Chaos;Child is a basically perfect mix of murder mystery, psychological drama, fun Sci-fi magic, and likable characters. I was honestly floored that outside maybe the first several hours, the visual novel was consistently quite interesting or entertaining.

Country to popular belief from the hardcore Sci;Adv fanboys, you do NOT need to read other Science;Adventure visual novels first. In fact, I think Chaos;Child is one of the better ones to start off with since it has a good balance of mixing slice of Life character development as well as introducing mystery plot elements. It can help you find out if you like the ideas of Sci;Adv before going into others. But if you’re sure you wanna read all the Sci;Adv VNs, then find one of those online guides to read from Chaos;Head Noah up to Anonymous;Code.

Many of the Science;Adventure series usually have like 1-3 good characters and the rest are boring, annoying, or nowhere near fleshed out as they should be. In my opinion I think all the major characters of Chaos;Child all eventually get enough depth to stick out. Sure there are still some that probably could have used a little more love like Uki, Hana, and Mio but even I thought they had just enough for me to have something of an emotional connection to them, which I can't say for 90% of the cast of Steins;Gate or Chaos;Head.

As said earlier, the mystery stuff is basically paced almost perfectly. You have a murder mystery scenario within the first chapter and every single chapter has some really interesting reveal, so you're never left hanging. This also extends to the heroine routes when you get on them.

While this visual novel has a lot of sci-fi magic that could’ve lead to dumb deus ex machinas, Chaos;Child does a surprisingly good job having a good balance of hopeful/positive twists but also not reversing any big negative twist (like KEY). In fact, you can make the argument that sometimes the way some routes end are probably a little too edgy at times. But once again I think Chaos;Child has a good balance of having hopeful things happen and negative things happen where the characters just have to live with the consequences.

Chaos;Child also has a very consistent theme of “be careful what you wish for”. It’s a theme I find is only used in certain occasion in other media. I like how this theme applies to many characters and works great with how the sci-fi magic works in Chaos;Child.

The story structure is definitely very weird and a carryover from Chaos;head. The vast majority of the story is in the common route which you are forced onto on your first read through. I could see how this could bother some people since the common route on its own could be somewhere between 20 to 40 hours depending on your reading speed since it has 11 chapters of variable lengths. However, I'm glad this visual novel at least did something relatively different because the common route is very much its own complete story with a very definitive end. And honestly, if the story ended there, it could have been a great story on its own.

I generally have positive things to say about every heroine route + true route. They are all on the short side being somewhere between two to five hours depending on your reading speed. They basically feel more like giving context to certain characters and world building that the common route couldn't quite tackle. I thought this route aspect worked surprisingly well simultaneously giving the other main heroines a different role while not taking away from the main story and especially the true route twists. A minor nitpick is I wish more of the side heroine twists were integrated in the main story.

However, one thing I don't have positive things to say about is the delusion choice system, another carryover from the spiritual prequel Chaos;Head. In Chaos;Head, the delusion trigger system made more sense for the main character as he was exceptionally paranoid. In Chaos;Child, the delusion trigger works exactly the same where you can choose positive or negative delusions based on certain slice of life scenarios. Unfortunately, all these just feel like dumb tacked-on anime fan service scenes. Since these all happen in the main character Takuru’s head, they can range from goofy references to other media, typical horny male fantasizing over females, or just super random mundane things. What doesn't help is that you have to watch a certain amount of positive or negative delusions to get onto the heroine routes. Thankfully, if you really don't like these scenes, you could probably just hold the Skip button during the scenes you don't like because none of them are plot relevant.

Thankfully the delusion trigger aspect is the only real flaw I have with Chaos;Child besides the occasional slow pacing issue which is just a common thing with visual novels in general.

The “best for last” aspect I want to talk about is the characters and as I basically implied earlier, they are what help carry this visual novel to now one of my new favorites.

Admittedly, almost none of them are in the running for my favorite character or anything. In fact, you could make the argument that a few of them are purposely unlikable at times, including our main character Takuru. Some people may be put off by him because of how low-key arrogant he is despite clearly being socially awkward. But he gets a surprising amount of depth, and while his development wasn't always great, the way he turned out by the end was satisfying.

All the major heroines are decently likable: Nono being an overprotective mom but for good reason, Hinae being a troll who has clear trust issues, Hana having a mystery of why she never talks, Uki’s desire to always want to be helpful to people, and even Mio who starts off as a bitch but gets more tolerable over time.

However, the true star of the show is easily Serika and is now in the running for one of my favorite visual novel heroines. I really like her base personality of just being a goofy ditzy weirdo. In every single scene she's in, she provides some fun commentary, jokes, or super interesting dialogue.. As you get farther in the game, she shows a lot more depth than you realize and the fact that they don't sugarcoat things about certain aspects about her was part of why I really like her even if she does some things that aren't really “waifu-like". But that's fine, not every visual novel girl has to specifically be a waifu target, we got plenty of childhood friend characters in weeb media.

The more I think about it, the more that chaos child was basically the perfect storm of what I want in a plot-heavy mystery focused visual novel. It’s just consistently entertaining and interesting, and despite all the sci-fi magic stuff and things getting a bit edgy at times, everything either has a proper explanation or has really good character growth and depth that generally made the storytelling understandable.

