I bawled my eyes out over this game. 13 HOURS ON THIS GAME . (11 on steam, 2 on demo) So have a long review of all my experiences because after playing Royal order, it feels like a goodbye to this game
If you are a people pleaser who can't say no, even to fictional characters, this game will probably be difficult. Keeping up with the requests, classes, your stats just to have characters approval is hell
Classes and your stats are the most painful part of this game, even when I maintained all the character's element affinity high as well as my own stats, it was still extremely difficult to pass through certain events, you need to be prepared to save and load A TON of times just to be able to do requests or even survive, personally I has extremely high stats for everything and still died in a specific event over 5 times, it was truly painful.
I re-loaded so many times to woo a character, and yet the ending still made me bawl my eyes out. I was really disappointed, but if you blame this entirely on me for making dumb choices I thought were good, then the game is really good, the art is amazing as is the ambience/vibe, however I feel like somethings were rushed, but the game is still amazing and long, these are MY PERSONAL OPINIONS!!
SPOILERS AHEAD!!!
For example, at the start our entire escort team dies, right after one of them tells us he misses his wife and kids, and we don't even acknowledge it at all except in one single scene when we're playing chess with Auerileus and it's still only a brief mention. Even the injuries and trauma we get from the starting scene is hardly mentioned, but I can look past this, it may have just been a scene to set the mood and setting for the game, not much thought into it, but when Nazir goes missing in the other endings, it's barely mentioned again and we never see him until it's only mentioned in the end that he came back, it felt a bit disappointing as you never really find out what happened unless you do his route. The injuries we get from fighting Rapheal are barely mentioned either, we literally twist our ankle and can't walk, but suddenly after he dies and we go with the king, we can walk just fine and even when the king asks if we're okay we say, "We're fine"? But to be fair, I may have missed something, Sala may have helped us and I didn't read that part so please don't take my review really seriously
Also this game is extremely dialouge heavy, which is fine if you like really plot important stories, also the wooing of characters take so long and might not even end up in your favour. I did everything for Auerileus and Nazir and I still got a bittersweet ending where I never see them again. Only invest in it if you know you can spend hours making sure you get every small detail right. Eventually I did get my first romance ending with Serin, after trying most of the route's. I had to follow a guide online and still had to save and reload a couple of times, my patience was thoroughly tested, which is why I also have a (loving) hate for this game but this is what I have to say about each character's route.
Nazir: His romantic one felt honestly slow-paced, the entire time it felt extremely platonic until hours in, I honestly thought he had feelings for Ishbell at one point (not because they acted romantically, but because my progress with him was very slow). Yes, there was cute moments but I felt they could easily be interpreted as platonic. So, on the other hand, his friendship route is very easy to get.
Aurelius: His was surprisingly a little faster than Nazir's, there's a lot of romantic tension throughout the story, and it was good. Still felt a bit cliché to me, especially when it came to the faking bit, I won't go into detail for spoilers, but if you know you know, and if you don't then you will realise what I mean the moment the scene comes up. For friendship, you don't really get along at the start which makes for development which is cute, but I'd say his friendship feels harder to get than the other brothers.
Serin: I loved his route, it was really cute, with romantic tendencies from the start. It's my favourite route, because it has a balance of everything, cute stuff, implied spicy stuff, domesticity, etc. It was a tiny bit cliché too but at this point everything is, so I can't complain, I loved it. Out of all the routes I'd say his is the fastest in romance, second in friendship.
But, even if I have a hate, love, toxic, addicted, relationship with this game, It's still extremely well-made. I personally would only recommend it if you have patience and are willing to spend hours over a fictional man on your screen. Yea. Doesn't sound so great now. Don't be chronically online like me.
IM SORRY IF ANY PARTS SEEM MAD, I WOULD PROBABLY NEVER CHANGE A THING AB THIS GAME, I LOVE IT hence why I hold really strong emotions towards it