Piofiore: Fated Memories -- No Spoiler Review
Piofiore: Fated Memories
System: Switch
Price: $49.99
Voice Acting: Yes (Japanese)
ESRB Rating: M (17+)
Overall Rating: Stole 9.5/10 ♥s
Pre-Game Perception: An action-packed tale of the pure maiden getting caught up in the lives of dangerous men. But they’re gentlemen, because it is a romance game after all.
Morning-After Reflection: …. They are not gentlemen! It’s a story about acceptance of flawed people, because in the end we’re all flawed people. Just because you’re a bad guy, doesn’t mean you are a bad guy.
Story: “Liliana Adornato was born and raised in the church in the center of the Italian town of Burlone. Three criminal organizations control parts of the city, and Lili discovers that she is literally in the center of their turf wars.
Her encounters with the leaders of the Falzone, Visconti, and Lao-Shu mafia lead to danger and distraction. Once Lili is drawn into the shadowy world of crime Families, she realizes there is no going back.”
Interest Rating: 9/10 The story didn’t interest me as much as how goddamn beautiful the game is. Yeah, yeah, mafia, orphan, violence and life altering events; I’m sure it’ll be good. I just wanted to look at the gorgeous artwork, to be honest. Someone somewhere said it was a dark game, so I figured it was up my alley.
MC: The MC for Piofiore is named Liliana Adornato, nicknamed Lili. The neat thing about this game is that not only are both first and last names able to be changed, but the nickname as well. Makes sense, but is also pretty cool that they won’t always refer to the MC by the first name you input, but also by whatever nickname you want. I went with the original name because I’ve grown to love hearing the voice actors saying the MCs name, especially in more romantic moments. It beats silence for me. Speaking of silence, Lili is not voiced. She has a full-sized sprite that shows up suuuuuuper rarely when the PoV of the game is from another character’s perspective, and typically only in their thoughts, not with any actual dialogue from the MC. But she is in most of the CGs; I’d say roughly 90% of them.
As you can see, this game is set in Italy, so Lili is not the typical (Japanese) otome heroine. She is, instead, a blonde-haired, green-eyed woman of approximately 21 years old. Her height isn’t given, but I would suspect she is somewhere around 5’0” based on height compared to LIs in CGs. I’m sure you think you have this orphaned church girl nailed down and she’s going to be some self-righteous zealot or a demure mouse, but let me tell you, Lili is going to show you that she’s way more down to earth than you could have ever guessed. I have a great respect for her character more times than not. The way she is written doesn’t alienate her from people being able to relate to her, even if they have never experienced her life’s circumstances; she is built on the basic ideals of a complete human being rather than tropes put together to make her interesting.
I didn’t think I was going to like her. I really thought I was going to groan about this optimistic, sheltered girl living in a town that is run by not just one, but three mafia families. I thought her naivety was going to make my eyes roll out of my head. I thought she was going to preach religion and be too pure for this world so she’d find herself knocking at Death’s door on more occasions than I’d be able to handle. This is the true rage-quit mechanic in otoge for me. You know what didn’t happen? Any of that. Sure, Liliana is introduced to the reader by greeting the early morning (☑ idealistic), and loving her daily chores (☑ loves cleaning), and the church (☑ devout), and cooks the best sweets (☑ loves cooking), and is perfect with the orphan children housed at the church (☑ endless patience). She was adored by everyone (☑ Mary Sue). All the boxes were being checked off for me setting her into the “Not My MC” category. And then I got on a route. And then Lili became real. Her reactions were natural and reasonable in each situation. Her thoughts (though not often expressed to us besides in reactive situations) weren’t incomprehensible. In fact, they were surprisingly normal and things I would think in the same situation. Most of the time. Sometimes I’d make a joke about how I was sure the writing was going to throw in something obscurely nuanced and sure enough they would. Then I got a good laugh and continued on with Lili who returned to being so grounded and well adjusted.
