2012 -- 5.0 / 10
IMPORTANT CONTENT NOTE: While this game is R17/R15, it deals A LOT with sexual assault, dubious consent and domestic abuse, incest themes and suicide. Proceed with caution as all of these elements WILL be discussed.
Spoilers will be discussed as well and NOT tagged.
The year is 2013. I've begun that stage where I stopped watching a ton of anime, but a few have reeled me back in, enough to stay interested. On my search for something new, I come across one that seems to feature hot sexy vampires and pretty art, so I dive in. I don't think I ever watched more than a full episode nor did I have a concrete opinion about it, but this stayed with me as "oh, yeah, I remember that anime airing, I liked the designs."
This overall left very little mark on me at the time. The first episode didn’t immediately capture me and I wasn’t into visual novels at the time. However, recently, I remembered it as I was looking for something new to play.
Going into this I knew nothing about it minus the basics: It’s a visual novel about edgy vampire boys and you live with them. I kept my character’s name as the standard Yui (ユイ to be specific– because 1. I wanted to keep it standard and 2. I didnt really know or look into how to get that part in English lol) and started my journey.
The intro tells you the following: Yui is the daughter of a priest who fucks off to some European country and tells his daughter go stay with some super distant relative that you’ve never met in some big creepy mansion with some connection to the church. Yui goes and uncovers there’s seemingly no relative but there’s a bunch of sibling vampire freaks who want her blood. She has to pick a guy and say she’ll give them her blood, or else I guess she’s going to die.
The #vampboyz
Before I discuss the individual routes, I want to discuss how the game is played.
You pick one of 6 guys– though you only have 3 to start with (Kanato, Ayato, and Laito) until you finish 1 route– and play through various vignettes of storyline. You can choose to exit out of these storylines and go to another at any time, so it’s not like you’re really locked in if you’re not vibing with one (unless you hate all 3 starting guys. Which in that case, you might want to cut your losses and turn off the game.)
Each guy has a schema to their routes in terms of sub-sections– Dark, Mania, Ecstasy and Endings. There is a bonus scenario for all of them called Heaven mode, but you only unlock it after finishing a route and it has no bearing on gameplay/endings.
In each of these categories (sans Endings and Heaven), you have a prologue, epilogue, 5 events that’ll raise your love points if you choose the correct answer, and 5 that’ll raise either your S(adistic) or M(asochistic) stat. The SM stats determine which ending you get ultimately. There’s also a followup to the SM events that’s called Heaven mode. Truth be told, I used a guide this whole game. Judging by the name maybe it effects getting the Heaven scenario but I didn’t want to fuck around and find out for reasons that’ll become clear later.
Now that the base system explanation is out of the way, before I get into the individual storylines, I would like to say: I love the idea of the SM system conceptually, but I think it sucks in terms of this game. I think I had a much cooler idea of it in my head than what it actually ended up being.
Without spoiling individual routes, the big issue with it is it feels poorly implemented and more of a way to give the game a little kick without committing to something interesting. By the idea of a SM meter, you'd think "Well, maybe some characters will respond better to M actions vs S actions"-- and you'd be wrong. Every character's best ending requires only M-choices, and it's not really hard to guess which actions are which. It barely even changes dialogue in game, and usually when you choose a S choice Yui is like “Omg that was so weird why did I say that!” I will say there IS a reason why this happens... But it feels incredibly lame when you think what this system could’ve been like.
The choices in this game man. Woof.
To further discuss anything, I should get to the characters.
As I mentioned, you had the choice to start with Ayato, Laito and Kanato. I felt like the game pushes you most towards Ayato, but I went with Kanato first. Why? He had the best initial vibe– creepy, but compared to Ayato calling Yui “Tiny Tits” and Laito calling her “Bitch-chan”... I think it was an easy pick. However, I’ll start with Ayato.
To make this easier, a quick guide:
Cordelia = Mother to Ayato, Kanato, Laito
Richter = Paternal Uncle to the #vampboyz
Karlheinz = Dad to the #vampboyz
I don’t remember the names of Subaru’s mother, nor Shuu and Reiji’s and I really don’t care to look it up.
