Virtual Ties: Isekaijoucho Träumerei

If you like isekaijoucho you will like this game. Edit after finishing: This game is seriously amazing, especially act 2! Isekaijoucho and the writers really nailed some of the more serious themes and I cried during the finale. I even had nightmares about some of the bad endings!

As a Jouchohead, it is peak. But I wouldn't recommend it (especially at full price) for those not familiar with Kamitsubaki Studio. The writing is about average at best, and its fairly short at under 10 hours. It's soulful and heartwarming though! Lots of great CGs and music, the voice acting is pretty good, and I loved seeing Sekai's journey as Isekaijoucho and her feelings mirror her real life counterpart.

Hey, you. Yes, you. Our eyes met. That means we'll talk about Isekaijoucho. Specifically, her very own game. Hello! After completing the whole game and getting all achievements, i feel ready to review this wonderful game that took me by storm. As how it always is on my reviews for games from Kamitsubaki, i have to disclose 2 things before we start getting into the review itself, which are : 1. I am a Kamitsubaki fan. While i will try my best on delivering a critical and unbiased view on the game, take everything i say with a grain of salt, and assume that there WILL be bias in my review, no matter how miniscule. 2. My whole review is based on me finishing the game in the Japanese language. Your milage and experience might vary when playing in different languages. Without further ado, let's get into the review! How long is the game? Virtual Ties ~Isekaijoucho Träumerei~ is a relatively short game. For the base scenario itself, you can read the whole thing in just around 3 hours. As it is a visual novel game, it features multiple endings and your playtime will bloat up when trying to get different endings, but strictly speaking on how many hours of scenario you'll get, i think the game offers around up to 8 hours total of story. You can definitely clear this game in a few days. Story The game features a total of 12 different endings. The aspect of the story that i really liked is that, with both of our main casts being, and actually acting like highschoolers- in other words, minors, they don't act the most rational, and are riddled with the limitations and imperfections of youth. Combine that with them carrying a grand ambition of hitting it big as a Virtual Idol, their tale becomes a deeply endearing, and inspiring story that tugs on your heartstrings. The story takes you through a wide spectrum of situations, from heartwarming, sunny days into quiet, heart-wrenching nights. It illustrates the realities of living as a Virtual Idol, what effects could it have on one's private life, and the best part? All of this tale, is delivered right to you from the currently active IRL Virtual Singer Isekaijoucho, the very planner of this game herself. When we read the story with that in mind, the line separating this game from just another fictional tale, or as a window into someone’s life begins to blur, making every event feel more direct and compelling. I really believe, that this is a strong point potentially unique only to Virtual Ties ~Isekaijoucho Träumerei~ and what separates it from other pieces of media that covers similar topics. Gameplay The game features an Idol Training minigame that appears time to time throughout the story. The minigame itself is very simple, and you'll get endings according to how you trained Sekai in that run. The game does not tell you directly on how to achieve every ending available, but they laid out very intuitive clues on the minigame part, which leaves little work for the player to guess on what gets you a different ending. RNG plays a part in this minigame, but barely does an impact in failing your attempt on securing a specific ending, unless...you're that unlucky. Visuals & Audio Bits Overall, the visuals are great. For the backgrounds, most are pretty much in-line with your average visual novels, with a few that feels unique to this game. The character stills felt sufficient. While there are no pose variants, they provide enough facial expression varieties to each character for them to be expressive and fit with the voicelines. However, they definitely provided generous amount of unique CGs especially when you consider the game's total length. Most of these unique CGs are also complete with expression variants and definitely do an amazing job in capturing the mood of the moment, and some of them are just beautiful pieces that stirs your heart after you lived through those particular moments in the story. For audio, let's talk voice acting first of all. The game features an almost…