Royal Alchemist

I would recommend this game to players who like a bit of worldbuilding in their visual novels, and love the feeling 'building/costumising your character'.

Gameplay
Your stats have a significant role in how you can play the game. I love it when I can customise the character that way! It makes me feel more involved in their choices and abilities and it really makes this game more than just a visual novel you can click through.
There are different deaths that can occur if you choose a certain option and don't have the stats to support it! And you're not just leveling up your own character in the game, as you are the princes tutor you can also develop their skills and ask them what to focus on during their studies.

What I don't like
The only drawback I would say is, I didn't really like the princeses as romantic interests, maybe as friends some of them, but none of their personalities really attracted me, and I also didn't think their personalities matched the way I was playing the MC. But I have not finished the game myself, maybe I'll change my mind on that? There are some cute moments even I can't help but like.

To my great disappointment this game is tagged as “Otome” and “B&B” (laudably there are not just traditional two genders to be chosen) but it’s actually more of a BL game than an otome one since the story is based on the male position in essence, in which female player is sometimes called “Master”or even a “chap“, and follows men’s etiquette always. Besides, the “alchemy system” is mechanical and boring, even you'll find that most of the time the story is driven by repeated “knocks” and “overhearing”.
The advantages are obvious, of course. The art style is fantastic. The BGMs are as impressive as the art. Despite cliche the storyline is well-written especially in Aurelius’route. Several side characters also have their own stories which are gradually completed with the progress of the alchemy system, and these side characters will play an important role in the very end.

Anyway this game is worth to play and i’m still looking forward to the upcoming game from Nifty.

Short version: THE BEST OTOME GAME YOU CAN PLAY IF YOU HATE OTOME GAMES AND ROMANCE, BUT LOVE DARK SOULS AND GAME OF THRONES. A slow-burn political drama in a setting where unmarried young folks (this game supports mlm and nb protagonist) can't even hold hands without a scandal, with more game-over deaths than endings with the handsome princes.

I usually find myself bored with otome VN, being more of an action/strategy oriented gamer. If I want to read a compelling story, I can buy a book, or browse a webcomic. There's just a lot of competition out there and VNs struggle to stand out from the tide.

This was recommended to me by a friend, and for the sake of friendship and the promise of a boy that was 'totally my type' I gave this a try. Went in blind on hard difficulty. And it was a pleasant challenge (I do enjoy stat builders and RPGs too). Punished me enough that I learned to think through my actions, but it gives you warnings and generous save slots. Also has a robust dialogue skipping system for completionists who just HAVE to see every option.

The writing was pretty great, especially the characters. Some stereotypical ‘henchman types’ hanging around and each prince has a very clear romance archetype, but they’re playing into those tropes instead of a sign of unoriginality. I especially like the antagonists – don’t look at the achievements screen until after a first playthrough! I found the pacing quite good until the end (felt rushed, plot points flying fast with minimal setup/explanation), enough space between the danger and the hints of budding romance. And the lore is sprinkled throughout the sidequest system as well as cutscenes. And all the princes are involved in the protagonist’s life in all routes, instead of fading away once its clear they don’t stand a chance of winning your heart (which is just as well, since you play as their tutor).

It’s not a game that I would recommend to every stat builder or otome game enjoyer out there. I like how it strays from the genres and makes something unique, how it’s not afraid to withhold the ‘reward’ of romantic scenes unless you figure out how to avoid the many deaths.

Or play on easy mode.

-Great story
-Awesome characters
-Interesting paths
Once i figured out how to use the stats it added a fun challenge.
I really loved playing it and i wish there were more games like this

Really enjoyable game with well-rounded characters and beautiful artwork. Some similarities to Long Live the Queen, except Royal Alchemist is quite a lot easier, with narrow choices (only male love interests, all princes). There is a fair bit of stats raising but it's not too difficult and the optional side quest missions are fun. It's nice that you have the option of playing as a male, female, or non-binary character, although unfortunately you still get addressed as "master" sometimes when playing as female/enby - the games been out long enough that all the dialogue should be patched by now.

Overall it's a cute, fun game with a fair bit of replay value.

I'm editing my review because I just finished all of the 3 LIs romance ending. First of all, the writing is excellent especially the dialogues. Their banter is fun! Plot twists kept on happening and some of it was unpredictable for me. The character sprites are really pretty and overall the art is good. The three princes each has distinct personality and all very likeable to me. MC is great too, a strong person, and I like that her presence helped the princes to grow. The stat-raising is easy once you get the hang of it.
The romance has little presence in here, though, except for the last 5-10 weeks. I felt like the romance development was a little bit abrupt, especially Serin's route. Aurelius one is decent since the development start earlier I believe. The CG is overall pretty but saw 1-2 CG with quality not consistent to the rest.

Overall I recommend Royal Alchemist, It's a fun experience! I finished three routes in two days and stayed up all night. (+ I thought I'm not gonna like Nazir but he's my favorite rn, so relatable)

I haven't finished the game yet, but I absolutely adore this game! The story is incredibly fun and makes me want to learn more and more about the lore of it. It has been very inspiring to my own writing and makes me smile at the end of the day. It was 100% worth the money I spent for it.

I liked this VN at first but... it simply did not captivate my interest in the long run. Too many worlds written exactly like that. Generic fantasy kingdom, the "usual" designs, the same problems (more or less). That is not to say that this VN is badly crafted, at all; the art is very pretty and the style used is decent. The writing is okay... just not very engaging at times. I appreciate all the mechanics surrounding the central theme and cast, but to be honest they seemed a bit too much. More busywork than rewarding. Extra lore is always nice, and the single missions that helped shape the world and its inhabitants were well done.
I was looking for an otome with personality and charm, and while Royal Alchemist certainly has its charm, I cant exactly say that it has the most unique personality in the market.
The premise was pretty cool, but past the prologue and initial novelty wears off, there is not that much extra flavour that you cant find in other productions with less stuff to babysit and more pathos.
Sadly I cant give a neutral review, but if I had to give a score it would be a basic 6 out of 10. I dont feel a particular desire to keep on reading, which is indication enough for me that the game has exhausted what it had to offer.

very nice game!

Royal Alchemist is a well-written indie visual novel / otome game with strong characters, universe and arcs.

The story is captivating, the writing and universe are excellent, the art and background art are beautiful. The MC is stronger and smarter than most MC in the genre so that was extremely refreshing through the 3 routes. You can also choose your pronouns and your appearance (male looking/female looking) but that means less CGs total because the artist had to create two versions of each, which was a little frustrating through the routes.

The game can feel too short, at 24h hours of gameplay, I only finished the three routes once but there are many things to do, other endings + side missions and deaths can occupy you for a while to complete. Routes that I thoroughly enjoyed, it's a slow burn but an effective one (my least favorite one was Nazir, I understand this is why one should start with him). The good thing is that the game leaves you wanting for more, you definitely feel that post otoge hangover after it, which once again proves the excellent quality of writing. The sad thing is that there's no more, especially as each ending feels like it's the start of the actual story.

Overall it's one of the most interesting otoges I played recently, even if I am not so fond of the stat raising aspect but they made the prowess of keeping me riveted despite the fact that the game wasn't voiced.

