Operation Backlog Completion 2026

Celebrating All Things Romantic: Steins;Gate: My Darling’s Embrace

 Celebrating All Things Romantic, Reviews, Video games  6 Responses »  Tagged with: , ,
Feb 092024
 

Steins;Gate is not only one of the first true visual novels I’ve ever played, but also one of my all-time favorites. I absolutely loved it.

Despite that, I never got around to playing Steins;Gate: My Darling’s Embrace, a lighthearted spin-off/fandisc with more of a romantic comedy approach.

So what better time than now, during Celebrating All Things Romantic?

If you’re at all familiar with Steins;Gate, you know that the basic premise kicks off when the main character Okabe and his friends learn they can send emails into the past (which they then refer to as D-Mails) and change the timeline through these messages. My Darling’s Embrace begins with Okabe finding himself at the other end of a D-Mail change where they’ve begun to develop new gadgets to sell… although he sent so many D-Mails that he doesn’t quite know what one caused this.

Things quickly spiral out of control when he and Kurisu end up stuck wearing a new gadget that shocks them whenever they argue. They prepare to send a D-Mail into the past to change it… and your choice there determines which route you end up on.

There are six routes, and each takes the story in a different direction focused on one of the characters. A couple of the routes (mainly Suzuha’s) hint at romance more than showing it, but most have the growing relationship as a core part of the route. They’re all sweet and funny, an entertaining look at how Okabe’s relationships could develop under other circumstances.

I especially enjoyed Moeka’s route, which was so wholesome and nice to see.

Click for Steins;Gate spoilers
And unlike in the main game, Luka is still a guy for his route this time.

Above everything else, My Darling’s Embrace reminded me of how much I love the Steins;Gate story and its characters. While the main story might become an intense thriller, and that’s still one of its biggest draws, it was nice to relax and read some lighthearted rom-com antics with this cast.

So if you’re a fan of Steins;Gate and want to some more romance-focused routes with its characters, check out Steins;Gate: My Darling’s Embrace!

Celebrating All Things Romantic: Belong

 Celebrating All Things Romantic, Reviews, Video games  6 Responses »  Tagged with:
Feb 072024
 

While looking through games for this year’s romance celebration, I came across a visual novel called Belong that I had picked up in a bundle.

Belong lets you customize your protagonist and pursue routes with three love interests, two male and one female.

While it starts out with a short prologue to introduce the protagonist, it then asks you to choose which route to follow before you even have an idea of what the characters are like. I would have preferred to get to know all the love interests naturally in the story first, but unfortunately that’s not how it’s set up.

Once you pick a character, the route begins. Chapters are extremely short, only lasting a few minutes. This was probably done so that each route could have 10 chapters, but I think it would have benefited from fewer chapters with a longer runtime to not feel like the already-fast pace is even more accelerated.

Unfortunately, that fast pace is seen in the writing, as well. Routes progressed so fast that sometimes I was surprised by conflicts because the build-up only occurred in a couple lines, or confused by a sudden emotional scene because of how quickly it cropped up. One route in particular had several moments that were very cute and would have worked really well if it had slower pacing.

There aren’t too many choices within a route, only a couple that lead to worse endings. After finishing a route, if you play it again, you can find stickers that unlock new scenes from the love interest’s point of view, as well as trivia.

These alternate POV scenes were the most interesting part to me, and I wish they had been included naturally in the route instead of requiring a replay to find them. They felt like they had much better pacing than the main routes, and they fleshed them out nicely.

I was hoping for a cute romance story with Belong, but the pacing held it back from what it could have been. Nevertheless, it at least had some nice moments on each of the routes.

Celebrating All Things Romantic: 9-nine-: New Episode

 Celebrating All Things Romantic, Video games  7 Responses »  Tagged with: , ,
Feb 052024
 

Its been over two years since we discussed 9-nine-, the thriller romance visual novel about a group of teenagers who awaken to special powers.

In the time since then, a fifth episode was released that contains after stories for the main game’s routes, which makes it a perfect choice for our romance celebration.

9-nine: New Episode begins by wrapping up the one branch that was left unresolved in the original, with a satisfactory conclusion, and then an after story is unlocked for each heroine.

Don’t expect these to be fandisc-length stories or have the same high stakes as the full game; rather, they are short epilogues that have a little plot resolution but mainly focus on telling a cute story between the protagonist and that route’s heroine.

They’re sweet, funny, and a pleasant way to follow up 9-nine- if you want to see the characters in a more peaceful situation.

While each after story is quite short and the whole thing only lasts a few hours, I was pleasantly surprised that they don’t all follow the same formula. Although they have the same starting structure (immediate aftermath of the route, followed by a short timeskip), they develop differently from there.

To be honest, you could get by just fine reading the original visual novel without ever seeing these epilogues, but if you enjoyed 9-nine- and want more of the romance side of things, 9-nine-: New Episode is enjoyable enough.

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