Ending 01 = This is the “good” ending; Requires mainly M points
Ending 02 = Bad? Ending; Requires mainly S points
Ending 03 = Mid?? Ending?? If you go good ending first, you can get this one second easily, hence why this usually is written 2nd.
I hate this pose. Don't piss me off. He does it constantly. LOSER!!!!!!!!
Storyline
Let me cut to the chase: Ayato is fucking annoying and a sex pest. I think we’re supposed to view him as softer on the inside because he won’t drink Yui’s blood when she’s passed out... But sexually harasses her all the time. He also has a jealous streak– a trait shared by every guy in this game– where they can degrade and be downright sadistic to this girl, but only THEY can do it. Ontop of this, when you finally do get to the point of sexual activity, it’s pretty much dubious consent and he complains she doesn’t struggle... Which.........
I can’t even say his route is your typical “Acts like a dick, but he comes around and becomes sweeter”. ¾ of the way through, some actions include: tying Yui up like a dog and abandoning her, sweeping her feet for talking to Shuu (one of the other brothers) and proceeding to step on her, tearing her clothes, leaving scars (so much so that he remarks on it), isolating her and telling her if she talks to other guys he’ll make her unable to move, pushing her into a freezing lake for not paying attention to him (and instead to stars), getting mad at her for another girl putting makeup on her and having strangers look at her– then seemingly proceeding to hit her and sexually assault her in public, forcing her to kiss him lest he drop her onto a chair with nails, and attacking her with a knife.
We do get an insight into his childhood and similarly the lore backing this whole game (something that they beat worse than a dead horse). To make a long story short: Ayato, Kanato and Laito share the same mother, Cordelia. Cordelia abused all of them because she wanted the most special child ever to rule over the vampires or whatever.
We learn that the brothers’ (all of them) uncle, Richter, put Cordelia’s heart into Yui after Ayato killed her (No, this whole process never gets fully explained). Cordelia is also the most special girl of all because she’s a demon-vampire. Through this and a few other storylines, we learn Yui having sex awakens Cordelia which is also... A choice.
Gauntlet of Misery:
There’s so many things in these storylines that are just exercises in sadism and misery, but it gets to such a ridiculous point that it bogs down the rest of the storyline– as thin as it might be. However, I feel it’s also remiss to talk about it, as without a lot of the stupid shit included, you could not understand why this game made me want to start swinging. Without further ado, here’s a further list of Ayato events:
-Forces Yui to wear revealing clothes in public to parade her around and then gets mad people are looking at her, all while actively degrading her
-Sweeps her feet for talking to Shuu
-Isolating her and telling her if she talks to other guys he’ll make her unable to move
-Pushing her into a freezing lake for not paying attention to him (and instead to stars)
-Getting mad at her for another girl putting makeup on her and having strangers look at her– then seemingly proceeding to hit her and sexually assault her in public
-Forcing her to kiss him lest he drop her onto a chair with nails
-Attacking her with a knife.
Endings and Post-Game:
The best ending, Ending 01, Ayato marries Yui. While playing I was seething because Yui was going “Uwahh!! He called me beautiful!” GIRL YOU ARE GETTING MARRIED. HE’S STILL GOING “OMAE” TO YOU. HE’S STILL CALLING YOU “TINY TITS”.
The post part of the ending isn’t any better; He throws out her books because he’s mad she wasn’t paying enough attention to him. He also abuses her after she spent all day shopping to make him a cake because Laito’s scent is on her (from him helping her carry bags) and then acts emo when she yells at him to stop.
The third ending is kind of nothing, to the point I don’t remember it and literally wrote it was nothing in my notes. The 2nd ending is a little more interesting, but I think it’s literally just a dream sequence. TLDR; Ayato kills his whole family and is... Honestly the same abusive guy to Yui but says I love you to her finally LOL.
The post-game content with Ayato, AKA Heaven Mode, is also miserable. Yui gets sick and begs Ayato not to drink her blood. He ignores this, hurts her, and then forces her to clean up the mess. There’s also a weird scene of the others trying to drink her blood without consent (and more on Laito’s part). Ayato shows up to save her but then has the nerve to get mad at Yui if you react in the trauma-response way and is like “Erm im not like THEM why the fuck are you compaing me?” – MY BROTHER IN ANTICHRIST. You sexually assaulted and physically assaulted this girl the whooole game and now you’re actually wayyy better because... What? Drugs weren’t involved? Oh yeah, let me forgive you for assaulting Yui this whole game because at least you didn't involve drugs, wow, what a great guy! Hate this clown. Oh and he ends this with “you don’t have the right to refuse me”.
