International visual novel publisher Jast USA had already impressed me this year with their English localized release of Steins;Gate, and in all honesty I was not expecting any subsequent release in 2014 to surpass it in any way. With that in mind, I dived into Girlish Grimoire Littlewitch Romanesque (Shoujo Mahou Gaku Little Witch Romanesque // 少女魔法学 リトルウィッチロマネスク) curious about what to expect given the events that took place prior to Jast’s acquisition of it, but also skeptical that it could fail to balance what sounded like an interesting premise with the erotic content you tend to see in adult-oriented visual novels.
However, what I found was that the storyline tended to push the adult content to one side and instead constructed an enticing world of magic that was both entertaining and well detailed. Ultimately this ended up being the first “magic-oriented” storyline since J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter franchise to keep me genuinely excited from start to finish, and then enticed me into a second playthrough to tie up some loose ends. While there are plenty of visual novels being released every month in Japan, Jast USA have highlighted that there are still plenty of gems from past years that deserve a chance to shine on the international stage.
Storyline / Character Development
Girlish Grimoire Littlewitch Romanesque takes place in a world of magic named Stella Mundo, a shadow of its former self compared to 1,000 years ago where magical towers were scatted across the landscape and those with immense magical abilities resided. Players follow a young man named Domino, who is the youngest wizard of his time to hold the title of ‘Archmage’. His desire is to study the ‘Dark Tower’, where many mysteries and ancient magical relics from the previous millennia lie.
While he is given permission to reside in and explore the tower, the mages society known as “Grimoire” put a particular restriction on him doing so. In three years he must be able to successfully tutor two young mages-in-training, the two girls being particularly troubling cases. While training a fully-fledged mage usually takes decades of training, if the girls fail a single end-of-year exam then they get sent back to study at Grimoire’s HQ and Domino’s tower exploration privileges are rescinded. With Aria Vancleef (The outgoing and eccentric daughter of a noble family) and Kaya Xavier (An orphan who has led a fairly sheltered life) in tow, the trio begin studying in and investigating their new home – with the assistance of an ever growing group of ladies and gents that they aquatint themselves with.
While Littlewitch Romanesque purports to have players take on the role of Domino, the perspective constantly shifts between the Archmage and his two adorable apprentices. Both Aria and Kaya have their own intriguing backstories and distinct personalities that are both explored and utilized during the main storyline, with opportunities to further explore them depending on the actions you take in-game. Both are a pleasure to follow on their journey from complete novices in magic to being competent mages by the time three years are up.
The trio are complemented by a sizable cast of additional characters who flow in and out of the story, with many of the secondary female characters also having additional story events and a ending route associated with them. Certain events are dictated by how you choose to progress through the game as will be discussed a little bit later, while others are time-sensitive or compulsory events.
One of the things I loved most about Girlish Grimoire Littlewitch Romanesque was that you are never left for any period of time without a particular event occurring. At the beginning and end of every week you are always treated to at least a small event involving the different characters, which helps keep the story moving. The storyline is further constructed by events that occur every time either Aria or Kaya learns a new spell or undertakes a particular quest. As this is a visual novel about two girls learning magic, it was good to see how creative the writers were at incorporating their learning and use of spells into the storyline. These range from comical events arising from one of the two practicing a spell they had just learned, to each quest where the spells required to undertake them have some practical application. With more than 100 spells to learn (With each girl having their own unique set of spells alongside shared ones), a large range of quests to undertake and many characters to see developed, there is plenty to last you multiple playthroughs.
Adult Content
I personally have no issue with visual novels that exclusively or heavily feature adult content. What I do dislike however is when you have a great storyline that is needlessly interrupted or ruined in order to deliver some sex scene that has no particular purpose in the plot. Littlewitch Romanesque is unusual in the way that while it is an 18+ visual novel, you can spend most of your playtime convinced that it has been written for an all-ages audience. In my first playthrough, there were a few scenes involving the architect Mariella (Everytime she finished a particular room in the tower) and a single scene involving the catgirl Tillet. Apart from these short moments, at most there was a little bit of visual and in-text fanservice on behalf of Aria and Kaya. That being said, my playtest only unlocked ≈30% of all CG artwork, meaning that I could very well have been lucky with how I progressed.
Certain character routes, quests and the bonus post-game chapters do contain more erotic content, however even there are still not greatly impaired by the inclusion.This is very fortunate for Jast USA and their Steam Greenlight campaign for the “Editio Regia” edition of Girlish Grimoire Littlewitch Romanesque, as there are clear moments that could be cut and wouldn’t require too much additional localization to bypass.
As you may see from other promotional images for this edition (Not included in this review), there are at least a few pieces of eroge CG artwork for every female character. This does include Aria and Kaya which may not be to everyone’s tastes. Unfortunately there are no means of disabling these scenes until the “Editio Regia” edition is launched on Steam.
Gameplay
Making your way through Girlish Grimoire Littlewitch Romanesque isn’t just a simple matter of clicking the mouse button over and over again to make your way through text. The game is split up into 156 weeks which are further broken down into 3 years of 13 months each. Each week can be considered a “turn”, where you can opt to teach one girl a new spell, hold classes for both girls or have them undertake a particular quest. This essentially follows a pattern of you giving lessons to the girls, using earned skill points to unlock a new spell and then using the new spells in quests.