I'm still debating whether to give this a 9 or 10, but when I have almost nothing but positive things to say, I think that's a good sign that this is now one of my favorite visual novels.

I heavily recommend Chaos;Child if you want a mystery and/or psychological story and don't mind some sci-fi magic explanations.

I literally only read this because I'm a sucker for quirky nice weird girls like Maika (being a lewd Akiba nerd helps I guess?). Outside that this is just a shallow moe nukige with making up dumb quick reasons for characters to be close to each other and have sex a lot. Any melodrama is always put at the end and is over with within 20-30 lines. Also the plot twists related to Maika's mom/family were dumb.

Didn't bother finishing older sister's route cuz she's annoying and didn't care about her issues.

Destiny Star girlfriend is a visual novel developed by mirai and translated by Shiravune. The original draw for me was the fact that we for once have a moege romcom around a magical girl universe especially since many times magical girls and visual novels are only used in nukige, especially dark ones. But the real thing that got me hooked into reading Destiny Star Girlfriend immediately was the fact that the developer mirai is apparently a sister company of Minatosoft aka the developer of my favorite visual novel Majikoi. To quote Sam Jackson from Pulp Fiction: “Sheeett (N-Word) that’s all you had to say!”

And in a way I suppose it is similar ish to Majikoi. Destiny Star Girlfriend is very much a light-hearted slice of life comedy first and a magical girl action story second. This is low-key an episodic series with this particular release starring a blonde egotistical magical girl: Yurii Kamiizumi. As in many magical girl anime and manga all the magical girls in this series have to keep the fact that they are magical girls a secret to the public. Though in Yuri's case she goes a step further and fabricates this super nice caring girl personality that ends up becoming quite popular in school.

This causes our protagonist Seiji Takasugi to develop a crush on her, but he considers this crush a lost cause as he considers himself just an average guy. But through an amusing set of circumstances, he creates a literal connection to Yuri. After an injury causes both him and Yuri to be wounded at the way beginning of the story, a magical girl society representative masquerading as a school nurse has to use a technique that sews a red thread between the two characters that slowly heals them over 3 months so they don't not die.

However, it turns out this red string connection if the two characters attempt to distance themselves over 1 meter from each other, they start to feel intense pain, which I assume is because of what should be fatal injuries still healing. This causes a situation where the two characters are forced to live together for the next 3 months until their wounds finally heal.

Throughout this 3-month ordeal, he finds out his supposed perfect ideal girl he had a crush on is nothing like how she acts at school. She is extremely full of herself, letting the fact that she's one of the top rated magical girls of the area get to her head to the point where she's even gotten a little sloppy which is what originally led to their injury.

Most of the first half of the visual novels is pure slice of life interactions between Seiji and Yuuri and how they have to pretend to be a couple since that's basically the only way they can hide their forced red string connection. The two are forced to figure out all the little things they have to deal with in terms of being forced to constantly be one meter from each other including wearing a helmet playing really loud music while the other is using the bathroom. And then of course there's the typical eroge shenanigans with the main guy finds the main girl changing with fanservice CGs multiple times.

So right off the bat a good amount of your enjoyment of Destiny star girlfriend is going to be how much you actually like Yuuri's incredibly arrogant personality. I had mixed feelings at first. On one hand, it is pretty refreshing to have a main girl who actually is legitimately confident and full of herself and not just a boring tsundere with fake confidence. On the other hand, it was getting kind of grating dealing with all of Yuuri's comments about how she's the best and how she was trying to originally force Seiji to become her servant of sorts.

Thankfully this egotistical personality trait of hers was balanced by three things. 1) Seiji The main protagonist is surprisingly not a pushover. He has a lot of snark and is definitely willing to roast Yuri when she's getting way too full herself, especially since she's incredibly simple-minded. 2) Yuri's occasional use of amusing Engrish. 3) Yuri actually does get character development which I was actually not expecting to see. I won't spoil how exactly she develops, but let's just say by the time she and Seiji develop their relationship she's become a far more likeable person with some occasional wholesome moments while still having the same core personality at heart.

I haven't touched too much on the magical girl stuff yet and that's mostly because besides the forced red string thing keeping Yuuri and Seiji together, I'd say the magical girl stuff maybe accounts for 1/3 of the story. I'll let the game itself go into more detail if you're really interested. But the general idea is the magical girls are called stars (kind of reminded me of resident evil when I first heard it), they are employed by a “Starry Sky Council” to defeat demons equivalent of the monster of the week premise usually seen in your average magical girl anime or manga.

This whole magical girl employment thing gets surprisingly real where characters have salaries and contracts and have to negotiate based on How well they are doing in terms of doing their job. Whether it's defeating or capturing demons and making sure civilians are safe. While the magical girl stuff does seem to be more of an occasional backdrop for Yuuri to show at the beginning, there is a plot that eventually develops into something interesting enough to drive entertainment later on.

While Yuri is the main girl of this episode, we get introduced to a whole bunch of side characters, some who will be the stars of future sequels. For example, there's Maya (spelled Maja for some reason) the character that attacks Yuuri and Seiji at the way beginning of the game that will be the star of episode 2. And then there's Yuri's kouhai junior magical girl Kanoko, someone who incredibly idolizes Yuri and is low key yandere towards her making jokes about how she wants Yuri to be incredibly dependent on her good cooking skills. She will be the star of Episode 3. And then there's the teacher Fujiko who has a short fan disc, is a representative of the magical girl council as well as an acting school teacher and nurse. While these characters get less screentime than lead character Yuuri, they appear enough for their personalities and jokes to be pretty memorable.

