Sorcerer's Choice: Angel or Demon?

Currently, I've fully played through Flow's route. I did all of the endings before realizing that there is a very necessary patch that needs to be added to the Steam release of the game to provide the proper endings and had to go through those again. I really like the feature allowing you to revisit the endings from the main menu instead of having to load saves to go through them. Pros: - Beautiful Artwork (In particular I love the designs of the LOs, though I find our main character to be extremely boring, bog standard dark hair waifish aloof character that comes in these games.) - Interesting Characterization (I liked a lot the depths the story went into the restrictions of angelic power and found it rather interesting. Flow's characterization in particular really grabbed my attention, but Lobelia strikes me (again haven't played the route yet, just the opening scene of his route) as a very bog standard manipulator sort. Not sure how interested I am in playing out his route, might only do the true ending) - Solid Voice Acting (It's well done, I love when BL VN get the voice acting since it brings the characters to life, I also vastly prefer it being in Japanese over English). Cons: - Predictable Narrative (The world building was fine, enough. I feel like with how prolific the Grandfather is brought up throughout the narrative the lack of closure on what happened there and Lucil's ready acceptance that he must just be dead is strange. I don't know why he doesn't at any point seek out to find his grandfather, nor does he himself seem motivated to ask questions about his own state. It's a bit bizarre. Additionally, the entire plot line with the plague feels rather odd to me, like they do end up figuring it out but the actual root of it feels unclear to me. Why on earth are these gems and clawgrass here when they are used to capture angels? Clearly it has a big effect on Flow in the story, so it just doesn't make sense to me that this goes completely unexplained in the narrative. It feels like sections of the story are just missing.) - Few Choices (It takes 2 hours for the first choice to appear in Flow's route after the "Light" or "Darkness" choice deciding your LO). - Non-Con elements are prolific in the bad endings. (Half of them in Flow's route involved a non-con scene while half did a fade to black bad end). Overall? I think it's worth the 12$ I spent on it, but I'm not sure I'd be as happy with it if I paid the full amount, and they really could have done a better job adjusting the game for if you didn't have the patch. I had no idea why a lot of the bad endings cut off at such an odd place until I looked it up online that there's a separate version of the game for Steam. There should be attention given to ensure that the endings are clear regardless of whether you play patched or unpatched. I'd rate this one a modest 7/10 with just Flow in mind. Might go up or down if I go back to play Lobelia.

2 stories in 1 - the angel side and the devil side; they don't overlap almost at all (aside from brief appearances of one as the antagonist in the other's story). 1. The angel side - I picked this side first and man does it start slow and boring; so much so that I only played very little at a time and thought I'd quit; it picks up towards the end and it gets interesting; bad endings are noncon (and most of the sex scenes with the angel are in the bad endings) 2. The devil side - it has a better pace to the story and frankly was better overall; there's some dubcon here; sex scenes are spread, not all cluttered at the end, like in the angel side; the good ending is more satisfying than the angel one, since, knowing the full story of both sides, this is the only one that leaves everyone OK. * Story - interesting, albeit the incredibly slow pace from the start of the angel side; * Choices - don't seem very relevant, aside from leading to a bad end; I had to eventually look up a guide on the angel side to figure out which would lead to the good ending; the devil side was clearer; one good ending & 4 bad endings for each side; * Art - pretty and cohesive (all done in the same art styke); sprites look good; the characters actually have nipples; loved the backgrounds; the CGs are well done, though I feel they could've used slightly more of them for some scenes that are just narrated; sex scenes are uncensored (no patch needed) * Music - is pretty and fitting, but missing at certain times; might be intentional, not sure * Voices - it's voiced when characters actually speak and they're pretty good, especially the devil's voice * VN features - can't roll back, 100 save slots, can save at choices, you can lock saves so you don't overwrite / delete them; yes, you can delete saves; has log; skipping read text is kinda slow I recommend it, but you have to stick with it through the angel side at the start, which doesn't quite keep you glued to the game, despite the interesting premise. I still recommend doing angel side first, because devil side has a bit of a spoiler for angel side AND the devil side is better in every aspect.

Good or Evil, Dark or Light, Naughty or Nice…which will you choose? The Story A boy’s love visual novel that tells the story of a young sorcerer Lucil. His home is attacked and in his last moments Lucil’s grandfather teleports him to safety. Upon waking and beaten and burned he is approached by two figures; the sweet and gentle Flow (an angel) and Lovelia, a mischievous and dark demon. Lucil has been isolated for most of his life and just wanted to focus on perfecting his magical abilities away from anyone and everything. In the beginning he is introverted, untrusting of anyone and and well really unlikeable. Between the two possible romance routes you can pretty much guess what each potential mate will be like based on the fact that one is an angel and the other a demon. With Flow the romance is a slow burn but with Lobelia it is raw, upfront and dark. Disclaimer This game does have an adult patch you can grab from the developer’s website if you want the whole experience. I played the more clean version on Steam. But don’t mistake the clean version, it still has a lot of dark parts. It goes without saying that the demon route is darker and much rougher. Settings, Features & Gameplay Settings & features include; audio and text options, color changing options for text, screen mode, cursor settings, text speed, dialogue box transparency and text shadow and outlines. There is also a lot of customization for audio including controlling the volume of each voice, the background music volume during speaking and voice timing. (Very impressive set of options for overall settings). Text is easy to read and there are lots of save slots. Extras include a gallery divided into light and dark, endings and voice. Highlights * One really nice feature is you can return to a PREVIOUS choice right from in-game if you change your mind. * You CAN save at the choice moments before you decide * You can hide the hud for screencaps (press the icon that looks like a flower in a circle in the top right of the dialogue box however this game does not support the Steam overlay so you’ll need to take caps in another way. The Visuals & Audio The artwork in this game is beautiful, hand-crafted and rich in colour with the expected light and dark palettes used for the angel or demon routes. The backgrounds mesh well with the character art and overall there are some beautiful moments to capture. The novel is fully voiced, however, only in Japanese. I played with the voice work turned on as I like the immersion and I enjoy listening to different languages. The ambient sounds were very well done as well, footsteps, a fire crackling or the rain pouring really adds to the immersion. This novel does not support the Steam overlay or taking screencaps so I made a wallpaper to showcase some of the cg’s in the game (lots of beautiful art) https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3448121855 Overall Experience I honestly don’t play a lot of novels that veer off the more romantic, wholesome route very often as you can see in the majority of my reviews. I love feelgood games and cute stuff for the most part. This novel intrigued me and I knew what I was getting into before I bought it. I was taken with the dark and light aspects of the story and have read in others reviews how the transformation of the main character was more dramatic. The same is true in life too, dark times and pain break us and re-make us for good or bad. I played the demon route first and really enjoyed how it ended but the beginning was rough, Lobelia truly was evil in the start (as expected). I also enjoyed the good route and while Lucil’s transformation is more gradual I found it to be more natural. I really loved the relationship that formed between Lucil and Flow. It is certainly not a novel for everyone and the Steam version is much tamer than with the adult patch but trigger warnings should still be listed on the store page as the dark route is darke…