I can definitely understand why Kamiyaba is generally considered ok/decent at best, and mediocre at worst. For better or worse, this is a title that no matter what it did, it would eventually default back to dramaless goofy moege standards. And you know what, I respect the hustle to this title's relative consistency.

I thought the 'romantic destiny' power level system was a fun goofy gimmick for a moege. Since the power level numbers generally updated whenever a couple got together and did romantic things, it was nice way to both see the relative progression of the relationship/heroine's affection. It was kinda amusing to see how the main protagonist subtley changed the way he talked, and saw his relationships in narration. Destiny power levels were ultimately just a minor gimmick, but sometimes it's the details that help make an experience for me.

At the end of the day though, Kamiyaba is at its core a moege light-hearted slice of life romance. As this is the first title I've read by Hulotte, a company I was always kinda interested in, I wanted to see what made it stick out compared to its moege competitors.

I think its general presentation is fine. It has a decent amount of UI options, the art style kinda sticks out, and the music does its job. Anything with a skip to next/previous choice is always a plus. The fact that the H-scene viewer has the option to only watch a certain half a H-scene only is a nice thing that Hulotte seems to do in every title.

The characters are generally likable and pleasant. I like that Kamiyaba didn't try to force "archetype diversity" considering the main heroines consist of 3 nice girls, 2 kuudere trolls, and one genki tease. As someone who generally dislikes moege tsunderes, I'm glad there wasn't a single one here. That alone was enough for me to actually read all the routes even though recently for moege I've been more likely to only read my 1-2 favorite characters. I also like they didn't feel they needed to do some tryhard "moe pandering" gimmicks (e.g. Yuzusoft). It felt like the characters had a decent mix of 'moe' and 'realism'.

Most of the heroines actually have some kinda interesting depth as well. In addition to the goofy slice of life romance and humor, I think most of the heroines got decently developed. Part of the point with the "Sanctuary" rooftop setting equated to at least the original first 3 heroines having personal issues to deal with, and I thought all of them were at least relatable in a way. The 'true' route felt like a decent way to wrap up ALL the heroine's issues without romance, something I wish more true route based titles did... remembering the other heroine's issues still existed so you didn't feel "guilt" for leaving out heroine's issues in another route.

Speaking of, for what we got, I actually like the friend group dynamic between the MC and the main heroines. For the most part they felt like real people with their own schedules but still made time to hang out and help each other in some way, even when it wasn't their route.

I actually generally kinda like the relatively fast pacing of the game. Many moege companies tend to spend a bit too much time on 'filler' slice-of-life (looking at you Yuzusoft and especially tone works). I think Kamiyaba had just the right amount of length of slice of life comedy before movign on the next thing, generally moving things along, especially when there was character development on the table.

With all the relative positive ranting I've been doing, why did I give this title just a "decent" 7/10 instead of something potentially solid or even great?

Notice I've been using the adjectives 'decent' and 'kinda' for a lot of things I've described in this review. That's by design. For every nice idea, it felt like almost of them weren't executed as well as I'd like, or at the very least had A LOT of untapped potential.

Starting with the character depth. Even though every character had interesting issues, it felt like all their issues were resolved just a bit too quickly. While I said I kinda liked the relatively fast pacing it kinda lead to a double edged sword where after every route was done I was like "this was kinda nice but why did they not do X, Y, Z, etc?"

For example Nanami's role being the prime minister daughter barely mattered outside some social inconvenience, Yukari never used her detective skills in an actual major way, Suzuna falling for the protag so quickly didn't feel adequately explained, and Urara's role as a goddess and her 'real' relationship to the MC didn't feel nearly explored as much as I wanted. All of these characters had potential to be stand out and great, but since Kamiyaba played things too safe, even for my favorite characters Yukari and Nanami, the best I can say is "yeah they're good I guess", with everyone else feeling more shallow than they should've been.

While I said the characters are generally likable, I think the humor relied a bit too much on "troll tease" jokes. It was especially apparent when the 3 trolls Urara, Hanayo, and especially Yukari were ALWAYS ready to make some kind of tease joke to the point it got too repetitive, especially when all 3 mentioned characters were in the same scene. Even though Yukari was overall my favorite girl, it says something in her route when the 'nice' characters felt satisfied getting back at teasing her back even I felt some catharsis. That said, I'll still take this humor way over some moege overly relying on calling the protagonist a pervert for no reason (e.g. Yuzusoft, Alcot, favorite, and Chuablesoft).

From research, Hulotte seems to like to have at least one incest heroine in their VNs, and Kamiyaba is no exception. I'm not into incest heroines, unless they have at least something interesting or funny about them. Sadly Mao was a completely forgettable cousin, and Urara's psuedo-incest aspect was more of a net negative to me, especially since she ended up just being a plot device character to everyone else.

Kamiyaba was a title that was JUST on the cusp of being a very solid title to me. I liked the characters personalities, their depth had interesting potential, ok execution, and the pacing wasn't half-bad. However, the title ultimately playing things too safe and its slightly fast pacing ended up being a double edge-sword, bringing down the overall quality. Even though I kinda liked the comedy, having to deal with an overuse of 'troll tease jokes' made the humor scenes a lot more inconsistent.

While I ended up kinda liking the title, I can't help but also feel kinda disappointed. I'm now a bit more hesitant to try out other Hulotte titles, since I get the impression other VNs by them will have similar if not worse issues.

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Side note about Shiravune's localization

The Onii-chan -> Bubby localization was dumb. I think most people agree, and the ones who actually liked the Bubby choice clearly lived in a part of the USA where 'some' people say it. I say this as someone who's generally tolerant of Shiravune's weird localizations (like Mashiroiro Symphony's Pannya -> Panditty).

Even though I generally like Shiravune for how fast they release stuff, Kamiyaba's incredible amount of typos and weirdly translated stuff is incredibly disappointing with how clearly this specific title was rushed.

The Anti-Bubby fan patch from March 2023 and the official Shiravune typo fix patch from December 2023 STILL had way too many typos, as someone who does software QA.

I really hate the modern game release "rush things out, patch things later" meta.