Yandere Translations

Muv-Luv series review: 1 of 3
This review will review Muv-Luv Extra, the first half of the game Muv-Luv, made by age.

Overall score: 7/10

Plot summary:

A girl named Meiya suddenly appears before a normal student called Shirogane Takeru. She intrudes into his house and starts living with him. This incident changes his relationship with his childhood friend, Sumika, and his classmates, Chizuru, Ayamine, and Tama…

*Play time: Around 20 hours total.

Characters:

Shirogane Takeru: Main character. Random, dense, stupid. Typical eroge protag.
Kagami Sumika: Cheerful, clutz. Childhood friend.
Mitsurugi Meiya: Rich, noble, and sincere girl. Long ponytail.
Sakaki Chizuru: Responsible class rep. Glasses.
Ayamine Kei: Quiet random type.
Tamase Miki: Short loli. Innocent and puppy-like.
Jinguuji Marimo: Teacher. Kind and caring.

Story: 7/10

This is a generic school romance harem game. It has romance, moe, and comedy. The story in the first half is pure love comedy with the girls fighting over the protag. I actually liked the comedy, but the common route was way too long. As for the individual routes, some were really good while some just weren’t. A lot of things were foreseeable and convenient, but the routes did expand on a lot of things and developed the characters very nicely. The biggest negative point for me is the main character. He was really dense, undecisive (in some routes), and really inconsiderateto the point that it really irritated me.

Graphics: 7/10

The graphic is good. I don’t see anything wrong with it. There was a lot of small rough sketch-like scenes for comedy.

Music: 6/10

The music is average, good at best. Some music sounds very “familiar”, too. They help create the atmosphere of the game, but does nothing more. The opening song is pretty good, but I didn’t really like the ending song.

System: 3/10

The system is terrible. It doesn’t have serious bugs or anything, but it can’t be any worse when it comes to user-friendliness. First, it has sound mode, movie mode, CG mode, and recollection (H) mode from the title. This is fine, but the format it’s in is terrible. It’s like trying to navigate through choices, and the CG menu is the worst. You can’t just right click to exit, the CG list automatically scrolls when the curser moves to the bottom/upper part of the screen, meaning you can only click on CGs in the middle. The in-game settings are much better, but I have to say there aren’t enough things you can change. It has text speed, character speech colors, among other things. The worst is how to save/load. You can’t save/load with one click and you’re forced to comment during saves. There isn’t return to title, or skip ALL effects. Overall, it was very annoying.

Effect: 9/10

The effects in this game are really, really good. There are camera movements, background scroll, sound effects, character sprite movements… so much to enhance gameplay experience. Characters move around the screen and you can really see how they are located and their interactions. It really helps creat the atmosphere of the game. The only downside is that some scenes force you to be on slow autoread, which annoys fast and impatient readers like me.

Ero: 3/10

Each character gets one scene (in Muv-Luv Extra) with two CGs. Most felt out of place since sex occurred right after the confession of love. (Chizuru Hscene was the worst. They finally manage to get out of trouble with the school, then start having sex in the classroom? WTF) The scenes itself are short, but decent. Nothing more.

Overall: 7/10

This is a generic moe game with nothing much special about it. Play this game for the peaceful daily life. But, this game instantly becomes a must-play after considering the fact that this game is an introduction for Muv-Luv Alternative. With that said, this game still functions as a standalone and it is enjoyable by itself. Also, Meiya is moe.

Recommended for: People who like generic moe harem, people who want lots of comedy, people who want good effects, and people who want good characters.
Not recommended for: People who want a sex romp, people who want a good tempo, and people who want surprising turn of events.