Back in 2023 (dear lord, time flies fast), Paranormasight: The Seven Mysteries of Honjo was a surprising release by Square Enix. By that company’s standard, it was a humble and straightforward visual novel, but clearly the execs had seen the success of Danganronpa, AI: The Somnium Files, Famicom Detective Club and others and wanted a piece of the pie. The…
Jen Williams has seen the future, and like many of us, she’s worried about it. The studio lead at Cherrymochi, the Japan-based indie outfit behind the cult hit Tokyo Dark, spent the early 2000s working with Hewlett-Packard on GPS-triggered gaming experiments in Bristol. Back then, everyone was certain they were…
After introducing Paranormasight: The Mermaid’s Curse at last week’s Nintendo Direct Partner…
Idea Factory International has announced a late May release date for Birushana:…
The third in the now-trilogy that started with AI: The Somnium Files is the first that Kotaro Uchikoshi took a back seat to. He still had a supervisory role, but it’s one of Uchikoshi’s mentees, Kazuya Yamada, who gets the creative credit for this one. The good news is that…
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Before I played Bustafellows, if you had told me that you could take the narrative qualities of noir fiction and pair it with the otome genre, I wouldn’t have believed you. As a genre, otome isn’t quite the “doe-eyed romance and frivolity for girls” genre that those who haven’t played…
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Eastasiasoft has announced that it will be publishing an officially licensed revival of The Bonfire of Taiwan, titled Re:Burn The Bonfire of Taiwan, for PC and consoles. The anime-style visual novel is a classic Asian soap opera that follows the rivalry between two families. The animosity is fuelled by business…
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I love love. It is beautiful to see what can blossom between people, whether platonic or romantic love. I’m a very monogamous gal — I feel best when I give everything I have to one person, who, in turn, gives everything back to me. But that’s just my personal preference.…
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Shuten Order was announced last week, but information was sparse, save for a 27-second teaser trailer. Today, a September launch date was revealed alongside information about the game that features five routes, each with distinct narratives and gameplay tied to different suspects. The game is set in a world steeped…
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Fans of MAGES. have not seen a new IP from the developer in nearly three years, but that will change in August with the launch of eye-catching visual novel Iwakura Aria. The game launched for Nintendo Switch about a year ago in Japan, making its Western PC release is the…
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7’scarlet has been around for several years on Steam, but the Nintendo Switch has become a solid home for the visual novel genre, so why not have it on this nice, slim, near-perfect “reading” device? I doubt many otome fans would say that it’s their favourite Otomate project, but at…
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I love game remake inception: remakes of remakes of remakes (and so on). That’s what is happening here with D.C. ~Da Capo~ Re:tune. It is a full remake of the 2002 remake of visual novel D.C. ~Da Capo~. Today, a launch date of late October was announced for this newest…
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Nearly a year ago, PQube announced it would publish otome crime-solving cinematic visual novel Bustafellows season2 in the West in 2025. And it is making good on that promise! The sequel to Bustafellows (which DDNet Editor-in-Chief Matt describes as being right up there with the best crime fiction works he’s…
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Set in contemporary São Paulo, visual novel Pivot of Hearts explores the idea that love doesn’t follow a single path. Branching relationships are determined by tarot-based choices, a gameplay mechanic explored in my recent interview with Brazilian developer Dragonroll Studio. The game’s narrative explores love, identity, and the many forms…
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