Operation Backlog Completion 2026

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!

Celebrating All Things Romantic: Top 5 Games With a Central Romance

 Celebrating All Things Romantic, Video games  6 Responses »  Tagged with:
Feb 262021
 

We’ve talked about a lot of visual novels this month.

And there are a handful of romance-focused games in other genres.

And a lot of RPGs have multiple romance options that you can choose between.

But what about games that fall into other genres and are about more than just romance, but also feature one canon romance at the center of the plot?

That’s the type of game we’re going to focus on today, and so here are my picks for five great games that feature a central romance.

5. Professor Layton and the Unwound Future

You might argue that the love story isn’t exactly at the center of a story about Professor Layton getting sent forward through time and trapped in a future London, but Professor Layton and the Unwound Future prominently features flashbacks that show Layton getting to know and fall in love with a woman named Claire. Their story is actually much more important to the main plot than it might first appear, and it’s one of the things that makes Unwound Future one of the best in the series.

Without that romance, it wouldn’t be nearly as powerful as it is.

4. The Last Story

I played The Last Story for the first time just a few months ago, and I stand by what I said in my review – this Wii action JRPG deserves a lot more recognition than it gets. Now, why is it on this list? Well, while the story follows a band of mercenaries, a fair amount of time is also devoted to the growing relationship between Zael and a young woman named Calista. There’s a lot more going on in the story besides just that, but it’s a sweet romance that really helped it stand out.

I just wish The Last Story would get a re-release to make it easier for more people to play it.

3. Final Fantasy IX

That’s not a problem for our next game, however, because not only is Final Fantasy IX still readily available for the original PlayStation, but they’ve since ported it to pretty much everything. Now, I know a lot of you are raising your eyebrows at me for not picking Final Fantasy VIII or Final Fantasy X, and I’ll admit I’m biased toward Final Fantasy IX because it’s one of my favorite Final Fantasy games, but for me, the romance in Final Fantasy IX just outshines the others. Watching Zidane and Garnet go from strangers to friends to falling in love with each other felt natural to me, and the song “Melodies of Life” just makes it even better.

(I also loved the romance between Beatrix and Steiner, so that’s yet another reason for me to pick Final Fantasy IX for this list.)

2. Trails in the Sky

Okay, there’s a lot of Trails games I still need to play, but I wanted to highlight Trails in the Sky for this list. As I mentioned in my review, it’s a slow-paced yet highly story-driven JRPG that is well worth taking the time to see through to the end. And yes, there is a slow-burn romance between the two main characters that is also worth playing it for. The relationship gets a fair share of (in my opinion undeserved) criticism, but as long as you aren’t put off by a romance between two characters who are seen as adopted siblings (but aren’t related by blood and met each other when they were old enough to know that), I think you’ll enjoy taking this journey with Estelle and Joshua.

Now, I need to get back to playing Trails in the Sky SC to see the rest!

1. To the Moon

But if you play only a single game on this list, make it To the Moon. To the Moon is on PC, mobile, and now the Switch as well. You play as two scientists going back through an old man’s memories to fulfill his dying wish in his mind, and while there is no romance between the actual main characters you play as, the love story in the past as you explore Johnny’s memories is truly central to the story.

In fact, of all the games I’ve covered today, this is probably the one that most requires the romance for the rest of the game to work. It’s a wonderful, beautiful game that you really need to play.

Conclusion

And there you have it, five excellent choices if you want to play a great game with an important romance as part of its plot. I was really tempted to include Yakuza 0 on this list, but I couldn’t figure out a way to talk about it without spoilers. So, uh… play that one too!

Anyway, what do you think? What are your favorite games that feature a canon romance, and what do you think of my picks? Let me know your thoughts in the comments!

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