General Thoughts:
My general ending thoughts? Not good. Hate him. Yui keeps saying things to try and tell the player that she’s in love and she’ll ride through it until he realizes her love is true while he does absolutely nothing to himself. It’s not even like he softens up towards her in any way. It’s honestly just kind of depressing.
This is the summation of every scene with him.
Storyline
Next up is the first route I did– Kanato. I started with him because he seemed the most palatable out of the trio and figured to stick to the first 3 they offered. I had a general idea of his character going in– insecure and yandere-ish. This is correct! Except it’s ramped up x1000!
Kanato turned out to be god awful. Most of his character is throwing fits at every little inconvenience and being sadistic to Yui. He acts like everything was secretly to piss him off and even if Yui apologizes, he’ll still be mad! He had a small glimmer of something nicer, especially compared to Ayato. Though, I can hardly say points can be given there. He’s also incredibly jealous, more so than Ayato.
Kanato’s backstory was... Honestly a lot weirder than Ayato’s and a lot creepier because she was openly being sexual around Kanato. Kanato later also says his mother’s voice aroused him which... Choices. But that’s not even the end of it because he fixates on both himself and Yui looking like Cordelia and gets angry about that... Choices!!
I think he has a much more interesting and nuanced backstory with his mother despite the weirdness. It shows Cordelia was both doting and neglectful of him, causing him to have major abandonment and trust issues. I found that a lot more compelling than what was going on with Ayato.
One thing I can say about Kanato is despite pissing me off, he doesn’t grind my gears as badly when he tries to be lovey. It really feels more like he’s just a really broken person– Not enough that his actions should be excused, I still think he should go to jail too– so it feels like it makes more sense given how erratic and temperamental he is.
He also softens up some... Which granted, “asking to help then pouting when he does it poorly” is not desirable, but coming off of Ayato’s route, he’s looking like a prince even asking LOL. He also goes out of his way to show Yui flowers, which again, not diminishing his asshole nature, but it’s nice to have a small glimmer of normality and niceness in one of these routes (... Though he then proceeds to kill a guy who tried to attack him. Which I'm sorry is so funny given that it's in a public park–. He says he burnt him down to ash but that's still really funny-).
By the end, he actually seems a little nicer for a while... Until an event pops up where Laito and Ayato sexually harass her and Kanato threatens to light her on fire. Yeah.
Gauntlet of Misery:
- I think I covered most of it here, but it was generally a lot of him getting angry over every small thing.
- Devs are cowards. You try and make a short king and he's 5'5" only? He's still taller than Yui?
Endings and Post-Game:
Ending 01: Yui becomes dumb as hell, forgetting what even school is, due to Kanato having... Magic? I don’t really know. While playing this, I felt a personal ache remembering that 1 scenario in Snow and hating it so badly. However, this still managed to piss me off way less despite that. Kanato kills everyone and he and Yui are married and live in the vampire castle.
The after story segment (a continuation of the ending) shows Kanato is still a little bitch. Cordelia shows up in her mind palace and Yui is freaked the fuck out. Kanato, again, a little bitch, is mad at her for even thinking of someone else. Cordelia ends up taking control of Yui and wants to kill Kanato. Kanato is just happy his mom is around and Cordelia pretends that Yui wants to give her body to Cordelia. Kanato is like “Okayyy but also I want a double suicide with Yui” and proceeds to choke her until Cordelia yells about Kanato killing one of her lovers and now she wants him dead. Yui gets her power back and they live happily(?) ever after.
Ending 3: Yui tells the others she fears Kanato. Narratively I do not get it because there’s no fucking reason Yui should feel like confiding in any of these idiots, ESPECIALLY Ayato and Laito because the sex-pestery still happened. Anyway, Kanato kills everyone and turns Yui into a doll.