I was interested in this game (and dev's upcoming one) because I liked their "Witches x Warlocks" game and I'm appreciate the fact you can choose gender.

However this game isn't fun to play or even read, it feels like a neverending chore of doing maths with the randomized stats you get for doing weekly "classes", there's also too much text. I mean is a novel but there's so much that can be trimmed here.

Sometimes when a game isn't fun to play it has some other elements to make it up for it like the story or the characters but there's neither here, not even the romance aspect helps because there's so little it feels like they remembered at the last minute this was supposed to be an otome game. There's few CG so you don't even feel rewarded for putting with so much unnecessary text and micromanaging stats so you don't get killed.

I'm really disappointed and rethinking on buying the dev's next game for the risk of being more of whatever they tried to do here.

Overall what you get isn't worth the asking price.

Absolutely adored this game - each of the love interests are so well written and their paths are all great. A lot of the dialogue and banter was really funny and cute and made me laugh out loud sometimes. There are lots of CGs for each path and the art is beautiful. On top of that, you can choose your gender and your pronouns separately (he/she/they). Only thing though is that it can be overwhelming with the stat system and with items so if you are having trouble on your own or don't want to bother with trying to avoid failing stat checks and dying over and over, I would suggest a walkthrough. I used a walkthrough to play through each of the routes and it was very helpful. Anyway, PLAY IT PLAY IT PLAY IT PLAY IT PLAY IT you won't regret it.

So I since I played the demo I had been waiting for this game to be released and boy did it exceed my expectations!

This is another of these rare otome-ish games in which I actually enjoyed incarnating the MC.

First great thing about this game is that you can choose your gender and even how you want to be referred to which is considerate and inclusive.

Next, the MC actually has a personnality and isn't just plain and dull which is very appreciated.

About the gameplay, it is a bit different from usual which I think is refreshing. You can go through this game without a guide as your choices will only influence which of your stats will increase and you will be informed of which one has, so if the stat that increased isn't the one corresponding to the guy you're pursuing you can always go back and choose the other option.
Also stats are actually what makes you get more affection from the guy you're pursuing as they allow you to pass successfully or not certain events related to the guy in question through the story. This actually makes the gameplay more interesting as you have to manage your stats carefully by taking the right lessons and choosing the right options. I often had to load a few saves in order to raise different stats so that I coud successfully pass some events but that just made the game more fun at least for me. Stats also allow you to read some annexe stories about missions the MC has to complete in the company of the princes. Other than the stats management, you also have some side quests in which you have to fulfill requests from people of different social classes. These quests require you to build the objects requested before a certain deadline in order to gain the approval of these different social groups, which might also help you pass some events successfully through the story.

Appart from the gameplay, the story is really great too. The characters, including the secondary characters, are well written and endearing as is the MC. The MC is very autonomous and kind of a smart badass. Moreover, they are very funny and sarcatic which is refreashing and changes from the usual always smilling, gullible and easilly flustered MC you find in otomes.
The romance between the MC and love interest is well built and not too cliché and the story is unpredictable and has some twist and turns.

Also each route is fairly long (I only completed Aurelius' and Serin's routes right now and went throug only one ending for each) and it is painful to move from one route to another as I personally got very attached to both characters.

Anyways this is definettly one of my all times favourite visal novels and I really recommand it!

tl;dr - buy this game. you won't be disappointed! i'd say... ~15 hours of gameplay for the first playthrough? depending on reading speed, etc.

this game is absolutely AMAZING. the story had me captivated through each and every route, and i ended up falling in love with every boy, even the non-romanceable ones OTL-- don't even wait for a sale, buy this game at full price and support nifty! the writing in this game is phenomenal, the art is gorgeous, i have so much praise for this game. you can really tell a lot of love went into it, and it became my favorite VN so far by the end of all my playthroughs. i ended up loving characters that i didn't really like at first because the character development is so well written!

there are a couple instances of typos, but if you report them i'm sure they'll get fixed quickly

Royal Alchemist provides interesting stories, which urge you to continue playing the game until the end.
The characters are also charming. I find myself like all of them and I quite enjoy the game more than I expected. If you're looking for a dating game with rich and worth following stories, I encourage you to try this one.

I cannot give enough praise for this game. From the ability to pick between genders to the ability to choose pronouns, it was perfect from the start. then when you mix in amazing art and a great story, it was a total package. I can't wait to spend
money on this company's new game when it drops.

I love this game! I've played two routes so far, both very quickly since I was totally captivated by the story. The art and music are lovely too, and every character is very interesting. The deaths sometimes got on my nerves since I would die and suddenly have to replan weeks of lessons, but it was a fun challenge.

I was interested in it because of the fact that you can choose your own pronouns and whether you would like to look feminine or masculine! Now that i've played it, I'm really absorbed into the story and I find the gameplay really interesting?? Stat raising is not really common in visual novels (at least from what i have played), even more so for your love interests, so i really found that intriguing!!

An amazing game! Very frustrating tho because i dont like dying, this is also the first game that made me cry soooo props i guess.

I think that this is a wonderful game. In fact, it's one of the best Otome games I've played as of late. The writing is superb; you not only get romance but you get an actual story as well. The protagonist is witty, smart, and cunning. The stats system can be difficult sometimes, even on Easy mode, but I don't find that to be a drawback. In fact, I think it adds suspense to the game whether or not you actually win. If you save a lot, it's not a big problem because you can go back one or two saves and adjust things according to the route you're on since three of the princes like different and require different attributes (if you have trouble you can always buy the guidebook here or on itch.io but there's also some free guides here on Steam already.

The dialogue is angsty, meaningful, funny, and heartwarming. The story has HUGE plot twists that I genuinely wasn't expecting and I have played this game late into the night just so I can find out more. If you have the money, then you should wholeheartedly buy this and try it for yourself. I liked it so much I even bought it for someone for their birthday recently. The fact that you can also play as a male/female/non-binary person is just another huge plus for those who love these games but can never find anything geared to them!

Generic fantasy setting (minus the non humans) with just enough differences in some lore to make it interesting. I played it on Easy Mode every time. On this mode, other than life or death situations, it didn't seem to matter if you didn't have quite enough points in everything. Which didn't stop me from trying to pass every check anyway, I assure you. Readily (on Easy mode anyway) you can make every faction like you and support you at the right moments. I don't believe I ever had less than 3 factions on my side.

Bugs: There are definitely Missions where the required items never show up as recipes. Tea, wooden planks, and some other one. Additionally, I was referred to as Male several times by Nazir and Marigold, most memorably, even though I had picked the Lady pronoun at start. (I preferred the feminine male art over the overly feminine female art, but I don't believe dialogue would be tied to which art choice you settled on)

Story: It kept me invested and definitely had me guessing which people were the guilty ones (I was wrong in a couple different ways). The good guys weren't always good, the bad guys not 100% bad. Everyone was very human. I consider this Vn to be in my top 5 of the 30+ I've tried so far this year.

Romances: Nazir for fun and light hearted, Aurelius for intense and a bit angsty. Serin if you like vanilla prince types. And no fair that only on Serin's route do you have an implied sex scene and not for the rest. And only on Nazir's route do you get to choose to reject him? everyone else, you just go on their route and you're locked in. Seems odd for the writers to be like, "do you really really want this guy?"

