A Kiss For The Petals – Maidens of Michael (ACTUAL Game Review)

Before playing Maidens of Michael, one should know that this is the eleventh game in the Kiss For The Petals series. No knowledge of the previous ten is required, as the game gives enough context for new players to pick up on the story. I have personally only played the very first game in the series, but had no trouble getting into this one. It appears that very little has changed since then, but that is not necessarily a bad thing.

Pros:

Full-length. This is actually the first full-length entry in the Kiss For The Petals series. Every entry prior to Maidens of Michael barely takes five hours or so to complete, but this one takes around twenty or so hours to complete, four times that of any prior entry. This is largely due to the game having more than just one couple featured within. There is a new couple that gets a larger route (about a third of the game), with each of the other featured couples getting a smaller (yet still satisfying) route.

TOO CUTE. The entire Kiss For The Petals series is held up by just how overwhelmingly cute it is, at least in the all-ages versions. Maidens of Michael is no exception to this rule and manages to keep it up throughout each route in the game. Using the free 18+ patch on the Steam version unlocks the spicier scenes. Doing so maintains the cuteness, but without the innocence. Depending on the type of player, that can be a pro or a con.

HD Assets. The assets in Maidens of Michael can be scaled up to 1600×1200, more than what my monitor can even display (vertically, at least). According to the Store page, this is 4x times that of the original game. The assets looked great as a result. A really nice job was done with the upscale, with no visible blurriness or rough edges.

Cons:

Average storyline. The story is not all that complex here, with the game’s focus being on the love between each of the couples rather than any sort of interesting story. The story is at least passable, although each route is very formulaic. They are all built up with unnecessary drama, only to resolve by the end of the route.

Bad soundtrack. This series is not really known for its background music, and for a good reason. Maidens of Michael has the most boring soundtrack for a VN, truly the epitome of “generic VN music”. I would not be surprised if I heard that this music was recycled from the previous games. None of the tracks stand out from the rest and they all could easily be passed off as royalty-free. In fact, about halfway through the game, I subbed out the game’s music for my own music, soundtracks from other visual novels. At least the opening theme is decent, but nothing too special.

Maidens of Michael is a decent visual novel overall. It may not be strong on the story side, but it definitely makes up for it with its characters and their interactions. The fact that the game is full-length and uses HD assets is definitely a plus as well. Recommended for fans of the series or for those looking to get into the Kiss For The Petals series.

You can buy A Kiss For The Petals – Maidens of Michael on Steam here.

I was provided a free review copy of the game in order to write this review. Read more about how I do my game reviews here.