Ending 2: Yui goes around getting her blood sucked by the blood-suck-brothers (everyone else). Somehow, Kanato doesn’t immediately pick up on this, despite it being established everyone seems to know when someone even waves hi to Yui... Also, apparently he’s leaving so god knows what he’s up to. He finds out when Yui doesn’t wanna undress in front of him and confronts her about her scent being on other people. Yui then goes and kills everyone– which is kind of funny how it seems everyone can die so easily, but what do I know about... Genuinely how any of this universe works at all?
Finally with Kanato is the Heaven scenarios, which first sees him get jealous of Yui finding a town pretty and wanting to destroy it– which Yui is fine with. The whole heaven scenario isnt much to talk about; It’s Yui and Kanato being overall just into each other with one instance of Kanato freaking out again and being sadistic over nothing. However, it does end with Kanato tracking down Yui’s father and killing him, which I wasn’t exactly expecting.
General Thoughts:
General thoughts on him: There’s a lot of stuff that was very rough to get through and felt unnecessary. Especially if you’re just juxtaposing him against his brothers, the scene where he says he imbued Teddy with the spirit of a sex criminal was... Not necessary and honestly? I don’t think it was very in character either given how much he feels he needs ownership of the MC. In a way, I do think Kanato is more interesting at least than his brothers and I think if he was better explored as a character, his route would’ve been a lot more interesting.
This should've been the whole route. #Sendtweet
Storyline
Next is Laito! Like Ayato, he’s a sex pest. It’s such a shame the “good ending” requires you to go a “S” route because he keeps going off saying things about wanting to be hurt, but I digress (... Actually, I DO think you should be able to hurt him, but without his enjoyment). Anyway, his usual thing seems to be sexually harassing Yui quite directly and in one case at least threatening to snap her neck if he doesn’t let him touch her. I’d say whereas Ayato felt like 50/50 sex pest and violent criminal, Laito feels more 60/40 of that.
Yui seems to flee Laito more. Is this because he’s not seemingly as sadistic as his 2 full brothers? Maybe. It could also be that his sex pest ways are even more annoying and no one wants to write that over and over.
Richter makes an appearance in this route as well, but let me just say it: It makes zero sense. Laito freaks out and tells Yui not to open her mouth till he says otherwise. Richter comes in and for some reason can’t see her...? No fucking clue why not; It’s not like she’s hiding or anything– she even says that he looks in her direction. The scene itself is also bad because Laito freaks out at Yui and asserts she’s somehow working with Richter despite... Literally nothing. And then uses this as an excuse to harass her and bite her. The implications at the end of the scene are awful as always!
... Also, the next scene? Laito’s absolutely normal again. No explanation. There’s also flashbacks to this convo, which feel like space filler. Each segment is 2-5 minutes long, so it’s literally like within 10 minutes we get a flashback.
In this route we learn Yui’s dad is a famous vampire hunter and her mom passed. We also learn he’s back in Japan? And that Karlheinz, the vamp guy’s dad, is a politician.
His backstory fits in with his brothers as in: there’s weird incest shit going on here, but probably it’s the most direct. Cordelia is weird as hell bringing her lovers around him and he kills them. Cordelia also wanted Laito to kill Karlheinz.
Similar, there’s an event where he gets Yui to try on Cordelia’s dress then complains she’s not like Cordelia.......... OKAY...... He gives Yui hickeys, saying that’ll make her more like his mom and saying that she– his mom, not Yui, “riled him up seductively”.....
There’s a scene where Yui thinks about killing herself in the tub. Laito comes in and is like “lol ok yummy blood”. Yui and he fight and we learn he can vanish. The event right after shes like “damn maybe I DO love him” (???????? GIRL???). Next event is horny, then the event after we find out Laito cries blood tears and they have their first time in a graveyard.
There’s some more actual lore in this route, namely on the history of vampiric brides. We learn from Reiji there have been more brides that have “failed” in making it all the way and one even got eaten alive (????). Laito gets jealous that she talked to Reiji, of course, but Yui brings up the fact there are others and Laito brushes that off pretty much and is like “well yeah”. We also get more annoying mixed messaging from his route.
Later on, we realize this whole thing was set up by the church in an attempt to get vampires to be more lenient with humans, hoping if there’s one amongst their ranks, they'd stop being dicks.