That's about all I'll give about story details since there's a surprisingly decent amount of twists and developments that I think are better left experiencing for yourself.

I said towards the beginning that Destiny Star Girlfriend is a light-hearted over the top comedic style visual novel that basically sticks throughout the rest of the story, so if you like this style of storytelling I think that alone should make you interested in this visual novel. That said, one thing I was surprised by is how surprisingly good the romantic development was. I was first scared this story was going to be a sex heavy nukige given the box art and the whole main couple having to stick together for 3 months. The romance actually development in a slow and steady way including how it introduces sex into the relationship, which is a pleasant surprise given how many modern eroge has a couple get into the fucking almost immediately after confessing. That said this IS still an eroge and there will be many perverted jokes, including undressing Yuuri, and lots of fake out make out sessions that dont actually lead to an H-scenes.

The magical girl action scenes are passable. They are mostly done within like a few minutes, mostly just used as a way to pivot some plot and character developments but as said earlier eventually develop into something interesting enough to drive the plot and development forward. They are still fun to look at though, especially when Yuuri excitedly shouts her attack names.

Overall I had a fun time with Destiny Star Girlfriend. As said earlier, it did take a bit of time to get over Yuri's hit or miss attitude related to how overly arrogant and egotistical she was and the visual novels’ slight overuse on the ‘protgaonist being perverted’ humor.. But once the main couple really got together, Yuuri became more likeable and the humor became more diverse. So I enjoyed the visual novel more as time went on. I don't think Destiny Star Girlfriend is going to blow anyone's minds unless you have been dying for a magical girl romcom. I would only recommend this visual novel if you really want to see that or you just like over-the-top goofy comedic style visual novel writing. If you’re curious about the length of Destiny Star Girlfriend it has around 13 in-game chapters, and the average read length on VNDB is about 8-9 hours, though I took about 16 hours on full auto-read. Overall, I would give Destiny star girlfriend a 7.5 out of 10.

I think the pros are obvious. Pretty much anything related to flying circus is quite solid, even great. Any development related to Misaki and FC was nice If kind of expected. I would say the better parts of the flying circus stuff was seeing other characters get the limelight that sorely needed some serious moments. And of course, the presentation by Sprite and filmic novel is top notch. I liked a bunch of the remixed tracks of original BGM.

Sadly the one thing that makes me not think extra two is nearly as hype as other people think... Is that Misaki unfortunately is still really annoying with her joking style in basically any slice of life or romance scene. While I enjoyed her flying circus stuff just fine, I pretty much dreaded anything where she's just let loose with her jokes cuz they are not my thing at all and I just every time she talks I always think " Man, I would much prefer going out with any of the three other main heroines: wholesome Mary Sue Asuka, the subdued but stable Rika, and even Mashiro (as long as shegets her development from her route and extra one)

That said, the flying circus stuff is definitely great enough to at least give this a low 8 out of 10. Just fix that overrated Misaki personality please!

Not going to lie. I actually liked it more than the original Kinkoi by quite a bit.

I thought it was kind of dumb the new common route was kind of long and was required to unlock the after stories. Thankfully it was decently fun and set the tone for the whole fan disk being much more focused on wholesome interactions and degenerate comedy with less melodrama. It also casually mentioned twist that I think didn't even need to be twist to begin with. So overall I would say I would enjoyed it

The after stories to the original routes while short (30ish minutes), we're all pretty enjoyable to me, roughly around the same quality when the routes are at their best in the original. One exception is Sylvies, One I consider a pure upgrade, since that was just pure Quirky wholesome deredere interaction, something I wish her original route had a lot more of instead of the boring stuff.

Ayaka's route was certainly the low point of the fandisc but at least it properly consistently embraced being degenerate and dumb instead of Reina's original route that just kind of threw stuff in during serious moments. Honestly, I would say the biggest flaw is her " after story" finally brought what should have been the obvious thing to tackle between her and Ouro but it was just brought in too late as a what if. At the very least, the common route and her route at least upgraded ayaka from one of my least favorite visual novel heroines to someone who's barely tolerable.

Mina's route for better or for worse was the most moege route of All the routes including the ones from the original. Was just pure romance and comedy with very little actual melodrama, not bad but nothing stick out.

What definitely stuck out to me though was easily the " alternate universe route". It was simultaneously a better version of the Original True Route, Clannad After Story, G-senjou no Maou True Route AND D.D.'s Route in Chrono Clock all at once, at least in the sense of combining certain aspects of them. But more importantly, it actually got me properly emotional compared to the original Kinkoi, where while good, at some point I kind of just was waiting for it to end. On the other hand, with this route, it's one of the few in the whole series. I was actually excited to continue reading. I think one thing that sticks out for me about The fan disk version is that it was better paced and more introspective. The original true route at times felt like a cheesy soap opera. But the fan disk version had a lot of really interesting and deep character interactions I thought should have been important instead of the cheesy stuff of the original. If the original true route was more like this, I might have been more forgiving about all the stuff I complained about in the original.