Art: I thought the shading choice for Aurelius' hair was a bit odd. But otherwise, I like the art.

Music: The serious romantic music was real nice, I could listen to that for a long while. The general waltzy music they play otherwise got on my nerves by my 3rd playthough.

This is one of my favorite Otome game, rich story line and setting which made it a enjoyable play and i feel it has quite a bit of replayability so all in all i do love this game, i am a big fan of Aurelius .

wow. I have so much to say about Royal Alchemist, and so little idea on how to actually say them.

Typically, visual novels with this level of stat raising and high chance of death are too stressful for me- especially without guides- but i found myself so entirely in love with the story and its characters i honestly cannot complain! especially since Serin's romance route was the only one i REALLY struggled with surviving through.

Royal alchemists story is full of twists and turns i never expected, many of which left me in tears or yelling in frustration at my computer at odd hours of the morning, and i loved every second of it. while the romance routes may not always feel heavily romantic, it does nothing to detract from the amazing overarching plot and endearingness of the characters.

my only mixed feeling is about the endings- (or at least, the romance ones, since at the time of this review those are the ones i have seen) they are good, and i like them quite a bit- though they do skip into the future, which is usually not my personal cup of tea.

Overall, this game is amazing~
It's definitely joining the ranks of my personal Visual novel wall of fame, and is certainly worth a play~ just remember to max out those survival stats ;)

Absolutely great game. This is my first BL novel where I can actually choose my gender and the routes are all males. It feels great to be able to experience this.

The game has a really thrilling story and extremely likeable characters (for the most part lol) and the character development of the main characters is so on point. The stat management aspect provides a challenge but not too difficult to overcome. I didn't have many problems clearing the routes.

10/10 and Aurelius is best prince!

Just finished one of the routes and whew, what a ride!

Truly one of the best visual novels I've ever played. Definitely going back for more.

I first heard of this game a long time ago, I think in Ren'py forums? But lost track of it. I followed it for quite awhile but lost track. So I'm really happy that the devs never gave up on it and finished it!

The cast are all very well-written. Besides the princes, Nerifiel is absolutely my favourite. Even the "secondary" cast feels like the main cast - something which is really rare.

The time-management and whatnot took me a lot of retries (bless you save-slots!), but still manageable.

Looking forward to more of their works!

I love the art and I still haven't collected all the achievements yet. Very fun and I enjoy it.

Like the witty protagonist, and the sroty is good too with a nice plot, gotta play some more!

I really liked this game, the story is amazing, the visuals are beautiful and the characters really endearing. I've had a lot of fun finding every ending and possible deaths.

This game has been very fun! It has a very solid story and great gameplay. I think it combines some of my favorite elements from other otome(ish) games: like Long Live The Queen, it has stats raising and stats checks that are relevant to obstacles in the plot, and like LLTQ, it can be really hard! I like the stats raising methods as well; in LLTQ or even 7kpp you have so many options it can be overwhelming, while in this game you only have 6 stats. So I like how it simplified that very engaging component of gameplay while still being challenging.
So far I’ve played through Serin’s and Aurelius’s routes, and both were great. I think Aurelius’s might be the best to play first, as some of his story ties in well with the overall mysteries going on. The story is paced pretty well, and the game saves some fun twists for the end. Once you’ve played through once you do know what’s going to happen, so I will say the first play through was more fun because it was actually a surprise. I did almost immediately go back and try to start another route, though I started to find it repetitive (which might speak to the fact that I was addicted and played it the first time through pretty quickly). But I put it down for a couple of weeks and when I picked it back up, I had forgotten enough of the plot for it to still be engaging. Each of the princes are interesting characters, so even though I played the first route with Aurelius, I still really enjoyed playing through Serin’s route because I finally understood what his deal was. I’m looking forward to Neri’s route because I still don’t 100% know what’s up with him. I like all of the characters, including the side ones. The story and the ~lore~ (alchemists and whatnot) was very engaging and entertaining. I liked that there were multiple big events that everything was building towards, and I enjoyed how we continued to learn more and more info about the kingdom and the characters as we went along. Like I said, once you’ve played it all the way through, you’ll know what the big events and plots twists are, but the characters and their interactions are fun enough that repeating some of the dialogue and events is still fun because it’s just enjoyable seeing them interact.
Tl;dr this game has a nice blend of otome/visual novel gameplay mechanics, a solid story, compelling characters, and a strong and competent MC. The story can be repetitive once you have already played it through, but the story and characters are still fun regardless.
P.S. if you’re looking for gameplay tips (the guide is hella expensive), my advice is to focus on combat and intelligence, save literally every week, and it’s always handy to craft some weapons... just in case.

Amazing game with amazing characters! The guy who seemed the least like my type (Aurelius) ended up being my favorite simply based on how amazingly written his scenes were. 100% recommended!

Highly replayable with a great story, decisions that have consequences, many many ways to die, and a prince to snuggle at the end of it all if you manage to survive.

8/10

The characters are great and much more complex than I expected them to be. There are a lot of twists and turns in the story. The art, both for the characters and the background, is really beautiful

Love the artwork and the story line for each route. I did end up buying the guide so I could get all the good endings first. I've got to say, Aurelius is by far the best route for this game. Serin is a close second. For some reason Nazir's romance didn't really hit it for me. It seemed that the true romance route felt more like a budding friendship than romance; especially considering Nazir's relationship with Ishbell. But overall, the game was really enjoyable!

Very fun game! I like that the characters have personalities including the MC and motivations. The game does feel immersive and at times I felt on edge not knowing what was around the next corner; the writing was great and so were the mechanics. The ability to play as female or male worked well and hope that there are more games like this in the future. The missions felt like they belonged in the story rather than a deviation and were very enjoyable.

I do feel like this game relies too much on the idea that the player will buy the guidebook or have the patience to play several weeks (three weeks was my max on willingness) to go back to meet a checkpoint which in some cases feel like the requirements come completely out of the blue. In addition, I feel like the ending/epilogues with the prince is really short and feels rushed specially in consideration of how much time and effort it takes to get to a good end (and the only portion of the game that doesn't feel well paced). I hope that the company puts out additional DLC as a continuation of routes with more romance and additional routes/romantic interests.

Loved the game! Just finished Serin's route as I'm writing this review. Let me tell you that it was CHALLENGING trying to steer my character away from death. Had to reload so many saves to get it right xD But the challenge was worth it! Will certainly try to get other endings, no matter what it takes!

Kudos to Nifty Visuals for this great game!

A really, really good game system. The raising-sim systems and stats are refreshing and fun. The mission system is new and exciting. And while I haven't gotten to play around with the item crafting much yet, it seems to be gearing up to add a challenging level to the game.

And to be honest, I haven't gotten far enough in any of the stories to comment on them, but the art is gorgeous, the music is fantastic, and I can't wait to play more!

Reached the ending. It's a very lovely game with very good characters. However, the problem still stands: there are too many errors when it comes to our protagonist's gender. I choose to play as a female protagonist with she/her pronouns but why throughout the game, I never curtsy like all the other ladies? Why do I always bow like the men do? Why do sometimes they address me as "Master" instead of "Lady"? Why do they use he/him pronouns when they're supposed to use she/her? All this poses a huge problem towards my experience and I cannot ignore it because it is game breaking. It breaks immersion and ruins my experience. As I said on my earlier review, it really does seem like a half assed attempt of including a female protagonist. For a game with this price and that promotes the ability to play as a male or female, this is extremely disappointing. I expected better honestly. There's also some typos but it doesn't matter much to me.

