Avis sur Love Spell: Written In The Stars - a magical romantic-comedy otome

aaaaaaaaaaa, j'adore!!!!

This game is FABULOUS!!!! The story is very well made and so romantic. The love story is soooooo cute and I love the design.

I hesitated for a long time before choosing to not recommend this game. It's not an obvious choice from the start as there are good and bad things to it, but ultimately for me, the bad things have outweighted the good ones. Some are due to personal preferences, others I'd like the developers to take into account so that their next game become much better. TL;DR : writing not perfect but romance well-paced, no save or skip is a no-no. The game overall did not feel satisfying to me and brought a lot of frustration (plot-wise and functionality-wise), which is why I do not recommend it. But I sure will keep following the devs to see what they bring with their next game. The good: - Philia - Great design, sprites & CGs are both of great quality - Great music as well - Great humour (mainly when MC talks to Philia) - The varitety of each story's scenario - The pace of the romance is great, not too slow or fast - Consensual, hot and romantic sex scenes - Florian's route is above the others for me The meh : - MC is great in Florian's route, but not so much in the others in my opinion. I can't really relate to her because she's your usual clumsy, hard-headed girl who forgets to be logical most of the time. In Marcello's route especially, she's insufferable for the first 6 chapters (but gets better towards the end) - The LIs were all "meh" for me. A bit too one-dimensional in my opinion, but that's most definitely because of my personal preferences (none of them are the 'types' I usually swoon over in otomes) - The endings are overall satisfying for the romance aspect. Not so much for the plot, but I'll come back to it below - A lot of second-hand embarrassment. That just goes with the plot and the writing style. I put it in the "meh" section because it might not be a problem for some. I'm just really bad with it. The bad : - No quick save, save and skip. These functionalities exist in almost every other game of the genre and there is a reason for that : because it works well and gives players a lot more freedom to explore each choice and each ending. Please, please include these in your next game. The 'per chapter' method is more frustrating than anything. - No real plot explanation regarding [spoiler]the reason why the LIs either recover their memories or never lose them[/spoiler]. The reason is kinda implied, but I find it lazy. Just because it's magic doesn't mean it shouldn't be explained or shown to the reader. - Also, we keep hearing about the instructions of the magic book but never actually know what they are? And where did the MC go wrong in the way she used the book? Except in Jamie's route because[spoiler]she wrote his fake name[/spoiler], things seem to go as predicted every time. There's no anomaly or anything that justifies the fact that she didn't read the instructions. - Some of the choices are fake choices. You wanna choose the name of that kitten you just found? Nah, no matter what you choose, it ends up with what the plot decided for you. Wanna choose the song this guys will play on the piano? Well nah, actually there's only one he'll agree to play. That's too bad, because these small choices are important for the player's immersion and self-inclusion in the story - Finally, Enix's route. I'm sorry, this again might only be true for me, but NO MATTER WHAT the scenario might be, nothing justifies flirting with someone who already has a girlfriend. Even if the girlfriend is a b*****, even if things are doing bad between the couple. Do.not.flirt.with.someone.who's.not.available.period. I had some hope at first because MC kinda felt guilty for it, but Philia had a whole discours ready that could be summed up to "YOLO", and that's not the kind of romance I want to read. Mind you, I did not finish this route, so maybe we learn something later that makes it more 'forgivable'. But I read 6 chapters and for the whole time, Enix never denied having a girlfriend despite him and MC both being incapable of keeping their feelings for each other in check.