That said though, as much as I really loved this alternate universe route, the rest of the fan disk was just decent enough to good enough, so I'll settle for a high 8/10, for now but I could easily change my mind.

S Tier

A-5 Takae - The only route in A that actually rivals my favorites of the original Majikoi. It was really engaging from start to finish, brought in lore from the whole Big 4/Four Divas I've been wanting to see more of, had surprisingly really good development for Takae relative to the A series. Helps that it has good amount of Kazama Family and mah girl Torako.


D Tier

A-5 Margit After - not only is Margit relatively boring, this is probably top three most sussy routes in all of Majikoi. Honestly it's only this high because the Hounds were way more entertaining characters individually than Margit herself

E Tier

A-5 Yoshitsune - I kind of liked Yoshitsune so suffice to say I was very disappointed in her route. They finally brought back a few animated fight scenes. But the rest of the route is so boring and half ass that I didn't care. Aki was a brand new character that had potential but the route split development between both her and Yoshitsune meant both got half assed development instead.

A5 - 7/10 (tough to rate cuz it has easily my favorite A route but also my least 2 favorite routes

Many people hype up Kinkoi as one of, if not the best moege. Personally, I definitely disagree. Many are quick to point out that the true route is the main thing that sticks out and while I think it's good (not great) can one route that's locked really carry a whole visual novel? I think Kinkoi is the perfect example of a visual novel that's good but inconsistent.

Let's start with the things I consider good:

It has a solid likable cast of characters. The main character Ouro is certainly at least above average for a moege protagonist who at his best has some pretty chad-like movements. Even characters that start off kind of bitchy like Ria and Mina end up not being too bad by the end.

The common route was pretty decent/ good. It did take a while to ramp up considering it had a similar premise to Princess Evangile, where the main guy is looked down upon for being a commoner in a rich school. But had some great moments towards the end.

A few of the heroine routes are decent/ good. Elle's route had a fun personal journey, Akane is a nice case of short but sweet and wholesome, and the true route goes without saying. I don't think the true route is as great as people say, but mostly because I've read and watched so many stories like this that I predicted so many parts outside maybe a few slight narrative twists towards the end but that's it. If you are newer to the type of story or eat stuff like it up, you'll probably think it’s great.

There are some surprisingly really wholesome character interactions. Usually they are directed by characters like Akane and Sylvie, the two most consistently wholesome characters, but Ria at her best can be pretty great at this too. The main 3 childhood friend interactions in particular were quite notable.

Sadly, now we have to get into the flaws which will highlight my inconsistent point I keep bringing up:

The first big flaw I want to bring up is plot convenient amnesia. To me amnesia has to be done well or have a really good reason for it to exist in a story and when it's just to specifically make the writer be able to just put in “plot twists” whenever he feels like something that pisses me off. Like I get it, I don't expect the main character to remember everything, but when he just happens to remember almost nothing about one specific event which SHOULD be very memorable, I find it very hard to believe that level of amnesia. What doesn't help is that when Ouro admits he doesn't remember things, instead of the characters just telling him they just treat them like he’s stupid and then just wait till the plot conveniently reveals the twist. The problem I have is a lot of these twists shouldn't really have to be twists to be honest. There's a few in the true route I kind of forgive but most of them just actively piss me off.

Kind of a minor point. I get these are stupid high school teenagers and blah blah blah. But there's some “plot twists” that are done just because of lack of communication. Like just saying what Chieka is to Ouro is treated as a built up plot twist for no reason besides like a few jokes. A few routes treat it like it's trying to build up to something but ends up not. So just ends up once again getting me angry.

You may have noticed in the positive section that I said only a few routes are good or decent. One route that was particularly disappointing to me was Sylvie's. Sylvie herself isn't a bad character. In fact she's pretty good. The problem is felt like half the route was just a bunch of boring rich people events, especially when Mina was involved. The other half was clearly just buildup to the true route. Which doesn't help that Sylvie has an alternate ending once you beat the true route. Also, this route just made me realize that dating a rich princess would suck because of how much you have to deal with a lot of rich people bull crap. That just doesn't sound like fun at all. Basically the only reason I consider this route tolerable is because Sylvie herself is still a fun unique take on deredere character mostly.

Speaking of the true route, a minor issue I have with this game is the locked route structure. In my opinion in only to get the true route, you should only have to read Sylvie route to understand everything for the true route. I never got the whole thing of unlocking side routes until you beat one main route (aka Akane). Due to the current locked route structure, they have to repeat developments and twists at inconsistent levels of execution. (Especially Ouro + baseball). In my opinion they should have either just make Sylvie's route unlock the true route and have everything else open. OR have completely forced route order (Reina > Elle > Sylvie) with developments/twists properly paced, then make Akane completely open since she shouldn't have to be locked or unlock anything since her route is by far the most standalone.

The final flaw I have might be a hot take but I have a lot to say about Reina and her route. First of all her route straight up sucks. Kinkoi has this kind of annoying thing where they have plot optional degeneracy but at least those are skippable so I can ignore those. However, Reina's route is in the top 5 worst plot twists I've seen in a visual novel. They could have had a perfectly fine Fureraba style friends to lovers relationship but instead they resolve it in the stupidest way possible that wasn't rape. The fact that it used this and then expected me to take the rest of the route seriously just pissed me off so much. Suffice to say this route was easily the lowest part of the whole Kinkoi saga.

