently and appreciate the partial voice acting.
My only real criticism is that part of the premise left me with an odd feeling. You see, the web novel Celine was a fan of was a BL story. The three love interests were the hero and his love interests originally, and her survival has changed that. That… does set up three convenient love interests, and the story acknowledges the fact that her role breaks up the original relationships, but something about it just feels odd and makes me wish the premise had taken a different direction.
But overall, I’m intrigued enough by the world and characters of Saintess of the Golden Bow to see where it goes from here. A public demo will be available during Steam Next Fest on February 23, so you’ll be able to check it out for yourself if the concept interests you.