Lessons involve a rather rudimentary dice-based minigame where each girl is given three dice (One each supplied based on the girl, the instructor and the room) with one of six different figures on each side (Knowledge, Experience, Intuition, Wisdom, Instinct and All-5). These are then rolled, with spirit points given depending on which of the faces it lands on. Initially you are prevented from accumulating huge amounts of points, but as you unlock spells these can be used during each of the six throws you gain each week to add additional dice, gain additional points for every roll, earn a multipler or one of several other effects. It is possible to use spells by rolling the correct combination with your three main dice, “bumping” a dice onto the correct face (Which risks your character losing a portion of their accumulated points) or by sacrificing all collected points to roll a particular value. It is easy to force the game into giving you a moderate amount of points, but gaining anything more requires both skill and luck. Points eventually accumulate into spirits which can then be traded into spells.
It isn’t a particularly in-depth system, but there is enough strategy and luck involved that you won’t necessarily just skip through each dice throw with the CTRL button. In fact, that is pretty much the only way I can see someone really struggling to pass the annual exams (Which is essentially the dice game but with additional restrictions).
Each quest Aria and Kaya undertake are restricted by a number of required spells they need to have learned, in addition to a time limit associated with them. Because of these requirements, it is very unlikely that you will be able to get through many of them in a single playthrough. Quests themselves are nothing more than individual story events that see the girls and occasionally another character undertaking a particular task as part of their training. There are noticeable perks with doing quests however, which include earning spirit bottles which allow both girls to carry additional types of spirits to trade in for spells, improving a characters affection for Domino and earning diplomas that are required for the girls to unlock particular character endings after their three years are up.
It is another system that is well implemented, but as someone who went into this without reading the manual first, I do have a few pieces of advice. First off, at the beginning both Aria and Kaya share similar spells. Do note that when checking out spell requirements for a quest, cards in red represent Aria while cards in blue represent Kaya. It is possible to get them mixed up and needlessly use your meager number of spirits on the wrong spell. Secondly, opting to do an epilogue quest (Star Symbol) will immediately cancel any progression in the game – so make sure to save before doing one.
Design / Music / Voice Acting
Girlish Grimoire Littlewitch Romanesque features a good amount of CG artwork from Japanese illustrator Oyari, ranging from more detailed full-screen artwork to signify a major scene or erotic moment to smaller and often light-hearted images used to complement an event or section of dialogue. Most of the artwork is of a high standard, and can be viewed at your leisure once unlocked in the game’s gallery. The character portraits and background artwork as you will have seen above is also of a high standard, further complementing the setting. However unlike the plentiful supply of CG artwork, it is possible to feel like they are looping you through the same handful of character portraits (Characters only have one or two clothing designs) and backdrops.
One of my favourite inclusions however was that developer Littlewitch opted to, for the most part, ditch the traditional “text at the bottom” approach used by visual novels. Instead, dialogue and inner thoughts are presented via speech bubbles and text boxes. It isn’t a major difference, but it allowed for easy identification of whom said what, and felt like another element they have tacked on to highlight that this isn’t your ordinary visual novel.
Like all of their other visual novels, Jast USA have opted to retain the original Japanese voice acting in Girlish Grimoire Littlewitch Romanesque. The dub itself is of a very high quality, with each voice actor/actress representing their character well. Unlike some English dubs we have recently seen in localizations of Japanese video games, this is a complete dub – with every major and minor scene featuring spoken dialogue.
Final Words on Girlish Grimoire Littlewitch Romanesque
Girlish Grimoire Littlewitch Romanesque is the first visual novel since Steins;Gate that I have been left feeling incredibly enthusiastic about, and it is for more or less a completely different reason. While Steins;Gate rewards you with a complex plot and intellectually stimulating concept, Littlewitch Romanesque provides a simpler and more approachable story, but compliments it with many comical moments and some more serious plot events should you choose to follow them. As I said in the second paragraph of this review, Jast USA have shown that there are still hidden gems to unearth in visual novels from the last decade. This is one of those gems.
Where to Buy
There are currently two ways you can purchase Girlish Grimoire Littlewitch Romanesque, with very little price difference between the two. The first way is to purchase a digital download edition through Jast USA’s newly updated website, which should be available to download shortly if not immediately after purchase. The second is a special physical edition available exclusively through J-List that comes with a large game box, pencil-board illustration cards and a 16-page full colour manual.
Disclosure
I would like to acknowledge that a pre-release PC download copy of Girlish Grimoire Littlewitch Romanesque was provided to me by Jast USA. This review is for the “Editio Perfecta” edition, however much of what is discussed should hopefully transition over to the all-ages Steam edition currently in the works.
Final Score
Storyline / Character Development: A-
Design: A-
Music / Voice Acting: A
Gameplay: B
Replayability: B+
System: A
Personal Opinion: A
Final Score: A-
This review is currently being transitioned over to the new review system.
You know how to write, mate! Liked reading your review; very comprehensive, very well done. I’m playing the game as well and can agree with most of what you said. I linked your review on my Tumblr to improve your exposure a little bit. 😉
Merry Christmas! Kampai!
From your review it looks like a game that shouldnt be skipped, however considering the height of the two main heroines and your opinion that the sex scenes were forced, It looks like the “All Ages Port” is the way to go.
My concern is that while there’s only a limited number of H-scenes, the amount of fanservice with clearly underage girls is quite high and likely to cause outcry on Steam from people who mistake it for a different sort of game.
It would be a good fit for a Vita port, a console that is already interested in highly suggestive but not quite H anime games, although even they might insist on adding a bathing suit to Aria in her teacup. But it will never be an “all ages” title. It’s an M game.