Finally, apparently I'm in the minority but I did not like Reina that much as a character. She does have some cool friend and motherly-like moments, but the main takeaway I got from her is dealing with really annoying random ‘coy’ lewd jokes and teasing. I thought these got too repetitive since they weren't that funny and they're the perfect example of "If this was a guy saying this stuff constantly he’d be treated as a devil by the characters" but since she's a hot gyaru, at best, people will just mildly scold her. I'd much rather have Ria or even Mina's blunt personalities over these annoying coy tease obnoxious jokes.

Despite what I've complained about, I do overall consider Kinkoi good, just barely a 7 out of 10. The positives mostly outweigh the negatives, but some of the negatives just pissed me off too much for me to consider any higher.

This is one of the most consistently funny AND engaging visual novels I read in a long time.

I think the people who try to sell this as a plotge are not selling it correctly. To me it's a plotge in the same vein as the agave route from Majikoi. It has its serious themes but the action is very goofy shounen and there's still all of the over-the-top comedy especially with the whole unique parodying nukige thing.

But considering that I just compared it to Agave from Majikoi, which is my favorite visual novel, obviously means I still put this visual novel in high praise.

I actually quite liked all the routes. Some people have said that Misaki route is their least favorite but honestly outside a few rushed developments, it was easily the funniest route reminding me of a Majikoi or Asa Project route with how ridiculously funny it got. Nanase, Hinami, and True route for all good in different ways, I would say Nanases route is only my least favorite for minor reasons.

I think by the end I found every single major character likable or interesting. Including the antagonists, with some who you are not supposed to like it first. (Which does go into one of the interesting themes of the VN of you eventually coming around to things you initially dislike)

Junnosuke was a decent entertaining main Character mostly brought down by him being a hypocritical asshole at times.

My main girl ranking goes something like this:

Misaki - No surprise she's my favorite considering she's the very quirky hilarious girl. But she also has a nice wholesome side (in fact, I liked how every single heroine with a route are all distinctive variations of nice girls)

Fumino - A very wholesome character with surprising depth. Maybe went slightly far on her being willingly subservient.

Hinami - An amusing character with some funny if occasionally Repetitive loli/senpai jokes. Definitely the least deep character but makes up for with some of the most wholesome scenes in the whole game.

Asane - the only character I would say got slightly worse as the story went on. Her jokes got slightly more repetitive and they made her slightly bitchier than I was expecting to non-Nanase girls. That said, her funny jokes were still really funny.

Touka - She was easily the most interesting antagonist to me so I was kind of disappointed they sequel baited her depth.

Nanase - Likeable but just doesn't stick out as much as everybody else above her.

Rei - Definitely got the most love in terms of giving proper backstory and depth. Her base personality just isn't quite as good as everybody else's.

Ikuko - She's okay, but definitely my overall least favorite. Her base personality is too OneNote and her depth and development is way too rushed when it shows. (The opposite problem of Touka)

Just a little aside on the translation. I do think there were a bunch of lines where they went a little too far on the localization memes/references/political jabs but to be honest, they felt more like mild to moderate annoyances at most. I would say the complaints are kind of overblown but if it really bothers you, there is an improvement patch you can find on vndb.

I'm still stewing on my final score, but with how consistently I enjoyed just about everything about it. I would not be surprised if I settled on a 10/10. It's been forever since I've given one to a full length visual novel.

Kunado Chronicles is a visual novel developed by Purplesoft. If the name Purplesoft sounds familiar it's because we have other translated visual novels by them such as Hapymaher, Chrono Clock, Amatsutsumi, and the upcoming Aoi Tori. Kunado Chronicles has a kinda unique setting and genres. It's technically a post-apocalyptic setting 1000 years in the future compared to typical modern Japan settings, but instead of being the typical sci-fi style, this setting is actually more technologically regressed. The main setting takes place in a city called Kanto (not to be confused with Pokemon RBY's world) and is clearly based on an older version of IRL Japan. It felt like Purple soft's version of Senren Banka, just with a lot more plot. The main protagonist starts off waking up with having no memories of his name or who he was outside some general memories of what his life was like back in modern Japan.

A lot of the beginning of the game is having you the reader basically self-insert to get to learn this new world at the same time as the protgaonist. There's a lot to take in about the setting but here are some basics. The post-apolcapytic world is basically because machines were taken over by what they called the Tekki, which makes this machines sentient and tend to prioritize attacking the closet human. While they aren’t too frequent after the defeat of the Kurokami, they are still a danger to 95% of the population. The main city, Kanto, is ruled by what's called the Eight Swords, each with a number ranking, the lower the number the higher you are on the hierarchy. If you can beat the Number 1 Sword, you take their place as the ruler of Kanto. The total population of Kanto is just under 800 people, and everyone not in the Eight Swords is required to wear Fox Masks at all times, with little to no concepts of individuality, family, economy, or other social stuff you’d expect in the modern times. There’s some people who have supernatural powers called the “Powered”, and generally partners are chosen based on what powers they have, if any. Finally, Gender roles are also reversed where females actually prefer to be praised for strength over beauty, females are more shameless about getting naked with males getting more embarrassed, and females are expected to take the lead in relationships romantically and sexually.

