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Review of Ren'ai x Royale

SubjectRen'ai x Royale
Ren'ai x Royale - First Press Edition
ByHelpfulness: 10
Vote: 5.4
Mrkew on 2020-12-26
ReviewThis is a game about one girl, Kagaya Yuna. Now, if you go to the game page you will find out that she is not on the cover screen with the 4 main heroines. That's right, she is a side heroine. Yet you can with utmost certainty say that she is one of the main characters and the most important one at that. She is both a blessing and a curse of this novel. Her presence in the plot and in MC's past is what moves this whole VN. Coming from their last game, Renai Karichaimashita, I had high expectations for ASa Project's new work. Yuna is what ruined this whole VN for me, yet she is an angel whose route is a true pleasure to read.

I should say she is not a side heroine on the same level as standard ASaPro side heroines. They typically get a 10 minute joke route. In fact, there are two such side heroines in this game, and then there are 2 other side heroines whom you are forced to fuck in the main heroine routes. No, Yuna is different from all of them. As there isn't a moege reader who is not familiar with Yuzusoft, I can easily make a comparison to their games. Think Wakana's route From Sanoba Witch. A 2-hour route which does things well, yet is clearly on a much smaller scale than the main heroines' routes. For a specific comparison, Yuna's route is about 60% the length of the main heroine's routes, and she gets 5 CG (plus some SD), compared to 15-17 CG that the main heroines get.

It is impossible to explain why she has such an immense impact on all the characters and the reader's experience without resorting to minor spoilers (you find this out in the prologue) - Yuna is the protagonist's ex-girlfriend, whom he dated for several weeks one year before the plot of the game, and they both still love each other. Now it is obvious to everyone that the only possible route for romance in this "romcom" is Yuna's. All the other ones were ruined in that aspect before even beginning the game. And ironically enough, the game itself points this out - screenshot on imgur. The remaining part of romcom is comedy, which I see as the entire point of the main heroines' routes. I read the first hour of Mari's route, and I was appalled by the brazen cold-heartedness of the writer. I could not take the brutality any longer and went for Yuna's route, after which I closed the game. There is simply no way I could ever reconsider and read their routes.

This is a game about a single heroine, who was betrayed by the company that made her. The most important girl in this story, who gets nothing but a side route. But I will be damned if that isn't one great route.
10 points
#1 by gallicy
2022-10-01 at 11:17
< report >I consider that "side route" as a "hidden true route" of the game.