The stats seem a little too demanding as well. It seems like I had to grind, choose wisely which traits to work on but actually... no matter what, you need high intelligence and combat. I realize this during perhaps at the half point of the game where you need like at least 130 intelligence and combat to survive or else you gon die regardless. If you don't save your files regularly, you're doomed to restart the whole game again. This seems extremely cheap to me. If you don't have the these two stats at max, you gon die and that's period. No discussion. Also, going throughout the game, you never really know what stats you'd need so if you're playing it for the first time, you're just clueless and so you try to choose stats that you want but then when you play the game, you realize that you failed a skill check so unless it doesn't kill you and you're okay with failing it, you have to reload the previous save file again and again. Some parts of the skill check is just... impossible to pass unless you load a save file from like what 7 weeks ago and then grind like just go throughout the week trying to build up that stat. You really gotta know what you're doing or else you're doomed to fail from the start. It gets annoying really, I'm just trying to enjoy the story. I don't mind stats system but this is just too much. Too overwhelming. They probably made it like that so players would buy their guidebook.

The game could do with some more character art/sprites/drawings. It's honestly so weird how some characters don't get a character art especially when they play a role in the story. I'll take Lady Gabrielle as an example. I talked to her a bit then she died??? Breh. But then again, I haven't played the other routes (only Serin's) so she might have more appearance in other characters' routes?? Idk but she literally showed up and then boom she dead. It's weird how a very minor character like her gets a character art but the characters who have more scenes/appearance in the game doesnt??? Like that kid Quill is a more major character than she ever was but Quill didn't get character art. But this is nothing major, just that it would be more immersive if the characters who show up a lot in the game gets a character art instead of just a black silhouette.

Other than those, the game is lovely! The times when I wasn't annoyed at it, I was enjoying it.

TLDR: The problems that have ruined my experience with this game is that the game constantly misgenders me and the stat system is really too much. I cannot recommend it like this. A game with this price and the devs can't even address the female protagonist as a woman properly? Such a shame.

Excellent visual novel! The art is beautiful, and the gameplay is challenging and interesting. I did use the official guide for parts of it, to get at least 1 good ending more quickly. On a playthrough without a guide, you will almost certainly get some bad endings, but you can (optionally) use the extra stat points given by each unique death ending to make it easier to pass skill checks on future playthroughs.

This game only has 3 routes so it is rather short and it is VERY easy to die or fail skill checks; that being said, this game is fucking amazing and I would highly recommend it. I love how you can actually play as a lord or liege and not just a lady. The characters' dialogues are also well written and the playful back and forth between the MC and the romance options are entertaining and endearing~ I am already lamenting my completion of this game, lol. One tip though, please for the love of God SAVE SAVE SAVE!!!!!!!!

The princes are cute and all but I just wanna romance my butler

This game absolutely consumed my every waking moment. Even having now finished the game, I crave more.
My first play through I end up in a death loop and had to restart. Luckily there is a guide to help you figure out what stats you need to focus on to avoid my fate. Also, save often, my friends. uvu

Great plot and very good quality writing. Definitely worth your time. I love that the MC is a real character—smart and capable. You won’t find any brainless, blank-slate, amnesia-stricken anime protagonists here. The fantasy world is constructed well and feels believable. The downside is the romances were underdeveloped. By the end of the game I didn’t feel like I knew the characters any better than I did at the beginning (with the exception of side characters like Harris and Ishbell), none of them had had a real arc, and the romances were rushed. They went from ‘some sparks of attraction’ to ‘declaring undying love’ without much in between, the latter mostly happening through a text epilogue. The romances were not integrated into the plot either; they felt very much separate from the other things that were happening, which is why all three routes are 85-90% recycled content. It is more successful as a fantasy adventure than as an otome game, but still a good overall experience.

Great story, characters (including side characters) and romances.

Thank you so much for adding they/them pronouns and also using gender neutral terms throughout the playthrough! It just makes me so happy that this is available in this game. Also love the story and the characters so much! I look forward to getting the chance to play other games created by the devs. ^^

Gameplay-
☐ Very good
☑ Good
☐ Nothing special
☐ Okay
☐ Bad

Graphics-
☐ Masterpiece
☐ Beautiful
☐ Good
☐ Will do
☑ Bad
☐ Awful

Audio
☐ Amazing
☐ Very good
☐ Good
☑ Decent
☐ Not too bad
☐ Bad

Audience
☐ Kids
☑ Teens
☑ Adults
☐ Everyone

Story-
☐ Lovely
☐ Good
☐ Average
☑ Not great
☐ None

Difficult-
☐ Just press a bunch of buttons
☐ Easy
☑ Significant brain usage (due to the fact that choices matter)
☐ Easy to learn / Hard to master
☐ Not so easy
☐ Difficult
☐ Dark Souls

Grind-
☑ Nothing
☐ Only if you care about leaderboards/ranks
☐ Isnt necessary to progress
☐ A bit grindy sometimes
☐ Average grind level
☐ Too much grind
☐ Insanity

Game Time-
☐ Short
☐ Average
☐ Long
☑ Depends on you
☐ Endless

Price
☐ Just buy it
☐ Worth the price
☐ Wait for sale
☑ Maybe if you have some spare money left
☐ Not recommended

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Honestly, I just couldn't get into the game. While the premises was really nice (esp with the fact that your character can DIE) and there are stats involved, I just couldn't get over the art... I really didn't like it. It felt inconsistent, and at time points, really lazy and just not well done.

If you're interested in the story-line, have at it! I personally view it as mediocre and that there are much better otome games out there. I WILL admit that I do love the fact that you can choose between a male MC or female MC!

What a joy to play, I chuckled, aww'd, and even got a little teary at parts.

In depth story and character development. Keeps you guessing.

yes for a strong willed protagonist

I really wanted to try a visual novel and this one in particular caught my attention because you could choose your appearance and your pronouns, which I appreciate, in addition to the stats system, that is very entertaining. The story has hooked me from the beginning, there are many routes and endings, and each prince has his own very marked personality, but also the MC also has a very unique strong personality. I really recommend this game :)

Tl;dr: I absolutely love every aspect of this game and I think every fan of visual novels/dating sims would enjoy it as well.

World building and writing.
World building might be one of the strongest points of this game. Yes, this is a generic medieval fantasy setting, however, in my opinion, this works to it’s benefit. With how common medieval fantasy is, the setting doesn’t prompt any immediate or obvious references, allowing its original little twists to shine. More importantly, the world feels alive and consistent being a great background to the main plot points and characters. The writing style itself complements the overall ambiance in a couple of ways. It is not overly fancy or complicated by any means but it can definitely feel fancy at times by throwing in some more sophisticated terms for a bit of flavor, helping you feel more immersed in the royal court setting (or at least that's how it felt to me, a non-native english speaker, so take it for what it’s worth, it might be that my english is simply worse than I give it credit for). The first person narrative also helps with immersion, as the protagonist is not some starry-eyed self insert who has to learn everything with the player, but an expert in their own field and no stranger to the history and society of their world. This provides the player with a more interesting perspective and no awkward lore dumps.
A couple of typos and grammar mistakes did make it into the game but it’s not significant enough to be a bother and overall the quality of the writing felt very solid to me.

