Going down the list, your next scheduled meeting is with the beautiful Saki Naruse. After an anti-climactic mixer, you hit up the bar at the request, yet again, of your normie friend. The night’s quite young and you encounter and interact with the most beautiful woman you’ve ever seen. You know nothing about this girl, but she carries herself with such a level of sophistication that it’s worth investigating. However, you should be careful as you don’t want to scare her off. This opportunity only comes once in a lifetime. It’s going great until things take a turn for the unexpected. Will you ever see this girl again? What will you do if it happens? Is your heart ready to deal with a more mature woman?
Saki was actually the first route I stumbled upon in my first playthrough and I was taken aback. Her introduction to our main character is done so well and adds layers of mystery. It makes you want more, and what you get is certainly a handful. Her story has you doing absurd things for outstanding rewards. It’s made clear, you have to work to get a woman of her caliber. My salivating aside, the addition of a more mature route option in this game is deeply appreciated. With age comes more perspective, and I felt like I learned a lot more through Saki than other routes, minus Karen. You can be equally insightful as you are in love. There are great mental takeaways from this route. However, I think it’s best you experience them all for yourself rather than reading about it here.
Last but certainly not least we have the enthusiastic model, Reina Kanome. The way you two meet is rather troublesome, I won’t go into details, but it allows you to have some free time with one of the more beautiful girls in town. She’s a lively one as she drags you from store to store until the end of the day. From there, the wheels of fate roll on until they bring you two together once more. Will you get even closer? Fortunately, the answer’s yes, but there’s a lot to put up with before then. An odd mixture of childlike sweetness and adult maturity. One of the harder girls to figure out, and she’ll try to tease you every opportunity she gets. Power through, brave soldier, and conquer this heart for great rewards!
I’m going to give a necessary disclaimer regarding this route. It’s very easy to dislike Reina in her introductory scene. However, don’t be fooled. If you can steel yourself from the initial wave of air headed affairs, you’ll find yourself in a state of bliss with what follows. This is a pure maiden, after all. Humor her and the seeds of love start to grow slowly over time. Who knows? Maybe all that teasing might turn out to be actual invitations. In all seriousness, Reina’s route is incredibly wonderful to read. What stood out to me was how the supporting cast popped in the right moments to sort of guide the two together. In addition to making certain scenes all the more humorous, Reina goes through a series of emotions that really hits the nail on troublesome aspects of life. In short, the route is absolutely wild like she is.
That’s everyone, hopefully they left a good impression on you. However, it’s now time to get technical. Making*Lovers is a romantic comedy visual novel at its core with a heavy emphasis on the comedy. In fact it’s so ridiculous you could almost put it on par with another NekoNyan published title, Sankaku Renai. There will be a constant stream of jokes one after another and this might scare away romantic purists. However, let me be clear. The humor, while everywhere, simply keeps you invested and allows them to transition into more serious scenes with you on the hook. So many times I thought to myself, I think I’ll pass on reading today. However, I’ll boot the story back up, laugh at a couple jokes and feel like I’ll want to cry at the development shortly after. Smee got the formula, and NekoNyan perfectly translated it for the West.
If we’re also talking technicalities, we have to bring up Making*Lovers‘ unique features. In particular, I’m talking about the ability to set up your dates with your chosen damsel. Most visual novels simply settle for the choices that lead you to dating someone. In this adventure, you also get to choose where you’ll hang out with your lover for two dates. You can pick a day portion and a night portion. Have a great time and the wholesome rewards await. While there might be a lot of us, myself included, panicking to decide which place is right, not to worry. Smee adds dialogue options that allows the reader to read the mood and choose where to go from there. Communication is very important in a relationship. A smaller feature you might want to know about, hide the text and you can pat your lover’s head for cute dialogue.
In a game by the name of Making*Lovers, one particular thing needs to stand out and that’s romance. Particularly, the intimacy. I’ll be brief and say that if you intend to play this game, you absolutely need the 18+ version. The dirty talk is exemplary and allows the reader to further understand the heat of the moment. The teasing, the mood of the character, the passion and so much more are captured radiantly in a H-scene where it doesn’t take much of your time. To clarify, there are games where the scenes in question last over thirty minutes, here it’s ten minutes long. Or at least I think it is because I’ve been so engrossed in the action that I don’t even check the clock. Readers should not be bored of sex scenes. The variety in positions, circumstances and expressions in the art makes it all so unforgettable.
The concept of finding love after dating was so amazing when I read the synopsis. The idea that it’s never too early or too late to find love with someone is something we can all appreciate. This game is full of positive messages for the readers. So as you read along, and maybe tear up to some of the epilogue scenes, consider reading the words carefully translated by NekoNyan. The company did an extravagant job porting the game over and I’d feel awful if I went on without giving praise where it’s due. I had a lot of fun with the modern approach to the script and I think you will too. That being said, the lack of translated credits did throw me off a bit. However that’s very minimal.
If we go under the hood, the only thing Making*Lovers was really missing is voice bookmarking. So many memorable lines that I would have loved to listen to again and laugh to myself about. However, everything else about the UI was quite standard. I certainly have no complaints about the art after viewing the effort in the sex scenes. Furthermore, the songs used throughout the game are so catchy that I would catch myself humming along to it. The elephant in the room is the choice system. It’s way too easy to get onto a route as it only takes a maximum of two choices to get in. This can be problematic if you’re aiming for a girl in your first playthrough. A perfect example of this is when I booted up and tried to go for Karen but ended up on Saki’s instead. Be alert and choose wisely.
Making*Lovers is a true work of art for fans of romantic comedies. There’s enough content to make you cry from laughter, and cry from pure joy. The art, sound, writing all cater to a mature audience looking for a different approach to love. You won’t regret picking this one up. Making*Lovers is currently priced at $26.99, and after spending 23 hours with it, it’s worth every penny. If you plan on purchasing through Steam, please get the 18+ patch for the full experience. It’s free thanks to the publisher. Congratulations to NekoNyan on yet another successful release and I really can’t wait to play the next one. Stay safe everyone and please look forward to my next review.
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Game provided by publisher for review purposes.