Gauntlet of Misery:
-Laito thinks Yui is fucking a teacher so he threatens her with a chastity belt. This whole scene is a nightmare because its so vague because of that R17 rating but it literally feels like a whole lot of nothing.
-Makes Yui walk around downtown with handcuffs on and then threatens to do it to another girl
-Theres so many weird incesty lines from him please stop telling me your mom turned you on its fucking weird
Endings and Post-Game:
Ending 1: Laito kills Karlheinz. Laito finally calls Yui by her name and gets all romantic after the whole thing. Genuinely, at least at this point, it feels the most normal and I kind of appreciate it. Does it make up for the exhaustion coming before it? No, because I’m sure I’ll feel it again... But it makes enough sense that I can’t be overly mad.
The followup is Laito receiving so many gifts that Reiji, Subaru and Kanato try and beat his ass because it’s blocking the hallway/the latter 2’s doors. Next scene, Laito complains about parties but like Ayato is a sex pest at them too. This is stopped by even Kanato and Reiji being weirded tf out. Subaru and Ayato too– which again..... Okay! Shuu complains too.
Anyway, Laito receives a weird drug in the mail and gives it to Yui.Yui has heart pain and seems to keel over, leading Kanato and Ayato to come in and call Laito an idiot. Yui wakes up and everyone is there, but she sees Shuu first. It seems to be some sort of love potion or some shit because now Yui is fixated on Shuu. Laito takes this better than expected, but eventually becomes upset. He also has reverted to calling her Bitch-chan again, by the way. Yui finds out after he acts like a sex pest to her and she’s repulsed and calls for Shuu to save her– and she’s rightfully pissed. She loses that within like 2 minutes though once she overpowers the drug... So another loss, still.
Ending 3 is similar to the first; Laito kills Karlheinz and meets Yui in the church, but also awakens Cordelia. Laito is like “you didn't tell me. Anyway, Cordelia. Come on out.” And pokemon calls her into fronting. Cordelia is like, “kayy now I can resurrect Karlheinz bc I know a guy”-- top 2011 RP nonsense. God bless. Laito kills Yui/Cordelia and as Yui is dying he asks if she has any last requests and she asks for a kiss. Girl, it should’ve been self esteem in your next life god damn.
Ending 2 sees Laito and Yui meet at the vampire castle, Laito has yet again killed Karlheinz. However he has his familiars, who are the corpses of past brides, attack Yui. Laito stops them and then makes out with Yui and implies it's gonna continue like this.
Heaven mode involves Yui’s awakening into a vampire and Laito being a masochist. But then also theres a scenario where Laito loses a game of chess and lets Kanato and Ayato munch Yui's neck. Laito gets off to this hardcore, Yui does too it seems and the other 2 are so weirded out they leave. The next scene Laito marks her up with a knife. The epilogue doesn’t really matter, it's more of the same.
General Thoughts:
I think I hate Laito the most. Should’ve let Yui beat his ass. It’s definitely between him and Ayato.
Storyline
Subaru is kind of what I expected Ayato to be overall. However, lucky for me, he’s a LOT less perverted and a LOT more angry. His M.O. is to suck blood and not be bothered.
... He also has a weirdly barren room that pisses me off.
His route does have a thing that happened on Laito’s route too, which is that it feels like it’s incredibly hard to guess the right choices in some situations. Some you can get really easily but others are a bit more confusing.
Also on this route I also noticed something; Maybe it was in the other routes and I just didn’t pick up on it, but there is a really goofy sound that plays when he chomps down specifically. I was eating green beans when playing and I kept thinking it was just me chomping into those but no the noise was coming from inside the game, and hearing it isolated... It sounded so cartoonish... It was really funny.
ANYWAY, back to discussing Subaru as a character. He’s a weird fresh breath of air compared to the three losers you have to choose first. It feels a lot more normal comparatively, but also ends up keeping me engaged at the same time.
This isn’t to say his route did not grind my gears. Later on, it did get a little weird, but it felt more annoying than anything. Half of his route ends up being“Oughh don’t come near me, I’m an evil dirty vampire you should just escape” and the other half is him being bossy and controlling. Like it feels so at odds in a way that doesn’t really make sense. I can kind of guess their aim was to go for “so controlling, the MC runs away” but... It just seems... Badly done. Like most things in this game.