Plot. (spoilers in terms of plot structure, no specifics)
The main plot is, in my opinion, the weakest part of the story. It’s still enjoyable to go through and I appreciate that there even is a main plot beyond the romantic subplots, something that can’t be said for many games of the genre. There are two main issues. Firstly, it sets an expectation for what the story is gonna be early on, something akin to a mystery thriller with the main character playing detective, that it doesn’t fulfill later. The mystery is not solved or unraveled by you, it blows up on your face in a series of plot twists. Admittedly, I didn’t see any of them coming, so they were effective in a way, but there’s very little point in a plot twist on the second or third time you go through the story and yet none of the routes give the protagonist more agency in discovering things by themselves. I believe this game would’ve benefited from unlockable routes, throwing the plot twists at you on the first playthrough while they’re still surprising but giving you other ways of navigating those discoveries on the other routes. The second issue is one of pace, the story ends somewhat abruptly, and though it’s a satisfying closure, with an epilogue for each route and everything, it feels a bit weird the first time. Overall none of that bothered me too much, it simply feels like this great game had the potential to be even better (and were there not money/time constraints developers must contend with, it probably would’ve been).

The 3 love interests/routes.
The best part about this game and what prompted me to ignore my self-consciousness and write this stupidly long review. The main character has 3 available love interests, the 3 princes you’re hired to tutor in the ways of alchemy and magic. The 3 have striking, contrasting personalities obvious from the get go, but they’re more than they seem to be at first glance. Through their routes you learn more about their lives and personalities and watch them grow as they have to face new challenges. It’s all subtle though, they are who they are and never turn into someone else because of you. I hardly ever find all the options in a dating sim to be interesting and even the ones that are can be less enjoyable than they seem to be at first, so that I loved all the routes in this game was a wonderful surprise. Moreover, all the relationships you develop are healthy ones of mutual interest between the characters, another thing that can’t be said for many games of this genre (which might be more of an indication of how low the bar is than anything else but it should be said nonetheless). Lastly, while I loved all the routes and can’t really pick a favorite yet, there are slight differences of pace in how the relationships develop in accordance to the personalities of each prince; Aurelius’ felt the best to me, followed by Serin’s and then Nazir’s. All of them left me wanting more but I feel that’s a good thing, they were still very satisfying to go through.

Art style.
Not much to be said here, it’s a matter of taste and it speaks for itself, personally i think it’s gorgeous. One thing I’d like to point out is that the art is not static, the characters’ mouths move as they speak (which might feel a little awkward since there’s no voice acting but it didn't bother me) and their expressions change making them feel more alive and involved in the story.

Gameplay.
In theory, I’m not a fan of stat management systems/games since it’s usually a raw number check to determine an outcome and it feels very artificial, with the aggravating factor that on a blind playthrough it’s just a lot of guesswork, however, it does serve its purpose in visual novels in general by making things feel more involved than simply choosing a response or course of action every so often, and I very much prefer when visual novels/dating sims incorporate more gameplay aspects. Also, I believe the game mentions this but you can realize early on what stats are more important for each route based on how many checks show up and focus on those (2 to 3 stats of the 6 total).

Final considerations.
It must be obvious by now but I absolutely love this game and its shortcomings hardly take anything away from the overall experience. Though I admit I might be caught up in the excitement of having just finished it, that it got me so thoroughly in love with it must still say something for its quality. I’m also very thankful for the option to choose the pronouns and appearance of the main character, though it’s probably true that the playerbase of these games is mostly female, it’s great to see developers acknowledge diversity and even greater to be able to roleplay a character and relationship that better reflect who I am.

P.s: So sorry about the essay, if only i had this energy for college.

I absolutely adore this game. It has well written story with the bigger focus on adventure rather than romance. However, this doesn't mean that romance is bad, here it takes time to develop, so relationships are more consistent and believable.

I would like to write some pros-cons to share what I particularly liked-disliked about Royal Alchemist:
+ Story is interesting. You are playing as a royal tutor for 3 princes after their father was assassinated. But for some reason mysterious someone tries to assassinate you as well. So apart of teaching princes how to survive you need to keep up to survive yourself. Game makes a good job to keep antagonists' motivations a secret till the end.
+ Writing is good. You need to deal mostly with nobility so dialogues are rather exquisite. Sometimes it was a bit complicated to understand for a non-native speaker such as myself, however it was fun to read anyway.
+ Routes are different. Some key story points overlap, but every prince has his quite long and unique arc. Every route took ~15h for me to complete.
+ Romance is well developed. As a royal tutor you'll have a lot of responsibilities to take care of (like keeping yourself alive, doing your job and making good connections), so you'll not be clinging to the prince of choice all the time. I also like that this VN is free of "classic" otome situations like mouth to mouth feeding, stumbling and fall over the main character and other crap like that.

+- Pronouns seem to be fixed. Some people complain in their reviews about bugs related to character's pronouns. But I played both as male and female MC and didn't notice any issues. Though female Alexis always bows and never curtsies like other ladies in the palace.
+- Unlike classic otome, it is very hard to miss romance ending for princes in this game (if you survive the story that said). But you need to manage your and princes' stats while playing. And dialogue choices either boost one of the stats or trigger stats check that affect prince's affection and chance to survive.

- Game is not voiced. Character's sprites can blink and move mouth while speaking but without voice.
- Gallery has separate entries for almost identical images. For example, you'll have separate CGs for male and for female MC for the same scene. So after completing the route your gallery will be half-full. It was a bit confusing after my first playthrough as I thought that I missed half of the story somehow.

In general this VN worth it's time. It's a good story, I'll definitely recommend it.

I loved the setting and style of this game, and the political intrigue plots were fantastic. All three of the main love interests are well-written and interesting characters, and I ended up enjoying every route. My favorite part about the game's writing, however, was that the side-characters were so well fleshed-out. The entire cast of characters (at least those with portraits!) felt like they could be the main characters of their own stories.

I particularly liked that it incorporated a stat-raising element. Indeed, because of the stat-raising system's relationship to new scenes and dialogue, I would argue that this game has great replay value (especially because the fast-forward function can let me skip past all the text I've already read).

As of this review, I'm still working on getting all the endings and achievements. Completing one route (Serin's route, blind, on Adventure Mode) took me about 12 hours (counting the times I re-loaded a save because my character died).

I really love this game but I have to admit getting the endings I wanted without dying was kinda difficult until I bought the guide.

This game was everything I was looking for in an otome game. There was such interesting plots and character building, but there was also game elements so it kept my attention throughout the entire game.
If your planning to do all routes I highly recommend purchasing the guide as well as the game. It has a lot of twists and turns and without it, it can be difficult to unlock all the CG.
Highly recommend this game to anyone who loves otome games.

