“Absolute Insanity” – a growing genre trend I’ve seen with these indie visual novels. The type of VN where nothing is predictable and it constantly one-ups itself. That’s basically Love Duction! The Guide for Galactic Lovers – so here’s my quick review.
If you’ve played the likes of Marco & The Galaxy Dragon or Jiangshi x Daoshi – this one’s pretty similar. The story starts right away, with little buildup and then proceeds at a lightning pace. It is chaotic, introducing new characters and story events seemingly randomly. And those characters and events are completely off the rails.
For example, there’s literally an entire story arc dedicated to the new concept that 1+1=3 instead of 2. One of the characters hears this from a talking carp and it proceeds to cause a global meltdown and consequences beyond just our planet.
And that’s just one little sliver of the common route. It goes all over the place, and yes – a bit confusing at times – but I couldn’t help but be entertained by the sheer absurdity of it all. Not to say that it doesn’t have a plot though – it’s a slice of life romantic comedy at its core with the two heroines fighting over the attention and love of the protagonist.
Not the most unique setup, but pretty much everything else outside of that IS unique. The story has its ups and downs (the character routes aren’t as good as the common route, for example), but I enjoyed the overall package. Its fast, entertaining, and has some surprisingly good visuals to back it up coming from an indie developer that has not had any of their releases translated before.
I mean, the visuals look like something we’d get from an established VN studio – so definitely nice job there. The music is not really that notable, but for a visual novel it is at least not grating to listen to.
On the technical front, the game is a bit rough around the edges. There are some minor animation issues, the text can oftentimes take up four lines when it should be split, and there are not a lot of settings to change. It’s got the basics – and a little bit extra – but nothing beyond that. Font customization, for example, is not a thing outside of the accessibility menu accessed when pressing “a”.
That said, it’s a fun enough read for its length – around 6 hours or so – to be worth a light recommendation. If you liked those two visual novels I mentioned before, you’ll definitely like this one. I knocked it out in two sittings and am looking forward to what the studio can bring us next.
Quote: Love Duction! Is a fun enough read for its length – around 6 hours – and worth a look if you’re into visual novels where literally nothing is predictable and everything is chaos.
Love Duction! The Guide for Galactic Lovers is available on Steam as well as directly through publisher Denpasoft. An 18+ patch is available for the Steam version also through publisher Denpasoft.
I was provided a review copy of the game in order to write this review. Read more about how I do my game reviews here.
cublikefoot 