Source: Cashmoneys
Price: £26.99 (£36.13 for all audio dramas and Full Chorus DLC, Full Chorus £7.19, OST £3.99)
Where To Get It: Steam

Content Warnings: Lesbian Sex, Masturbation, Teacher-Student Relationship.

It’s nice to see a wholesome game. And Yuri (known as “Girls love”) is, overall, a pretty wholesome genre. After all, even if it can get pretty steamy, the focus is, generally speaking, on the love part. The feelings. And so, we come to My Heart Grows Fonder. Which, at the time of writing this first paragraph (yes, reviewers often write reviews piecemeal, and edit them as they go on), I have given a nickname: Disaster Lesbian Yuritopia. Not only because that last word, along with the use of the phrase “Yuri Goggles” (A bit like Gaydar), are just two of the funny moments in the game, but because yes, the story of the game mostly involves ensuring girls who like girls actually get to say that to girls.

All because of two ghosts, who don’t think they can pass on until they know what lesbian sex actually is. So… Yeah, that’s your premise, and while it sounds silly or weird at first pass, it’s actually a pretty interesting one!

Now, let’s get straight into the writing, because, as I often say, a VN is carried by its writing. And the writing… Is very good. There are multiple viewpoints, and even outside those, you get a good sense of each character’s personality, which then gets confirmed and expanded upon. And each has some wonderful and interesting moments. Such as perhaps the biggest disaster lesbian of the game, Tsurugimine Kiri, mathematically proving she’s gay for her teacher, and losing it. Yes, sometimes it hits you that way. But even when times are bad, you understand it, because the feelings are written so well… Like when our main protagonist, Toomi Yuna, tries to help the most helpful teacher in school, and she doesn’t want to make such a lovely teacher sad… But she has to help, once she’s gotten in this far. Because she’s changed, from a distant person, to someone who wants to help, even if she hasn’t realised it.

So, it’s actually engaging with its subject of matters of the heart. Even the painful ones. The evasions we make. The lies we tell, both ourselves and others. And it permeates through the entire cast. And not all of these conclusions to their stories are happy. But they are conclusions, and the characters grow because of it.

Of course, helping this is the music, on point, cheery overall, but shifting to sad, bitter, or bittersweet tunes, and the expressiveness of the characters. The nervous headgrasp of Kiri, struggling with the revelation of her queerness. The cheery enthusiasm of Youka, who’s found herself, but struggles with, y’know, everything else… Everyone has a good visual design, and it shows.

Now… Obviously, a good critique would be less than useful if there weren’t things that don’t land so well. And one bugged me from the moment I learned about it: Extra scenes. The potential to earn them only unlocks after the game’s been played through once, and if you don’t know which ones are the ones (although they’re all scenes with a choice), or which choices lead to a new scene, you may be annoyed, even with a skip function, as with most VNs. I’m much less irritable with the fact you have to play out a month to see the couple scenes, and how the relationship has progressed, since that gives you a little extra to look forward to along with the moments in the main story.

Finally, there’s one particular storyline that can be misinterpreted. I sorta have to talk about this one, because there’s a big taboo (and, an understandable one) about student/teacher relationships. And yet, people told me they got a creeper vibe from the relationship between Tsugurimine Kiri, and her teacher, and… I don’t see it. I see it in the following light: Student has fallen for their teacher. Teacher tells them it’s just a crush, a misunderstanding, and they’ll grow out of it. But they begin to realise that they, also, are in love with Kiri. It’s revealed she was once on the receiving end of such a comment (A Misunderstanding.) She even acknowledges the taboo of the situation. She struggles with it, but she can’t hide from herself, and the strength of Kiri, who takes a path she didn’t… Persevering. Is it still taboo? Funnily enough, that’s acknowledged. It’s engaged with by the characters. So while I mention it because it might turn people off, or even squick people out, because yes, it’s explicitly sexual, it also deals with its subject.

So, overall, the writing utterly charmed me. The aesthetics, I liked. Shit, time to mention there’s even some good lines from the cast every time you get to the title screen, including one of the ghosts (Megumi, the cheery one, as opposed to Sachi, the reserved one) asking… “I wonder what a… ‘Yuri’ is?”

There’s a lot of gold lines in here, it deals with the emotional rollercoaster that is realising you’re gay, and trying to find someone to be with, and as such, it’s well worth a look.

The Mad Welshman appreciates good queer rep. And this is pretty good queer rep.

Filed under: Adult Only Games, Game Reviews, Games Gone By by admin

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