One of the main goals of the story is to defeat the Tekki threat. Natually this means one of the main genres is action, as some of the characters have supernatural powers or general combat prowess to fight the Tekki. There is some degree of mystery and worldbuilding, finding out a lot of what the world is like and how the Tekki and Kurokami affected the current time. You also get to learn and even influence the societal culture of Kanto and see how all the little things they do compare to our IRL modern society. But if I had to pick one genre for Kunado Chronicles, it’d be a charage. I found the routes tend to focus more on the character development and drama the main characters went through, and the action scenes at times felt secondary to the overall narrative. That said as someone who considered charage to be one of my personal visual novel genres I quite liked this aspect.

Kunado Chronicles actually has a fairly uncommon ladder route structure very similar to another Purplesoft visual novel in Amatsutsumi. Basically there's a true route, and you have to read the main story of the other 2 main heroine routes first to get there. Along the way you can choose to romance the non-true heroine but won't reach the true route on that read through. but I personally like ladder routes and true route structures so this appealed to me, hopefully it does to you too.

Now I'll go quickly over the main characters. Shin was a decent enough protagonist, fairly likable and proactive though he had some cringe perverted moments early on in common route. Haruhime was a fun main heroine though I thought her romance and character could have been developed a bit more. Akane and Aoi are OK, they make the action scenes fun and have fine enough development but I thought they were a bit too simple-minded. Yuri was excellent. She was a tsundere with wholesome personal development, with easily my favorite main and romance route. On a personal level, this visual novel was worth reading for Yuri alone, she's now one of my favorite visual novel characters. It's saying a lot since I'm usually not a fan of tsunderes. There's some other likable side characters, wish they got routes but their roles in the story works well enough.

I've mostly talked about things I liked about Kunado but now I want to talk about some of the flaws I had. The setting has supernatural elements so I was willing to suspend my disbelief most of the time, but there were some plot twists that I thought were a little too out there, especially in one of the side routes. The main characters’ physicality also made it kind of weird to take in how relationships worked out. There’s a few characters that get their name mentioned and seemed like they’d be important but they never showed on screen which personally disappointed me. While the pacing of the story is mostly fine, there are some points in the story that are a bit slow, usually with setting exposition especially in common route and the beginning of some routes. The true route kind of has the opposite issue where things move a little too quickly, almost like the writer was kinda rushing to get to the climax. Finally, there’s one H-scene that happens before any of the routes happen. I'm all for Visual Novel sex scenes but this particular one felt super out of place, even if you figure out the context later on. Outside of that thankfully the overall sexual content is surprisingly low, compared to previous Purplesoft VNs. Though I guess that can be a plus or minus depending on your point of view.

In conclusion, Kunado Chronicles is a solid story with an interesting world and characters. It had an interesting blend of genres, with action, mystery, comedy, romance, worldbuilding, but mostly on character development and drama. You can tell the amount of effort made to cover all the details of its unique setting, down to minor lines about societal gender roles being reversed compared to what we in modern society are used to. I do have criticisms that keep me from totally loving it like certain plot twists and the pacing at certain parts. It's far from the best story visual novel or even the best Purplesoft visual novel. In fact, I personally still prefer Amatsutsumi for its psychological drama focus, and would recommend reading it first to get used to Kotodama as well as some cool references in Kunado. Regardless, Kunado Chronicles is definitely still a fun time.

HoneyHoneyHoney! is an odd visual novel to describe. I guess you can say it's moege-nukige mix with a heavy emphasis on very strange, quirky comedy. A lot of it is on the characters themselves, but some of it is on the pretty unique setting.

What got me particularly interested in this VN is that unique setting and how it kind of feels like a visual novel version of an anime called Shimoneta. The basic idea is that long before the story started Ttere were strict laws made to prevent sexual harassment. The idea of is that unless you are dating, males and females are not allowed to physically interact and touch each other in public and have to maintain at least 6 feet of distance Which for reference is the same amount of distance you had to keep during 2020 and 2021 in real life.Even if you want to properly get in a relationship, you literally have to apply for going out. These restrictions are even more strict in co-ed schools. There are color-coded lanes that guys and girls are forced to walk in. Blue lanes for guys and Pink lanes for girls. There's even color-coded tables so guys and girls aren't even allowed to sit at the same lunch table. Even in classrooms, Desks are very far apart, with all The guys in one column and the girls are on another. If any of the rules are broken a group called the "Judges" will take action and take you in.

The main character Shun is someone who is transferring to the main school of this setting. He has no friends mostly just wants to be left alone and keep distance from people, especially girls due to his history with the sexual harassment rules. However, the main heroines definitely do a good job making sure he's not allowed to stay to himself because they're all very assertive in their own ways in getting his attention.

Speaking of main heroines There are only three of them, so I can go into a little more detail than my other videos.