Subaru is kind of a character who I feel does have enough redeemable that he isn’t a total loss... I just wish he was better written. The weird pulling Yui closer then going “no... im a FILTHY VAMPIRE!” and throwing shit around is really offputting. I do think the first time sequence is probably one of the more normal ones which is nice; It feels as if Yui isn't being coerced into it and it’s consensual, which feels like a breath of fresh air.
His backstory in the main part of the game involves the fact he wants to kill his mother and that his mother resented him being born, claiming it left her dirty and impure. I’ll get more on this in the main ending.
Gauntlet of Misery:
- Subaru destroys her whole room in one sequence and giggles about it. Yui is like “ummm ok, whateverrrr” and he’s like. The fuck. Which, honestly, yeah, same.
Endings and Post-Game:
Ending 01, Subaru kills his father and his mother and apparently isn’t welcome back anymore. Which... I don’t really get. By literally who is he not welcome? The others become like the vampire king or some shit ?? Why is Yui still chilling there? Anyway, we learn that Subaru was a product of rape and honestly– that is really sad and he saw killing her as well as freeing her from the insanity that ensued after it. Subaru pays a compliment to Yui but shes dumb as rocks and it goes over her head. Though his confession to her is equally as bad hes like, “your ugly, you suck, youre stupid... but you never saw me as dirty and you accepted me” like girl....
In the after story I guess they’ve moved to some other random mansion. Where the hell are they getting this money as high schoolers...? No fucking idea, but you know what, it’s a stupid trope I fuck with because it’s so silly. They still have stupid arguments though and Subaru gets angry so easily which is really annoying. No fucking growth on any of these men... And then he destroys the lay-away furniture [I dont know if Japan has lay-away im making guesses now on how they pay for it.] Anyway, he loses some of his memories and things apparently go back to how they used to be... Which... Is funny because barely anything has changed. Anyway, he almost kills her but suddenly regains his memories and saves her.
Ending No. 3! Yui gets delivered Subaru’s silver knife and a bloody white rose by one of his bat familiars. Yui gets hit with flashback central (that take forever to transition through). Anyway, Yui is like, “I’ll even give up God!” And Cordelia shows up and says Subaru is dead. Yui kills herself in order not to give into Cordelia.
Ending #2! Yui and Subaru flee together after Subaru killed his mother and tried and failed to kill his father. Yui tells him to drink her blood to his heart's content and kill his father and then it just... Ends. It’s just kind of lame.
Heaven scenario time!
Back at the family home, we start with Subaru pointing his knife at Yui and then talks about devouring her before it fades to black. I was kind of assuming it was a dream but it wasn’t and it's like... huh...???
2nd part is Ayato and Laito being sex pests and Subaru shows up and lets them torture her for a bit, but stops them before they bite her. I genuinely don’t get why this all starts out this way because the rest of the scenarios are more what I’d expect at this point. I really don’t understand...
General Thoughts:
Subaru has overall a bad personality but I have to say, it’s at least a lot more balanced with his traits and his storyline. His Good Ending and the After Story at least have moments that make it feel actually like a romance instead of insane trauma. I think he has the potential to be the most interesting character in the fact that he feels more well-rounded than really anyone else. He also feels like he grows more than the rest of the cast and ends up liking Yui... Yes, the bar is in hell!!!!
BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
Storyline
Shuu is so lazy he tells Yui that she’ll have to offer his blood to him because he can’t be bothered. The prologue sets up that he’s always skipping class for the music room. Sex pest Laito bothers her and she runs into the music room where Shuu’s sleeping on the floor.
Shuu is surprisingly normal. Man just wants to listen to music and women’s moans in PEACE! We do learn he was born first and kind of spoiled and that he and Reiji have some tension.
... And then just as I start praising him, he shows his sex pest ways by harassing Yui.