One of the best visual novels I played, hands down. It has many twists and turns, but none of them were predictable. I recommend it a lot! It's story-rich, unlike some stat-raising games so buy it if you want a great story with interesting characters. Also, I really liked that you can choose protagonist's gender and pronouns. One path (Serin's) took me around 15 hours to beat, but routes are split quite early, so it has high replay value. The romance was a slow-burn, which I really liked. Overrall, definitely worth to buy at full price :)

Great visual novel. Compelling story, great characters, and they didn't forget the game aspect of a visual novel.

I've been wanting to play this game for a year ever since I played their demo and the experience did not disappoint!

Royal Alchemist has one of the best arts I've seen for an OELVN. The character designs are very pretty, the backgrounds are nice looking, and the CGs are beautiful.

I liked the variety where you could choose your portrait, character's gender, and name. The world building for this VN was quite interesting as I love fantasy/magic settings.

The music wasn't very special. It was serviceable, but not memorable. The sound effects were good (that knock knock sound would usually fool me lol).

As for the writing, each character had their own believable struggles so to me it was nice to get to know them. The twists and foreshadowings were exquisitely written so you can re-read some routes and go: "Aah! So that's why they reacted in this way." There were some typos, but they were minor. I loved the story as the character's motivations (side characters included!) made them feel real which helped build the plot. The romance was fine, you could feel how the relationship progressed between the MC and LI over the course of 60 weeks. My route order was Aurelius->Nazir->Serin, although I think it's fine to go in whatever order you prefer. Favourite LI and route was Serin's :D

The game can be long for a first playthrough. I did Aurelius's route blind on adventure mode and was able to reach the romance ending after one death in 12 hours. I did a lot of save scumming tho. I don't mind stat raising as I usually find it fun, but the range of random amounts gained made it so that it could be abused with save-load. I liked the crafting and missions aspect as they added more things to do in the game.

UI is beautiful. Sometimes so beautiful that I would confuse the previous/forward buttons for the achievement menu, for example, as decoration. So for a second, I was confused in why there weren't more achievements haha...
I think sometimes the character's name didn't pop up in the dialogue box.
Since the game encourages saving, I think the save files could benefit from having the number of the week included (apart from the date and hour it was saved) for easier navigation. There was an instance where I wanted to backtrack to a previous week, but had to load several ones to find the correct save file.

Overall, this was an amazing overdue game to play for me and would recommend it to anyone who doesn't mind stat raising otomes (there's an easy mode and death bonus system which help lessen the difficulty of the game too). If you are interested, please give the demo a try! I'll be looking forward to the indirect sequel~

This game is a great mixture of otome/BL visual novel, political intrigue, and strategy. This game can be very tricky sometimes as you need to have certain stats raised before certain events so I don't blame you if you use a guide in your second playthrough. All three princes (your love interests) are super likable. I romanced Prince Serin first who was utterly charming and the slow burn romance up to steamier moments later was great. There's this tension so thick between you and him that you could cut through it with a knife. The side characters and even the villains were all likable. My only criticism of this game is that they haven't fixed the pronouns. My female MC gets called a man several times which she didn't much like.

I give this game a 4 out of 5. Very enjoyable and great romance! I recommend it to anyone who likes strategy and kissing handsome men.

The art is beautiful and the characters are well developed and likable. I haven't beaten the game yet but it's super fun!

I found the romance portion to be a bit lacking, but the game makes up for it with an incredible plot with very memorable characters.

I'm no stranger to visual novels and often find myself constantly on the hunt for more, and sometimes they can get tedious, but the skill building and milestones specific to each route builds another point of interest to it, and it's fun to try and meet each requirement for missions and items. The story for Royal Alchemist is simple but holds intrigue with it's twists and unpredictable turns. The characters are endearing and all have their own unique characteristics about them, which a lot of VNs seem to lack. My only issue with the game is that the achievements don't work, and looking at other reviews, it's not just a me-issue. While annoying, it doesn't really take anything from the game and Royal Alchemist is still a VN I would highly recommend.

As someone with an embarrassing number of otome games and other visual novels under my belt, I found myself extremely charmed by this game - especially as a stat raiser from a Western game dev team!

Normally I don't have a ton of interest in "generic" routes in VNs (at least where romance/LIs are available, since in a lot of games they don't get the same quality of storytelling), but after playing the main routes for each of the 3 LIs I'm unexpectedly just as fascinated by the lore of the game as I am by the characters themselves. You really grow to care about the whole cast, sometimes to devastating effect, which is truly a credit to the writers. While each romance route and ending stood out for its own unique reasons, I want to particularly call out the strength of the banter between characters - many conversations are absolutely sparkling with wit, and made me laugh by being truly funny rather than just surprising.

Looking forward to unpacking even more of the mystery, but can definitely say this was already well worth both the time and the money spent :)

I actually really enjoyed this game. The stat system and overall writing was really well done. I enjoyed the difficulty and at times the game really felt like a challenge. My feelings did change, however, towards the end. I have only played one route so far, but there was not enough foreshadowing of the events at the end to feel like things paid off in a satisfying way. If hints had been dropped throughout it would have made more sense. Also, as several others have commented, the game could have done with more romance scenes. Otherwise, I felt the characters themselves were strong and I definitely want to try out the other romance routes. Overall a solid game, just not as good as it could have been.

Very well done. I love that its not just a standard visual novel and has stat/time management mechanics. Also love that character gender is not set.

Really would recommend this to fans of the visual novel genre! Royal Alchemist provides challenging yet fun game play with the balancing of lectures, missions and crafting items to improve reputation among several associations (like merchants, nobles, and commoners).

All the characters are lovable and well-developed, including the antagonists who I actually really enjoyed hearing their motives/reasoning!

Great artwork, and an absorbing tale mixed with the right amount of romatic. The story is challenging and very complex for an Otome game. Great job!

It took me 14 hours to play through one route. If you expected to binge this, it ain't happening. You really have to be strategic about where you put your stats and your gameplay. But it's a great ride, love the story and the writing is fantastic. The main character has a strong personality and even all of the side characters have really interesting backgrounds. I really enjoyed all the dialogue between characters, and even all of the mission side stories!

The main critic I really have is there isn't enough CG/artwork in the game for the male leads, or really in general. I would like to have seen more subtle and romantic scenes between the main character and the leads. I finished Serin's route, with a romantic end (idk if there's a bad one but probably), and I didn't get to see many heart pounding scenes till the end. However I can understand why there isn't as much artwork, seeing as how quickly they were able to make this game.

If the developers added a DLC where they included more scenes and artwork into the game, I would buy it immediately.

TLDR: Love the writing, game, and characters, but wish there was more artwork and CG

Royal Alchemist is a stat-raising visual novel with an interesting story that'll make you fight to stay alive! Since you're hired as a tutor, you help your students learn different schools of magic based on their own affinities, while you yourself learn how to fit into high society by increasing your etiquette, social skills, etc. You'll have to use every tool at your disposal to make it through various situations, schemes and attempts on your life.
If you want to see all the content, you may have to get out your notebook and do lots of save/loading (or use a guide), and there is some randomness to the stats gaining that can make things a little unpredictable. But your character learns from their mistakes, optionally increasing your stats for every death you experience, making things more palatable. I enjoyed my time puzzling through scenarios while getting to know the princes and their world, and maybe you will, too!

So I will give an honest review as I gave on itch
Completely and utterly amazing!!

I have a good 50 hours invested already and it is truly a delight to play.

