Making Lovers

Making Lovers is a VN with a unique perspective in relation to other VN's that I have been doing reviews on. I hesitated on giving this the tag of 'Adult Game' and '18+' because the game itself has no H-Scene's in it nor does it really have much in the way of nudity. However, it does have sexual situations, language, and does a good job of letting you know the main protag and the girl of their choice has performed the deed. So because of that, I feel that it is only right to give those tags to it.

Making Lovers takes a new perspective in the fact that as most VN's that focus on love and relationships, and tend to spend the majority of their time on the story that leads up to the big reveal that the protag has fallen for a certain character. Then the VN usually gives only snippets of what happens after said protag and character start dating leaving that part up to the imagination. 

Making Lovers does not really do that and instead, the beginning is the set up for your protag (as you can change the name of the protag in the game) to choose one of five different female characters to hook up with. Once you determine the path you wish to go down with the character you wish to be with the rest of the VN is the story of what happens after dating begins and in essence, makes the title perfect for this VN. It is not about so much the lead-up but truly becoming lovers or 'Making Lovers' and the trials and tribulations that take place during the dating phase of the relationship.

As I said earlier there are five different characters that you can become lovers with, each have their own personality, unique traits, temperaments, ideologies, ambitions, and so on. The character you choose also, in turn, determines some of the traits of the protag. I could rant how I don't much care for that as I think a protag should be established in his own right but I digress.

The five girls are Ako the younger sister of the protag, Karen the former college classmate of the protag, Reina a model that the protag meets after an accident he's involved in, Saki the older working woman that he meets by chance alone, and Mashiro a restaurant employee you help after handling a situation for her.  

I won't go into a great deal of overview of each character because as I stated each has its own unique individualism that honestly is refreshing for these types of games and while some of the characters are somewhat cliche of what you expect these types of women to be they do offer some new perspectives that are refreshing.

There are not many choices to be made sadly and the endings are pretty much decided the moment that you figure out what woman it is that you wish to be with which is a bit sad but at the same time the VN focuses well on telling the story of the protag and the chosen girl. Now one of the girls I am sure you have the most question of is Ako which is the younger sister of the protag. 

So let me go ahead and make it clear...she is not related to him by blood, instead you find out if you choose her route how he came to live with her and her family. While I have played all the routes and like this route in the story the ending was lackluster in my opinion and honestly is my only real complaint about this game. While the other endings for the other girls all seemed pretty well thought out and written, the younger sisters ending Ako felt more of an afterthought and that was kind of depressing.

This game has some pretty good graphics and uses a pretty good 'Sprite' System that helps the graphic content shine through and seem pristine. The music is also very well done and lays itself well to the game, however, my only complaint is that they do have several tracks that while fun is overused and one track that seems to pop up in both the right and wrong places. 

All in all this game was a lot of fun to play and the stories that are developed really strike a chord with anyone that enjoys this type of VN like I do. The new perspective and incite is nice and the fact that it follows different futures with each girl after determining they were never leaving one another is a nice new approach. Also, there is a lot of comedy in it as well that I found helped lighten the mood and really develop the protag and characters even more so. It is a nice balance of comedy, romance and in some thoughts...drama a little. 

For the price of this game, it was worth it, this game is still somewhat new on Steam and in the US Market place so I am sure there will be more developments coming including the H-Scene's that I have seen for the Japanese version. So I expect that to be an update at some point which will then make this game match the 18 and older rating that I have on it.