(18+) REVIEW: Meteor Pendulum Heart


Title	Meteor Pendulum Heart
Developer	Chaos-L
Publisher	JAST USA
Release Date	June 11th, 2021
Genre	Visual novel
Platform	PC
Age Rating	18+
Official Website

Once again, it’s time to dig into one of JAST USA’s latest offerings with a look at Meteor Pendulum Heart. This is an adventure of galactic proportions, and at first glance I thought the artwork looked fantastic. I finally had time to sit down and play through all of the game’s routes, so let’s see if this one has anything going for it besides the cute heroines and great art.

The story here follows a young man named Umi who has won a trip to visit a space station. During his visit, however, things go south when a galactic crime syndicate named Nebula attacks out of the blue. They want to conquer the Earth since it is rich in a resource that would give them ultimate power! Our protagonist has an unusually high concentration of this power which makes him very appealing to one Nebula’s members named Lillim Ruri. She has entered his school poised as a new classmate to get closer to him. They are attacked by another Nebula member named Scarecrow on the way to have some karaoke fun, and another player enters the fray, the Galactic Detective, Alyssa. Things only heat up from here as Umi will soon encounter yet another interstellar being named Gray. She is a Genome Hunter, sent to exterminate him as a threat to the galaxy due to the strangely high amount of energy he possesses. Umi is in quite a mess, and the outcome will depend on which of our heroines he decides to follow.

Overall, this is a pretty light tale and has a lot of what you expect from a nukige-style visual novel. That doesn’t mean it’s a bad, or that the characters lack any substance, just don’t expect anything too deep here. I really loved all three of the heroines. Alyssa has that overbearing and very tsundere personality that is very cute. Lillim plays the villain really well, but she’s really a very sweet girl you cannot help but love. Lastly, Gray is the typical fish out of water anime girl that knows nothing of Earth, or its cultures, and is learning as she goes. This led to some pretty funny and blunt exchanges that were great.

As I mentioned in my opening, the artwork was what drew me to Meteor Pendulum Heart, and I was not disappointed. All of the backgrounds, characters and CG’s are top notch. The CG scenes are almost all H-scenes. This was pretty much a given since sex is the focus of a nukige. Each of these scenes are nicely detailed and completely uncensored. The amount of quality found in these scenes exceeded my expectations by a lot, and that’s something rare these days.

The soundtrack here gets the job done, but there’s really nothing special about it. The songs fit each of the scenes well, so it does help add some atmosphere to the story. The Japanese voice cast does a wonderful job bringing these characters to life. They not only give each of the girls a lot of personality, they also make the H-scenes really steamy. I would recommend a pair of headphones, unless you want those around you to experience these with you.

While Meteor Pendulum Heart may not have the deepest story, what it does have is a lot of character. The heroines are all great, and I had a blast with each route the game had to offer. Lillim was my favorite of the three, but who can resist a sorta evil fox girl? The artwork is outstanding, and with the great voice acting this release really shines. The playtime here is on the short side at around six hours, but I feel like this one is well worth the $19.99 price tag. While the story could’ve been flesh out a little more, there is still a lot to love here, and fans of the genre should check it out.