I wasn't sure at the beginning because i don't play stats games but oh boy am I happy? YES! It isn't difficult to raise stats and at the end i find myself just doing missions.

Aurelius route is my OTP followed by Nazir and cutie Serin, haven't seen all the endings yet.

Did I bawled my eyes out with Nazir's route at 4am? Yes, yes I did aha...
Did I bawled YET AGAIN during Serin's bad ending, ABSOLUTELY.
The guide is super useful and when I bought it I took the time to read the character profiles and it is so fun and cute.
Of course as an adult I would like more romance scenes (steamy) but the plot compensates for the lack of.

boys cute but also y do i keep dying

This game swept me off my way and turned out to be way better than I ever could have guessed. If you are considering it, then I highly recommend that you play the demo- it's 11 chapters and a surprising amount of content that is FREE. What have you got to lose? :)

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I played the demo out of curiosity and ended up buying the full game as soon as I finished- it is that good. It's been a long time since a visual novel impressed me as much as this one! From the gorgeous art, loveable characters, player choices that actually matter, interesting game mechanics and more- it's worth the price tag. I've completed two routes and have already put 15 hours into the game, and I still feel like there's more to uncover. Highly recommended!

Fantastic game play with great story lines. Heavy focus on stat building, a bit confusing without the guide which is well worth the money (I like that it has a non-spoiler section to point you in the right direction without cheating entirely), if you focus on just the story and not the item/stats then you will find yourself frequently dying prior to reaching the end (good or bad). You definitely have to walk a fine line between saving often enough that if you die you aren't completely screwed but not saving so often you have to start over anyways because it's too late to change anything. It's very story rich and the romances have unique and satisfactory paths/endings. 10/10 definitely recommend. The only thing that could make it better is if it were to also have a female romance option as well.

I did Nazir's rout last and I am glad that I did as his rout has the most spoilers. I also consider his rout to be the most cannon. I did not think that I would enjoy his rout, but honestly his is probably my favorite. I highly recommend saving his rout for last like I did. That being said, I did enjoy all of the routs and highly recomend this game.

Absolutely riveting piece of romantic literature in the form of a visual novel. Intriguing, enchanting, and more captivating than most books I've read, this game really is like finding an unexpected pearl in an oyster. I do recommend using a guide because it's really anyone's dang guess what flags you'll trigger in this very complicated game, and there are more than a handful of typos and grammatical errors in the game itself, but otherwise it is perfectly polished and a piece to remember.

The only thing I felt cheated out of is that you only get to sleep with one of the princes, and it isn't even the one you expect it to be. In fact, from a writer's standpoint, the team seems to have the same preference for the princes that the nobility does: Serin gets the most fleshed out content, followed by Aurelius, and finally poor Nazir.

Bit more challenging than expected but that's what I'm enjoying about this game so far. I also appreciate that it gives an easy and normal option as you do need to balance a few different things unlike most visual novels.

Very cute, but I recommend a game editor to pass stat checks.

story was so good ! couldnt stop playing ! cant wait for "Royal Order " to come out

It's a cute game, but the writing is very.... cringe. Brings me back to my middle school days when I was doing online roleplaying on forums. The writing is needlessly wordy and the characters make quips that don't always quite fit the situation nor the propensity with which they tend to make them. The writing tries too hard to be clever. It often sounds like a badly written young adult book. The screenshots do not do the game justice. I barely played an hour but I don't think I can suffer through this script any longer. It's a shame because I was enjoying the RPG elements.

I've only played one route so far (Serin) but enjoyed it a ton and plan to play more. I usually am pretty picky but this games really lives up to the hype! great art, story, and characters.

Stat management game where if your stat is too low, you're dead. And depending on how you save, you may have to restart because there's no chance to raise the stat high enough to stay alive. Would recommend buying the guidebook.

The recommended play order is Aurelius -> Serin -> Nazir (has a Major Twist in it)

Overall, the plot is decent. There were a couple of twists thrown in that I didn't expect, however the Major Twist was...It was predictable tbh. And it led to me actually hating a character. Just remembering what the character did is making me need to go bitch about them to my friend again lmao.

They're making an indirect sequel where the MCs look similar to this game's MCs, just with black hair and gold eyes instead. I'm personally going to pass on it, but if you're into this type of game and truly fall in love with the world, you should check that out as well!

A story rich, grinder otome game which looks gorgeous and has a lot of depth. It is challenging at first but worth pushing forward to get to the end of the game.

Wonderful game with great story telling.

I really love Witches x Warlocks so decided to give the creators other game a try and i don't say i regret buying this because i love the creators work but... this was so painfully boring that i couldn't handle it. i couldn't even play though the whole game, it was that boring.

Gripping story and characters. The stats raising is fun and I think all the romance routes were really well written. There's also great art and a lot of charm. I recommend it.

Its a very sweat game, but not one you can rush through. It took me 9.5 hours to get through 1 run, so even if you plan to only get 1 ending, I do think it is worth the price.

Loved the story. The stats were a bit of a hindrance sometimes, but it was very satisfying when you actually manage to survive yet another attempt on your life. Who knew tutoring would be that dangerous?

It's a fun game that requires a bit of strategy and resource management. The story isn't all that deep which makes it easily digestible and the character designs are downright beautiful!

Aurelius >>>> the rest of the game

A very enjoyable VN! I did find I had to heavily use a guide. The main story was well written. I easily got caught up in the castle intrigue and enjoyed wondering whodunnit even more than focusing on the romances. The game could have used more character-developing interactions between the MC and the romance targets, and more CGs.

I've always been intrigued about the less "adventurous" part of royal and nobility life, and this hits right up my alley! Although there are many dramatic events, a good chunk is also just slife-of-life or politics, social relations, courtesy and so on and I really like that! I hope there will be a bit more romance towards the end hhhhih but so far I'm very happy with the story and characters!

Honestly, i love this game a lot. It was such a gem to find and i am having a lot of fun with it.

Absolutely recommended, the MC is cool and capable, the male leads also great in different way.

However, I do hope for easier gameplay or an option to play this game as visual novel only, without the task or raise stat.

This is a really good story and good game overall. Characters are excellent and well fleshed-out. I didn't find it super romance-driven, so if that's what you're primarily after, you may be disappointed; though the game boasts some wonderful relationship-driven mechanics. The story is a lot of fun and I do like the skill-building; however, it is very unbalanced. You about cannot fit any of the missions in because you'll be too busy trying to train in as many skills as possible because you never know what you're going to need in the next week to survive. You may find yourself reloading a save from weeks prior because you hadn't been training enough in a random skill and need tons of points in it in order to advance. Not only this, but you need some absurdly high levels of these random skills to make it through. Even in the story-focused mode, I found it a bit ridiculous. It distracts from the story and the plot really is quite good and fun, so adding this frustration damaged my overall perception of it. That being said, I still recommend it, but if this frustration is off-putting, maybe try some of the guides out there so you know what to expect.

I loved my first PT, the art is beautiful! The addition of classes and stats just make it seem more personalized, and the story left me wanting a Part 2 !

I wanted a Long Live The Queen sequel, with kingdom management, magical girl stuff, bs political intrigue, and game overs everywhere. I don't think I'll ever get that, but this more than suffices.

