I've had Piofiore since it released in October, and only now have I sort of finished it. I've never taken this long to complete a game. It's not because the game is bad, it's just that I was feeling burnt out by visual novels (I think I've already mentioned this thousands of times before, oops), so I just couldn't be bothered to play half the time.
I actually didn't finish the Finale route (I got a bad ending and was too tired to restart), so technically I haven't finished the game, but I'm going to write this review anyway.
So... what are my thoughts on Piofiore?
(There are a few spoilers below, so beware!)
I read about this game ages ago and thought it would never ever be localised. I really just wanted to play it because of Yang. His route sounded like it would be quite entertaining, however, I thought that it was probably not the sort of thing that Aksys would want to localise. That's why I was surprised when they said that they were releasing it in English for the Switch. I managed to grab a copy days after it came out, with the free character cards too. The cards are quite cute, but I'm running out of places to display them.
For this first playthrough, I decided to take things slowly, so slowly that it took me almost half a year to get through. I completed all of the routes, and got a majority of the endings. I was going to finish the Finale route, but after getting some random bad ending, I just couldn't be bothered. Yes, I know video games aren't that tiring to play, but it was honestly getting difficult for me. Most of the time I have to play on my Switch is at the end of the day after I've been working, and my attention span just can't cope with visual novels.
Playing otome on the Switch isn't at all different to playing on the Vita or the PSP. Piofiore was originally a Vita game anyways, but I'm not sure if it's a direct port or if they added some extras. You just have to get used to a slight change in the controls, but the game lets you alter the button layout if you want.
Piofiore works like any other Otomate game, there's no extra mini games or mechanics. The only feature I haven't seen before is the Meanwhile Stories. They pop up in the middle of routes, and just show you what the other characters are going through at that current point in the story. I don't mind them, however sometimes I think they break up the plot a little bit.
The user interface is nice, it matches the setting quite well. I don't have much to say about the background music. It's nothing too extraordinary, except Yang's theme is actually quite excellent. The opening theme tune I didn't care for either, except I did like the piano bit near the end. There are three different ending songs. Those must've cost a lot of money to produce. I can't remember what any of them sound like, but that's probably because I skipped them most of the time.
What's really beautiful is Piofiore's art. It truly is the best I've seen for a while. The sprites for the love interests look good, and what's nicer is that most of the side characters get their own too. I adored most of the CGs, they were interesting and varied, not just multiple close-ups of the LI's face. You can really tell that this is one of the higher budget Otomate games.
I also love how much content is included. Of course, I was too lazy to go through it all, but that just leaves stuff for a later playthrough. The routes are really long, then there are three different main endings, all with CGs. You've got the good ending, the normal endings (I didn't think some of them were really worth reading), and then the bad endings. You've got your typical "I walked down the wrong path and now I'm dead!" endings, but they actually put effort into making some proper tragic ends that I really love. Sometimes I even loved them more than the good ends. What makes them even better is that the bad ends even come with after stories! As someone who appreciates bad endings, I'm very grateful. There are also two different after stories for the good ends, but some of them aren't locked, meaning you can technically play them before even reading the common route.
It's been forever since I've had to use a walkthrough for an otome, but I needed to with this one. Every single time I started a route, I'd get a bad ending. It's one of those games where the choices are more complex, and it's hard to deduce which one will win you affection with your chosen man. There's no affection meter or eye catch thing to tell you when you've made the right choice. I find that the more plot based Otomate games are usually like this. There is a status menu, but it doesn't really make sense to me. So, I had to use a walkthrough a lot. It was a bit annoying skipping through the routes all the time, but that's just part of the visual novel experience.
So, what is the plot of Piofiore?
The heroine, Liliana, is an orphan who grew up in a church. She lives in Burlone, this town in Italy that's ruled by these three mafia families. I have no idea if it's a real place or not. It turns out that Lili is actually the "Key Maiden", a special person chosen by the Church. The Key Maiden is supposed to be able to open up some sacred religious relic. I think they said that it was Jesus' body? I can't remember exactly.
Each route follows her adventures with Lili's chosen love interest. There's also the Finale route where Lili dates nobody, but I think it can branch off into a romance with the villain. I think it's one of those secret routes which only lasts for a chapter or so, a bit like the what's in games like Period Cube and 7'Scarlet.
The mafia drama plays out differently depending on what love interest you pick, like some characters will absolutely hate each other in some routes, while in others they'll work together. In what I read of the Finale route, all the LIs seem to be friends, which is nice.
The heroine is OK. I found her a bit annoying, because she's a bit naive and tries to fix everyone she meets. Those aren't terrible traits to have, but they don't help her stand out amongst the sea of other otome MCs. I wanted to know a bit more about her backstory, but I suppose I should've just finished the Finale route to find out.