You could self-insert, as I find Lili to be extremely relatable, so choices are realistic in most cases. But you could also let her stand alone as a developed MC. She changes a bit in each LI’s route, to better suit the suitor, and also to adapt to the environment she is exposed to in that route. Most of the time she’s rather mature despite her sheltered life. Most of the time she’s insightful and wise. Most of the time she’s intelligent and clever. There is one time in every route where I’m shaking my head because of a decision she makes on her own that I think felt forced for plot reasons. And in some routes her directness had me sighing and quietly scolding her with “Those are not the words you should be saying, Lili!” But everyone makes mistakes, and everyone has flaws, and no one makes the “right” choice in every situation. And for every sigh-inducing moment, there were ten others when I’d flip the script and say, “Those are exactly the words you should be using, Lili. Good job!”
Likability Rating: Shu. I just love this girl. I’d be happy to meet someone like her in real life. Lili is a contender for knocking Cardia off my MC Queen-of-the-Hill. If Liliana Adornato and Cardia Beckford (from Code: Realize) could somehow become one, she’d be my ultimate MC.
Plot: This game is dark, guys. Even just going by the ESRB page, it explains some of the reasons Piofiore is slapped with that M rating, but it doesn’t cover what makes it truly a dark game. I want to get this out there before you’re drawn in by anything else, or maybe this draws you in, and that’s cool, but Piofiore deals with some heavy themes. There is, of course, descriptive violence, abuse, murder, blood depicted in pictures, and all those things that are usually thrown under the dark category when someone says a game is dark. Besides the typical themes mentioned, the ESRB page also covers descriptive torture, drug use, and a post coital moment; however no one mentions that there are references to non-consensual sex (non-con), implied dubious-consensual sex (dub-con), sexual assault, and forced drug use. I’ve played a decent amount of otoge, and I’m used to the murder death kill thing, or threats of rape, but every game somehow stops things from getting rape-y. Not Piofiore. It isn’t descriptive, and as I said, it’s either implied or referenced, but it is there. And it isn’t relegated to one route or one character, so… take that how you will. If you wanna back out now, do so. If you don’t, read ahead!
I knew practically nothing about this game except some church girl gets involved with the mafia in an Italian city. The prologue sets the scene, explaining the three families, the city to a degree, and some basic background. Then the game opens on our heroine to launch into a rather short common route that grows with each additional play-through you do. Literally. The prologue gets longer and longer every time you complete a LI route, giving you more chances to learn about the story before Lili is whisked away by one of the LIs. There is an overall plot, and a finale route once you complete all five LIs, but every LI route is different from every other. And each route uncovers something different about the overall story, some more than others, but the point is that none of them are same-y or repetitive.
To put it simply: Liliana is thrown into the life of the mafia due to a set of circumstances outside of her control. We then get to learn why, and how she deals with these new life experiences, and eventually we get to see what happens after the plot is resolved.
Replayability Rating: ★★★★★ There are so many different stories, endings, and additional pieces of information given that I would 100% everything in order to get the full experience.
Love Interests: Prepare for the trashiest of trash husbandos. Even the best of them are still murderers and criminals. This is something we tend to forget when romancing “bad” men, especially if a MC converts them into something “good” in the end typically by changing their heart on murder being acceptable, and suddenly they love people and want a happy world where no darkness exists. You’re not getting that here. These are bad men. Most are unapologetic about it. Most attempt to make Lili understand they are not good people. They are broken and wrong and I love every single one of them for being the sweetest poison that I’d gladly swallow again and again. And I love Lili for loving them. And dear god, they are hot too! I don’t think Lili ever comments on just how sexy every single one of them are. She does mention skin or eyes being beautiful on very rare occasions, but let me tell you, it doesn’t stop there. I would do all doable characters in this game. I’d do some non-doable characters. …. I think I’m getting away from the standard format of this review. Let’s bring it on back.
Piofiore gives us five f*ckable tempting men who will bring us to varying degrees of degeneracy. Each LI has three main endings, Best End, Good End, and Bad End, and at least one early bad end that doesn’t get credits or an after credit scene, simply just an end. Meaning if the credits role, you got one of the three main endings and should stick around to see what happens next. Only two LIs are available at the beginning of the game, Nicola and Dante. You have to complete one of those two to unlock Yang and Orlok. Then you have to play all four before being able to play Gilbert’s route. Then there’s a finale that you can play once you’ve completed Gilbert’s route. The Best and Bad Ends have an additional additional episode afterwards in another section of the menu. The Good End is typically exactly that, not bad enough to be bad, not best enough to be best, but somewhere in-between, so it’s good.
