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| Title | Battlefield Waltz |
| Developer | Idea Factory |
| Publisher | Idea Factory International |
| Release Date | April 8th, 2025 |
| Genre | Otome, Visual Novel |
| Platform | Nintendo Switch |
| Age Rating | Teen |
| Official Website | |
Battlefield Waltz was an unexpected review. Recently, I’ve been taking a break from review gaming for a few months. I thought I would enjoy some more chill, just for fun, gaming for a while, since I finally had a few months before anything new I wanted to review was going to be out. However, otome is somewhat of a guilty pleasure of mine. I used to play these super sparingly, but I now seem to find myself reviewing otome much more often, and have gotten used to reading through a bunch of different routes in a row without taking major breaks. I still get a tad unhealthily glued, but they’ve been fun. Thus, when I was asked to cover this one, I figured why not. In researching what Battlefield Waltz was, before I agreed to this review, I found out it originally launched in 2014 in Japan for the PS Vita. This is the first time it’s been localized in the West.
Battlefield Waltz is a fantasy game which takes place on the continent of Ortesia. The main girl, Lan, lives in a small rural village which is attacked, one day. Her father is killed, and before she, her mother and a young village girl can be killed, she somehow awakens this cursed sword to protect everyone with. The cursed sword is what her attackers were after, and seems to have laid dormant for centuries in a nearby shrine. The cursed sword contains the soul of a boy, Wilhelm, and ultimately the sword fuses with her and Wilhelm takes care of the invaders. After these events, Lan finds herself at Nirvana, a military academy, due to being the new owner of the cursed sword. The sword is stuck with Lan for life, so the leaders of the three main kingdoms in Ortesia: Milveria, Azul and Daigroth, want to keep an eye on her and the sword. The cursed sword hasn’t been awakened and used in centuries, and no one knows much about it anymore.
Being that Battlefield Waltz is an otome, there are of course various men you can get to know and pick between for Lan to fall for. Most of them are other students at Nirvana who help keep the peace in Ortesia. I spent over 45 hours with this game and went through all six obvious routes. Usually these games have a secret route or two, but I wasn’t able to happen upon any other than the obvious six. Only a couple are unlocked from the start and as you finish each route, more of the guys are unlocked.
Battlefield Waltz has a bit of a more unique system for revisiting and replaying routes than other Otomate titles. Usually as you finish routes and/or hit dead ends, you can replay them via a simple chapter select menu. What’s different with Battlefield Waltz is it has this Chronicle system, which is almost like a timeline. Different story points and the different directions you can go are all represented by dots on this long line. It was a bit tricky at first to figure out how to redo events and not hit the same bad ends, yet again. Eventually, I figured out where to press certain buttons to actually redo a scene and not merely re-watch it as is. You can pick a point to revisit once you’ve completed a route or run into a dead end. You’re able to choose which character’s affection to max out if you revisit the common route, or you can pick a specific character route to revisit and set all their flags to be active and deactivate the bad end you hit previously. You have to find all of a character’s flags first, though, before the game will let you reach the good end. What was annoying was that I couldn’t find any way to fully skip between each choice I made, I could only super speed forward through all of the prior read text. More recent otome from Idea Factory, typically, let you use either option. The game also has certain commands which I believe were touchscreen only, but I could pretty much do what I needed to playing docked with a controller.
I found Battlefield Waltz to be a little cheesy. I didn’t enjoy it quite as much as other Otomate games I’ve played, previously. Something about it just felt cheesier and then there were also weird inconsistencies. For example, I remember at one point in the story the game said something about Lustin getting dressed when his character model was already clothed. See, there had been at least one scene before where his character model was shirtless, so I thought it was odd to say Lustin was getting dressed when it didn’t look like he was undressed to begin with. Also, I remember some awkwardly phrased parts, like this moment where Lan said “I will protect,” without a subject of what she was protecting. These more awkward moments, though, I think were all during my first playthrough, where I went through the common route slowly for the first time and then Lustin’s route. I liked Lustin more than a couple of later options I unlocked. Still, something about that first playthrough felt a little shallow and not nearly as exciting as other otome.
The game grew on me as I got further. I didn’t really like Nike much overall, but I think it was by his route that I really started to enjoy the story. Then Tifalet hooked me the most, I played through his route fifth. To be honest, I think Tifalet should’ve been the final canon guy instead of who is the final, seemingly, canon choice. Nonetheless, I see why they arranged it how they did and the game did grow on me, over time. The extras for this game include a gallery, music player and a shop where you can buy extra images for the characters, as well as these interview scenarios with more info about all the dateable guys; like the soap scent they like most. You spend magic stones on what you want, which you earn from finishing routes.
The overall plot of Battlefield Waltz wasn’t amazing. Although, the romance I would say is better than 9 R.I.P., the last Otomate title I reviewed. I’m not sure if this is just how these games were back in 2014, or if Battlefield Waltz just happens to be a more basic otome. If you like otome, I’m sure you’ll get some enjoyment out of it, it truly did grow on me after I got through a few routes. It simply wouldn’t be my top choice from this developer.
| Review Score | |
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| Overall |   |