There are several moments in the game where I thought:

"Oh OK, this is where the game ends, overall this ain't bad at all, I'd love to see more though"

and then the game just kept going.

Just when I thought the devs would cheap out and just end the game there, and they would be fully justified in many ways to do so, they stubbornly refuse to leave having loose plot thread hanging. And just gave me more and more, and I enjoyed every minute of it.

If you want your story rich games to have closure this is how you do it.

This game....this mf game....!! SO many twists and turns. a colorful cast of characters. And just when you think it's over--it most assuredly isn't,in a plot that continues to keep you guessing and asking questions long after the final credits roll. Easily could've been a $50 visual novel for the content you get. And while the stat checks do take a bit of sting sometimes,at least you have many save files (pro tip: use 'em!)

11/10 would play again

This game feels too much like a stat check all the time rather than an interactive story where you can have fun with your choices, and it is annoying because of that. I did not buy a VN just to spend 6h figuring out why I keep dying on day 11, even though I haven't gotten to any of the routs yet.

I liked the gameplay, the liberty to identify ourselves with the gender we wanted AND with the appearance we wanted and I loved the story. I found all the characters to be really intrigued and well written. They all have their own agenda, which makes them more realistic. I also loved that we, the playable character, also have our own agenda. We don't need to fall in love and even if we do, that's not our only role in the game. To be ''in love''. Lots of romance games make me feel that way, but this one didn't.

I'll just say, it was a nice game that I enjoyed.

This game drank up all my free time for a week, and I loved every moment of it.

Pros:

Good story: One of the romance story lines was predictable and one was quite unpredictable, but they were all very enjoyable. The overall story created some interesting lore and I'm looking forward to the next game in the same universe coming out in 2023.

Characters: Like other reviewers mentioned, all the characters are well defined and easy to get attached to, not just the main romance options. This made the entire story greatly enjoyable beyond the romance sub-plots.

Replayability: Main plot events can change depending on your romance choice which adds a bit more fun to playing multiple times.

Music: I'm not going to say all the music was good, but it is excellent where it matters.

Cons:

Stats: While it's rewarding to pass stat checks, the way they are randomly assigned (and it's impossible to hit all checks) means that if you're going for a specific story-line, you will almost certainly have to restart the game at some point. I found that got in the way of the main joy of playing the game: the story experience. Having to restart was painful, so honestly, I just followed a guide for almost all of my playthroughs.

Overall, if you like Fire Emblem-like romance stories, this game is for you. Fantasy, magic, court intrigue, wrapped in it's own universe with some interesting lore, all for $20 is a win.

This is very wonderful game the story are very good it bring smile and tears to me

This game is really good and has a lot more to offer than other otome games. I have over 13hrs of game play and endless save files for just the first route. I chose prince Aurelius for my first route and man... i was surprised with how well the story was written. I did make use of the fact that you can save (a lot) because when I failed something because of my stats I went back to raise those specific stats. Ofcourse this also got me frustrated sometimes as i had to jump back like 5 save files on multiple occassions. But it was a good frustration as in 'challenge accepted'. This has probably been one of the best otome experiences for me since code realize. Overall this game is a solid 8/10 for me. The only thing lacking was the fact that there are not so much cg's. And the cg's in Aurelius route were re-used which made me a little disappointed.

I really like this game and I really like the artwork. It's a bit different from the other VN's I had played previously and I really liked the setup (You will however die a bit without a guide). The storyline was engaging and I felt the characters were well developed. I love all the options in the game - has good replayability.

Would recommend, BUT please read the cons.

PROS:
Interesting characters and great gameplay loop. Really nicely breaks up the monotony of reading walls of text in other VNs. You can tell they really put care into the daily dialogue to make it immersive.

CONS:
Some plot twists seem forced, or unpolished. Shocking during the revelation, but in hindsight you find many questions and unanswered issues that arise as a result of the twist or plot point.

A central aspect of the MC’s background in terms of societal perceptions also wasn’t fleshed out very well, and I’m tempted to call it a plot hole if not for the explanation of “probably magic”, or perfunctory writing.

Also a handful of typos / grammatical errors throughout the story, along with uncorrected pronouns etc.

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Actual hours of gameplay for me are closer to ~15, as I played a lot offline on a steam deck.

This game makes me wish I could marry a game developer/company because i legitimately have never loved anything more in my life. Brought it on a whim, and it was the best decision I've ever made. Each love interest is a delight in their own way, all the side characters were delightful and rich and i loved them all, each route is interesting, and its one of those rare games when the mc game was so strong that the mc was my favourite character. The stat building was enjoyable, the art was pretty, the story was incredible, and yes i have sunk 40 hours of my life into this visual novel and yes i intend to sink 40 more.

This is a great game. This is the best game. Nifty Visuals please marry me.

This visual novel has beautiful game design. I played the prologue in the demo version and was hooked by the characters and premise and story... until I played through the whole adventure and found out the prologue was a standalone experience that remained forgotten until the very end. Most of the game involved an unending routine of finishing a week, setting up a teaching chart, and then proceeding to the next week to do the same thing. The conversations in the middle failed to increase the stakes in the plot and by the time everything came together, it felt rushed and random. It's also hard to get through (you are expected to die), which could've been fine in a well designed game, but ultimately added a layer of complexity to a story I already struggled to care about (they want you to buy the $30 guide, I think).

♥ ᴏᴠᴇʀᴀʟʟ ʀᴀᴛɪɴɢ: 8/10
♥ ɢʀᴀᴘʜɪᴄ ʀᴀᴛɪɴɢ: 7/10

♥ ᴘᴜʀᴘᴏꜱᴇ: ꜱᴛᴀʏ ᴀʟɪᴠᴇ, ᴛᴇᴀᴄʜ ᴘʀɪɴᴄᴇꜱ, ᴄʀᴀꜰᴛ ɪᴛᴇᴍꜱ ᴀɴᴅ ᴛʀʏ ᴛᴏ ɢᴇᴛ ᴇᴠᴇʀʏᴏɴᴇ'ꜱ ᴀᴘᴘʀᴏᴠᴀʟ ᴛᴏ ɢᴇᴛ ᴀ ʜᴀᴘᴘʏ ᴇɴᴅɪɴɢ.

♥ ᴘᴇʀꜱᴏɴᴀʟ ᴏᴘɪɴɪᴏɴ: ᴛʙʜ ɪ ᴡᴀɴᴛᴇᴅ ᴍᴏʀᴇ ʀᴏᴍᴀɴᴛɪᴄ ᴄᴏɴᴛᴇɴᴛ ʙᴜᴛ ᴛʜᴇʀᴇ ᴡᴀꜱ ꜱᴏ ʟᴇꜱꜱ. ɪᴛ ᴡᴀꜱ ᴍᴏꜱᴛʟʏ ᴅᴇᴛᴇᴄᴛɪᴠᴇ ꜱᴏʟᴠɪɴɢ ᴄᴀꜱᴇ ᴛʏᴘᴇ ᴏꜰ ꜱᴛᴏʀʏ ᴀɴᴅ ʟᴏᴠᴇ ᴡᴀꜱ ᴀᴛ ᴀ ʙᴀʀᴇ ᴍɪɴɪᴍᴜᴍ