We learn about Shuu’s past: He seemed to be more energetic, and was full of life, to the point he wanted to leave the vampire castle to explore the human world. One day he did just that and met a human boy named Edgar. Edgar’s village burns down and Edgar goes to save his parents but dies. It’s all but explicitly said that Reiji is the cause of this because he hated Shuu and felt that he was an ill fit to be the heir. Shuu just did fuck all despite being a vampire... I guess he was a kid so he does get a small pass but he really seemed to just be standing there.
Somehow in this route despite it being kind of mundane Yui awakens some sadistic urges inside herself.
Shuu’s route ends up being 2 things: 1. Sex, usually in a public/semi-public place, 2. Shuu not wanting to go to class. The only gains you get in knowledge are edgar but even the last thing with him isn’t really interesting, Shuu just goes to check if hes still alive and finds his corpse. Like, yeah, no fucking shit. You knew he’d be dead.
Gauntlet of Misery:
- There’s so much weird dubcon shit in here bro. He makes her have sex in the broadcasting room with him for some reason and honestly I stopped keeping track of shit because it was just awful AND boring.
- Also he loves calling her a prostitute...?
- Also why does everyone let Laito sexually harass Yui im sick of it.
Endings and Post-Game:
Ending 01! Shuu abandons the household and runs away with Yui. He talks about how the lake area in the game is actually a portal to Transylvania– a place overrun by vampire hunters, but they won’t be found there by the household because no one wants to go there.
The after scenario is they plan to get married and Yui’s heart acts up. She starts to get weirdly jealous of Shuu with other humans too for some reason. As they go to get married(??), Cordelia takes over Yui and tries to kill Shuu, but Shuu realizes its not Yui and through words gets Cordelia to stop.
... Thats it. I’m gonna be real, it’s probably the most boring ending.
Ending 03! Shuu discovers Reiji burnt the village and they go to a death match. They both die.
Ending 02: Reiji goes insane with jealousy that everything goes to Shuu and tries to kill Yui. Reiji tells Shuu about killing Edgar too and Shuu kills him, vowing to take over the household and kill his father and uncle as well. Yui somehow lives despite being stabbed, she becomes a vampire and Shuu’s wife.
Heaven scenarios are boring as hell too. The only thing I noted was that Yui was like “you don’t seem like you would gain much from school lessons :)” Despite the whole route spending an inordinate amount of time focusing on him skipping classes.
General Thoughts:
Bro is gay as hell. If Reiji didn’t kill Edgar he’d be the gay brother everyone hates (not for being gay everyone just hates him for his personality). Disappointing and really just kind of bland when he’s not being a sex freak.
#hispoisons
Storyline
Reiji I had decently high hopes for. For starters, he seemed interesting in other routes and also he wasn’t Shuu. He’s another what-you-see-is-what-you-get; He’s really into master-servant dynamics and expects Yui to follow him with that. His big thing is he’s into science and likes making poisons and other weird little potions.
Reiji tells us early on he killed his own mother, hiring Yui’s father for the job. This is all due to his weird jealousy over Shuu, feeling as though Shuu is the star child and he was overlooked.
He gets this whole plotline with Richter and Yui. Which WOULD be interesting if I didn't feel like this was a dead horse being beaten by all the townspeople in a 10 mile radius. Richter tells Reiji and Yui he and Cordelia fucked nasty style despite her being married to his brother. Why do we need this? Idk man!
For most of this route, Cordelia has taken over Yui’s body and so everything is filtered through Cordelia. It gets very tiring very quickly because it feels as though it’s the same scenario over and over and we don’t really get new info. It’s like, “Cordelia is trying to seduce Reiji!” “Reiji flatters her ego!” “Cordelia continues to try and seduce him!” ... It’s tiring. Really, really tiring.
Gauntlet of Misery:
- CORDELIA.
Endings and Post-Game:
Ending 01 everythings peachy and Yui has her body back. The afterstory deals with Yui being the jealous one– specifically of Reiji helping random girls from school with homework. Yui's blood starts to taste nasty and she falls ill, all seemingly due to the weight of jealousy. All's well that ends well.
Ending 03: Richter kills Reiji and Cordelia takes over Yui. Richter thinks he finally has Cordelia but shes like “lollll no I want Karlheinz”.
Ending 02: Reiji and Yui learn about femdom. Tldr; Reiji is now Yui’s servant.