Tsukasa is Shun's childhood friend. She had that uncommon trope where as a kid she looked like a guy, so got mistaken as one. Thankfully, that part was resolved fairly quickly. Her dad was the one who created the gender segregation laws so she felt obligated to join the school's Love Audit Club. This club is the one that approves students to be in relationships as well as making improvements can enjoy their relationship life. However, Tsukasa's big quirk is her pure, naive, and wild imagination especially related to sexual stuff. So whenever she reads suggestions submitted by potential student couples she ends up declining them due to her assuming the wildest potential sexual situation based on an otherwise normal suggestion. Since she's the sole active member of the Love Audit Club she does what she feels she should to improve the Club as much as she can, so she tries to research love as much as she can while makaing sure she and others stick properly to the gender segregation and dating rules. However, when Shun comes back into her life, she starts to have to consider her not-so-subtle growing love for him and staying loyal to the rules. While Tsukasa herself is pretty wholesome, except a decent amount of her crying too.

Arika is a heroine openly against the gender segregation rules, to the point she's a higher up in a secret rebellion. Shun gets into a typical accidental pervert scene with her very early on in the story. Somehow this accidental pervert scene actually impresses her especially since it happened in front of Tsuksasa's Love Audit Club, so Arika considers Shun a very bold one. After this point she makes it a point to consistently try to get Shun to join her side of the anti segregation rebellion, constantly trying to hug his arm in public affectionatley. It's to the point where, even when it's not her route, she even helps you get with the girl in question. But in her route, since she's the most overtly assertive of the main 3 heroines, you get with her the fastest and naturally deal with the public relationship consequences more frequently. You also learn some mildly deep things about her in this route, and there's some surprisingly wholesome stuff towards the end.

Finally, we have the Miyuki who is actually a teacher heroine, but was also Shun's childhood babysitter who he looked up to as a big sister. When around her students, Miyuki's a mature and very helpful teacher that's quite popular among both guys and girls. However, when she gets alone with Shun she gets not so subtly more affectionate to him. Considering the age gap, the whole previous babysitter thing, and some of the reveals about her, it wouldn't be stretch to call this the uhh creepiest route. Thankfully her route made great jokes making fun of this aspect of Miyuki so at least I could get some good laughs out of this route cuz otherwise I could NOT take the actual romance seriously. It wouldn't be a stretch to call Miyuki's route the most ridiculous which is saying something.

HoneyHoneyHoney! for better or for worse, is very much on the short side. My total in game play time was about 11 and a half hours reading on full auto-mode even with a VN with only 3 heroines. I'd assume it's a lot closer to 6-8 hours for a faster reader. The romance is generally on the rushed side, but I don't think the VN was aiming for serious relationship developments anyway. While this visual novel was pretty funny, if you were hoping for a more serious, dramatic take upon this gender segregation setting, don't get your hopes up.If anything, expected kind of weird, degenerate comedic style. The only other personal flaw I have, is how ridiculously big the breast sizes are of the main heroines. Tsukasa's is already pushing it, but Arika and Miyuki straight up have ridiculously sized breasts. I know some people think the bigger the better, but for me there's a point when they're too big they just look goofy and not hot. Speaking of degeneracy, each heroine has 3 H-scenes each in their main story. With 3 Extra H-scenes unlocked after you finish their route.

In conclusion, HoneyHoneyHoney! while not a top tier comedic visual novel or anything, is still pretty funny, has a pretty unique and weird setting, and even weirder main heroine personalities. Those alone make it a pretty fun time, at least for me. It is on the shorter side, but if you just want a short-ish visual novel with a comedic take on a potentially interesting setting, OR any of the main 3 heroines interesting you, free free to check it out. You can currently buy it on Steam and Johren.

Amatsutsumi has a ladder route structure very similar to Gsenjou no Maou. Instead of routes, the stories are divided into chapters dedicated to each of the main heroines. Then you can choose to romance them and branch off or not. And there is a true route and heroine. This concept alone was already really interesting to me.

The protagonist having a really unique power called the kotodama where he can command people to do things was a really interesting concept.

All 4 main heroines are quite likable and have good character development to me.

The main character is not a virgin and in fact is kind of a man whore having sex with all the heroines kind of early on.

If that bothers you, don't read this. If you don't mind, this is a great visual novel with a good mix of romance and story.

If you liked the original Making * Lovers, and you wanted to see more of your favorite heroine(s), highly recommend you get this After Stories visual novel. Each route is 1 hour maximum each, but they are jammed pack with with the hilarious humor with a touch of wholesome romance from the original visual novel. And a couple of sex scenes per heroine, if you so choose to get the 18+ Patch from Nekonyan's site. The scenarios fit each heroine, in terms of jokes and which side characters show up to add to the humor.

After Sugar Style heavily disappointed me in characters, humor, and structure, I was afraid of HaremKingdom since it seemed to be going both a nukige (which im not big on) and isekai (I do not like this genre at all) route. However... HaremKingdom definitely surpassed my expectations, likely being my favorite (moe)nukige and isekai series now.

So what makes HaremKingdom stick out for me? I'd say the humor and characters easily. Even lighthearted isekais Ive tried like that Slime anime have really boring characters and humor so it was a slog to finish S1 even watching with friends. HaremKingdom goes all in on SMEE's degenerate weird humor style and arguably alone makes its selling point.

There are definitely a lot of jokes that work by SMEE basically making fun of the isekai genre, like how the initial world warp was (initially) unexplained [thank god there was no truck], the "dickdick" animals, Staffs of creation and stuff, and even just the concept of the king needing a harem specifically to get energy to keep a kingdom alive. Compared to more 'grounded' settings in previous SMEE VNs, its almost like the comedy writer was able to let loose and have even crazier/hilarious situations than usual. I'd almost argue it's the most consistently funny SMEE to date, but I'd have to think about that.