Your choices in the prologue will determine which path you end up on, and it is nearly seamless in moving you from prologue to the LI path. My first time through I wasn’t sure I had even gotten on a path until I was seeing a lot of one guy and then I was like, “Oh, this must be the start of the route,” because the routes don’t instantly bring you into Chapter One. There are two recommended route orders, and then my recommended order. Nicola> Yang> Dante> Orlok> Gilbert is recommended for least to most spoilers. Dante> Nicola> Yang> Orlok> Gilbert is recommended for worldbuilding. Dante> Orlok> Nicola> Yang> Gilbert is the way I would have played the game to get the most story, and most enjoyment from each character. You can pick and choose however you like, but since this is my review I’m going to go with my recommended order.
Dante Falzone is a pretty man. A very pretty man. A very pretty and powerful man, sitting as the head of the Falzone Family at his young age. He is the closest to Liliana in age, being about two years older. His route holds the most revelations about the lore of the game, so why would I suggest he be first? Because I like to know what is going on. I want to understand why things happen in other routes that are indicators for things we know, but they don’t know we know. I think it makes it easier to understand why something is important, instead of dismissing it because it is information that doesn’t apply to anything we know. That’s enough about Dante’s route, and not nearly enough about Dante himself. Some call him a kuudere, and though that technically applies, I don’t think I’d refer to him as a kuudere. I would just say he’s a reserved guy who is concerned with appearances far too much. He has a sharp look about him and the amount of sprites with varying degrees of narrowed eyes that Dante has is laughable to me. Despite that glare that comes so easy to him, he’s still such a nice thing to look at. Best end is best. Good end is good. Bad end is bad, but there’s information that makes the best and good ends make so much more sense if you play through this one. I would suggest hitting all three simply for story reasons, and they’re all really well done too.
Orlok is the only LI that is younger than Lili. He’s 18, and isn’t actually holding a rank in any of the mafia families in Burlone. You’ll find out why practically at the beginning of his route. Nearly everything that isn’t revealed in Dante’s route is revealed in Orlok’s, so if you want to know (mostly) the whole of the story, he’s a good second pick. I think it’s also a good route to follow up Dante’s with because there’s a lot of character introductions we haven’t really seen yet, and these two pretty much cover the gambit of characters in the game. I rather enjoy this awkward shyboi and seeing his growth through his route was satisfying. The ultimate protector that needs protecting as well. I certainly wasn’t able to predict most of this route, and the endings were far from what I thought the overall theme was going to be. Best end is best. Good end is okay. Bad end is bad, but it is suggested that everyone completes it because there is a bit of story that is only revealed in this bad end.
I called Dante pretty, but Nicola Francesca is hawt as f*ck. I find his character sprite rather attractive as it is, but his CGs just make him even more scrumptious. This piece of eye-candy is a smooth criminal that I’ll let sliiiiiide his way into my panties heart. No breaking and entering needed. I’m ready, Nicola. He’s the underboss for the Falzone’s, which means he’s basically second in command. I guess if you can’t get with the capo, Nicola isn’t a bad consolation prize. He’s portrayed as a flirt and a lady-killer, but he’s never actually seen flirting with anyone, so there isn’t the expected jealousy trope to go with here. I mean, if we don’t count him flirting with Lili, that is; because that happens all the time. Best ending is… well, I can see why it is ideal, but I didn’t like it. Good ending is good, not the most ideal, but I thought it was more fitting and better than the best. Bad ending is bad. There isn’t a reason to go through the other endings in Nicola’s route except for completion, CGs, and because I think they are really well written.