The last otome I finished was DiaLovers, where there are literally no side characters, and nobody has a sprite apart from the love interests. It made me happy that Piofiore had plenty of side characters to make the world feel more lived in. My favourites were Leo (I hope he has a route in the fandisc) and Luca. There are also a few decent female characters, and they aren't annoying love rivals which is good.
Now, let's talk about the love interests. I'll just go through each one and their route in the order that I played them.
The first route I landed on was Nicola's. It was probably the best one to start on, since it had no relation to the main Key Maiden plot. I didn't really care too much for Nicola as a character, he didn't interest me too much. The romance in his route was quite predictable for me. I managed to land on the yandere bad ending first, which was quite entertaining. I do love myself a surprise yandere twist. The good ending I can't really remember, to be honest. I thought that the normal end was much better, because Lili and Nicola get to travel the world on the run, which is more exciting than staying in Burlone.
Next, I used a walkthrough to romance Yang. He was what I bought the game for, after all. I'm glad to say that he did not disappoint. His route was actually slightly racier than I expected. Of course, there was plenty of plot related stuff, but the romance was trashy enough to entertain me. I have no idea why Lili fell in love with him, though. Yang is probably at his best in the Finale, but he's fun in every route. I just love his voice, and his hair, his abs, pretty much everything about him.
During his route I used DiaLovers logic, thinking that the most submissive choices would lead to the best ending. They don't. Yang just gets bored of Lili and throws her away. You don't even get a CG. The proper bad ending and its subsequent after story were quite good. I tried to get the normal ending and got very confused, because it doesn't even end happily! I was thinking I had picked the wrong choices, even though they were what the walkthrough was telling me to select. The good ending is fine too, and the after story is hilariously trashy. I expected a lot of Western fans to hate Yang, but he's surprisingly quite popular.
After Yang, I went onto Dante's route. I think it was a full chapter longer than all the others. There was a lot of plot, but the romance was good. Dante is probably one of the best possible suitors for Lili. He has a decent personality and doesn't seem to have any hidden dark side. That's all I really have to say.
I liked Orlok's route quite a bit. Usually I'm not into the younger love interests, but Orlok's not too bad. He had quite a bit of character development, which is always good. It sort of felt like Lili was more of his older sister than a lover, which they actually touched on in the after story. I never played the tragic ending, even though my walkthrough said that it contained "important plot elements". It was nice seeing Orlok slowly come out of his shell. I did like seeing his relationships with other characters grow, like with Luca and the kids in the church.
My favourite route turned out to be the last one I played, Gilbert's. It had the best plot and the best romance. In parts, it reminded me of some of the traditional romance novels I read in the past. I don't really know why, maybe Gilbert's similar to the love interests in those books, or maybe it was because he bought Lili lots of clothes (which seems to happen a lot in the novels I've read).
Gilbert is my favourite love interest out of the bunch. Yes, I like him even more than Yang. He's just so charming and handsome, plus he's voiced by Showtaro Morikubo. It's probably not a coincidence that he sounds like and looks almost exactly similar to Code Realize's Impey. I would probably date Gilbert in real life, he's just that wonderful.
The plot in his route wasn't just the same old mafia drama or Key Maiden nonsense, it was about a counterfeit money case where Gilbert was falsely accused of being behind it. The bad ending was so angsty, I absolutely loved it. It came with a really pretty CG that could probably make a decent desktop wallpaper. Gilbert and his route were well worth playing through the other four love interests to unlock.
I really did enjoy Piofiore: Fated Memories. If I wasn't feeling so burnt out by visual novels, I probably would've finished it a lot quicker and liked it more. Its quality is probably on the same level as the other plot-heavy Otomate games like Hakuoki and Code: Realize. I wouldn't say that it's one of my favourite otome games, but if I had played it a few years ago it probably would've been. :
I believe there might already be two fandiscs for Piofiore out in Japan. It sounds like the English release of the first game was successful, so I expect that Aksys might localise at least one of them eventually. Let's hope that they don't have many translation errors! Piofiore wasn't too bad for mistakes, but I did spot some occasionally.
I'll probably finish that Finale route and romance the Direttore one day. It won't take long to complete, it's just getting the motivation to start that's difficult. Unfortunately I stumbled across a few of the CGs
It's likely that I'm going to take a proper break from otome games for now, but I'll probably check out whatever new localisations come. I suppose I could check out some non-localised titles, but Switch games are already expensive enough, importing them from Japan is just going to be more of a drain on my funds.
I hope you enjoyed reading this review. See you later!
(Do you like the blog's new banner? I know it's not perfect, but I'm not very good at using Photoshop. I just sort of followed the trend other blogs have by using a random CG behind fancy text.)
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