The route structure was... interesting. Where the type of harem you choose how the MC or heroines chooses to act, as well as the final chapter of the route solely focusing on the heroine who gave the original harem idea.

However, the surprising aspect... was how surprisingly wholesome and likable the characters and their development were. Even in the common route, I really liked seeing how the MC was able to get all 5 heroines to mutually consent to join the harem. Which was nice since a few characters in particular were basically originally forced by their families to join the harem. But since MC helped them out individually and gave very good reasons (for the most part) for all of them to legit love him enough and not just feel like a job, it made the harem aspect... actually appealing?

And thankfully once all the heroines join in, just about all of them are pretty likable. Sophia is naive princess but just wants to be herself, Char is the surprisingly deep "imp" character, Kiki being very shy due to being a former slave made sense, and Marrou was a nice mature older character who can joke around.

However my absolute favorite character was Hikari easily. She was basically the closest thing to my favorite kind of eccentric weirdo character. She's a very goofy, blunt, sometimes even openly degenerate tomboy-ish girl who's constantly hilarious. She's usually the one most willing to make a goofy remark, make the loud SMEE-like retort, and the one most likely to say some good ass Engrish. Her role as a childhood friend almost felt like it was parodied as much as the isekai genre. A childhood friend duo being close, know they like each other, both being awkward about romance, and just being terrible at getting together up until the end of college is quite the extreme. However, there were some certain twists that made their relationship... oddly sweet? With a mix of Marrou and Hikari's flashback we got to see how they met, how they became freinds and in love early, how MC tried to save her after she got hit with an arrow, how Hikari remembered the stuff MC forgot, and did her best to play along while also feeling bad, etc. Basically, I loved her flashbacks and revelations alot.

Now with all that said, I'd say this VN is still just a good, but not great VN. Despite it being wholesome for a harem moenukige, I still would have preferred each heroine have their own individual route. I still would have preferred these characters' personalities in a non-isekai setting. If there was gonna be a harem aspect, I wish all the characters' development, backstories and the paths the MC took were more unified in 1 route For example, I want MC to take charge more in 'Me' route, but I also wanted the option of easy Japan access he thought of in 'Earth' route!, but I also wanted the revelations of Marrou and especially Hikari from their routes. While I liked 4/5 of the routes for being interesting and/or comfy, sadly I wasn't a fan of most the Fire route, the heroines ended up being too savage to one another. Basically this was a case of I liked this VN DESPITE these base issues I had.

That said, I still overall quite liked HaremKingdom. While it didn't quite reach Making Lovers level (mostly cuz I prefer the down to earth adult age setting and Mashiro Tsukino), it might actually be my 2nd favorite SMEE currently. Beating out Fureraba (HK had overall better humor and characters), and easily beating Sugar Style (which I couldn't even finish).

If you guys just want more SMEE comedy and like/don't mind harems and/or isekais, I actually highly recommend HaremKingdom.

I really really liked the common route. It had great progression of the sweets store, likable characters, solid humor, decent character development and some really nice wholesome emotional moments. Only things that bugged me were a few jokes, mostly related to Shizuka and occasionally JC. Just based on common route alone, I'd give the VN a 9, maybe even a 10.

Now the character routes are more hit or miss. All of them have some really nice moments but also some really annoying or stupid moments that bring down my overall enjoyment. These don't even related to H-scenes, where the heroines randomly become succubi.

I don't like how all 4 routes have the romance start due to some really stupid misunderstanding.
Sasa has the thing with Ryo's apparently having ED, Raiha has the whole miscommunication with the friends with benefits thing, Ushio having Ryo apparently using shoujo manga confessions during non-romantic situations, and Kanon having supposed 'pretend dating'.

All of them except Raiha mostly resolved themselves quickly, and when the actual romance starts it is pretty nice. I just wish they all didn't start like that.

The other issue I have is... the two routes with actual drama, Kanon and Raiha... are terribly executed. Raiha's is just thrown in at the end and resolved relatively quickly. Kanon's drama has this really weird over the top solution and once again is resolved quickly. Both felt terribly executed compared to the more down to earth drama in the common route which I thought were more real issues and the development for those felt a bit more realistic while still resolving relatively quickly.

While Sasa and Ushio routes ended up having much less drama and shorter, it honestly made them better for me just cuz they got to the point with nice wholesome conclusions. Ushio's in particular was nice for Ryo.

Now would I say the routes are bad? Not really. Overall they end up being meh-to decent at worst, but compared to how good common was, I was disappointed.

That said, all 4 of them do still have some of the wholesome moments. The endings of Ushio, Kanon, and Sasa routes were all quite nice. Raiha route... at least she was better than other friends with benefits routes where she's quite a bit more honest which leads to some nice scenes occasionally.

This puts me in a bit of a pickle of how to rate it, maybe a high 8 or a low 9?

I still overall enjoyed myself most of the way through, the consistently wholesome/comfy nature is pretty much what I've been looking for in a visual novel for a long time. I'm just really disappointed in certain aspects of each heroine route, unfortunate.