Heaven scenario! Reiji is kind of disappointed that Yui is an obeying servant instead of crying about it. The whole heaven scenario feels more like disjointed vignettes than anything really adding much of value.
General Thoughts:
I fuck with Reiji. He’s the most normal out of everyone I feel and honestly, I wish he got a better route, because I think combined with things we learn about him on other routes and the pre-Cordelia stuff here, he has a more interesting presence. I personally would love to have actually seen the development of his dislike of Shuu and learn how he knows so much! But alas... We have to have really phoned in boring Cordelia scenes.
He actually is nice under his hard shell, much more than anyone else; To the point there’s a scene where Yui finds him doting on animals and then forces Yui to take over for him loving on them. Dude really seems like the type who’d get off doing taxes.
Who should get arrested first: Laito
Who had the most interesting route: Subaru
Who had the least interesting route: Shuu
Who I hated the least: Reiji
Who I felt could’ve been better written: Kanato
Ayato? Die.
I think this game made me realize the importance of not overstating facts in a visual novel and how annoying it is when you get conflicting information.
To the first point: Holy shit everything with Cordelia ended up driving me crazy because it felt like the same info over and over, just different characters saying it. I can excuse things like, say, the characters telling Yui she has to attend night school (still was annoying!) – But I felt so much time was taken up with rehashing things, I felt I was running in quicksand by the end of it.
The second point actually ALSO deals with the Cordelia nonsense. Why does Yui awaken? Is it tied to virginity? Then why did she awaken on Reiji’s route when they didn’t do jack shit? Or anything during Shuu’s route? Is it tied to stress? I know everyone stressed Yui out so much more than Reiji. Is it romance? Again, Shuu’s route kind of negates that too, doesn’t it? I don’t know. I’ve spent more time trying to figure out the logistics of this than I care to admit. I can excuse dumb 2011 logic, but when theres shit presented AND it’s not consistent, it drives me up the wall.
Also, this game had an incredibly hard time fleshing out it’s characters past being sex pests. Reiji and Subaru were more interesting, because I felt some sort of development over the course of the game, as little as there might be! The rest? It really feels like nothing changed except they had sex with Yui and maybe killed someone, but even that feels passe comparatively.
Similarly, I want to finally address a big elephant in the room: This game is R17. I understand why you’d market a game R17 and I don’t think there’s anything wrong with straddling the line... But this game is so horny but also not horny enough, it feels stupid to even include it. I get people have insane degradation fetishes, but this game felt neutered enough that half the time I didn’t know if they were having sex or biting. Perhaps that was the point? I don’t know, but it just feels stupid as hell. It reminds me of when I first RP’d NSFW when I was younger and I always went “Lalala cut to black”. Genuinely has the same energy, the difference here is this game had a writing team and I was a middle schooler.
I think the fact this game has so much that reminds me of being a middle schooler around this time is kind of the one redeeming thing for me– aside from a killer soundtrack, pretty art and good VA work. It’s goofy as hell. I can’t even get too mad at how painfully misogynistic it is at times because it ends up rolling back around to being horribly stupid and I can’t take it seriously.
I think of the characters I made when I was 11. I was REALLY into that “emo brooding bad boy” type (because I loved Itachi from Naruto...). This game would’ve hit the spot for me then and I have to reckon with that. It feels like the fake deep edgy-for-the-sake-of-edgy shit I read on Quizilla as a child.
When it’s bad, it’s really boring as hell and makes 5 minutes feel like an hour. When it’s good? It’s some of the most melodramatic dumb ass shit imaginable and it hits on a certain nostalgia for me that I rarely get nowadays in earnest.
There’s a lot to hate in this game. I’ve talked to my girlfriend about it nonstop. However, I will think back and laugh about that stupid ass scene of Kanato randomly burning a guy to a crisp in a public park. Why? Because that’s the shit I would’ve written in 2011 with full sincerity.
Was it a good game? No. Did I have fun? Not often. Will it be memorable? Yeah.
... And if you don't wanna shell out probably ~10 hours of gameplay, if you watch this , you'll get the same effect.
... Despite it all, this is probably not the end of Diabolik Lovers for me...........................
5:01pm .. .. // 05.24.2026