Oh. Yang. This guy. Head of the Lao-Shu, the Chinese Mafia. God. I love him. He’s the worst and I love him. I loved him from the moment he’s introduced in the prologue and I heard him for the first time. I loved him in every route. I loved him no matter how much of a bad guy the game paints him as. And he is a bad guy. Don’t forget that all these guys are bad guys. Most of them cover it up in one way or another; with a charming smile, or logical reasoning, or dissociation; with good deeds, or a sense of justice, or righteousness. Not Yang. Yang is unapologetically bad. He is probably the most complex character in the game, and I am crazy for him. I’m crazy for being crazy for him, because he is crazy. It was hard to let go of this one when I moved on to the next, but if you save him for right before Gilbert, I think it would be a bit easier since he only makes appearances in Gil’s route and isn’t central to it. The Best end is… best? I suppose it’s the best outcome we could hope for. The Good end is… good? I guess it’s between the bad and the best, so we’ll go with good. The Bad end is bad, no doubt. There are no story benefits to playing the good or bad ends, but they are so well done that I’d strongly suggest you give them a go, especially if you like our special psychopath.
Finally we are able to romance Gilbert Redford, the stylish, charismatic boss of the Visconti Family. I spent most of the game trying to figure out if Gil was a good guy that does bad things, or a bad guy that knows that a good mask is invaluable. I literally had no idea until I got on his route what type of person he was. And I’m not telling you which one is the real Gil. I will say, however, that he is a flirt. That he is introduced in the prologue as a generous individual that looks out for the people of his district, and then some. He clearly hates the Lao-Shu, that’s evident in every route. His motivations and ambitions are left as a mystery for most of the game, changing with each route so I couldn’t even get a bead on him with that. Likely done intentionally so there would be some reason driving people to do Gil’s route. And since every story covers something different, his is no exception, introducing a new plot and conflict to overcome that isn’t just a repeat of anyone else’s. The most interesting thing to me about Gilbert’s route is that Lili is more involved in driving the story than I think she is in any other. Not that she doesn’t have agency and isn’t a focal point in all the other stories, because she would be rather difficult to replace with a sack of potatoes and have the story continue if you ask me. But she just feels more included and involved to me in this route. The Best end is best. The Good end is okay, certainly better than Bad, but not much less than the Best. And the Bad end is bad. There is only a tiny story reason to do the Good, and I would say that it could easily be skipped and not missed. There is no reason to do the Bad, but it was a train wreck worth reading, imo. Plus CGs! Amirite?
Boy Crazy Rating: 98% I can’t say no to any of these men. Everyone of them will make it to my husbando collection. Every. Single. One. And some of them are top contenders for jostling the pecking order of my men. I regret nothing.
Romance: There is falling in love in every route, some a bit unexpected, and some you can see it growing. The game is very plot heavy, but every route gives time for the characters to establish a relationship. I rather enjoy that it isn’t the same type of romance from each character, it’s as varied as the LIs themselves. What I love about this love is that it isn’t the idea of love that the writers are trying to sell us. When a LI looks at Lili a certain way, when Lili feels her heart flutter, when a LI calls her name in just the right tone, when Lili’s thoughts refuse to stray from the LI, all of these are indicators of the love growing between the couple. It is never made clear if these romances are Lili’s first experiences with love, and I don’t care if they are or not, to be honest. It’s refreshing to have a MC that isn’t virginal to the extreme that she gets confused on what a kiss is, or for some reason has no idea what an emotion of love is.
The romance in this game is the type of romance I enjoy, where it’s little acts of affection and not grand gestures that make me face secondhand embarrassment. On top of that, it’s a romance that I deeply crave. A morally reprehensible character that often isn’t deserving of pure, unconditional love according to the narrative of most otoge, who is then loved by a woman that doesn’t appear to be written in a negative light in the least, but celebrated because she is the heroine. It’s good shit. I have a need to know that monstrous characters are deserving of love without jumping through hoops to earn it. :dreamy sigh: Yeah, it’s good shit. On top of that, I was rooting for the couple in every story, which is not something I typically do in games. Like, usually it’s accepted that being together is the best option, but there was at least one conclusion where I cheered when it worked out instead of being indifferent if the couple continued on past the story we’re presented.
Heart Palpitation Rating: A-. You’re allowed to love the bad guys without being a bad guy. You’re allowed to be a bad guy and be loved without being a good guy. This is the type of love I need in the world.
Spice: Piofiore is set in 1925 Italy. It has a girl raised in a church as the MC. Its plot is steeped in death and danger since it deals with the mafia. Do you honestly think there’s going to be any spice to this title? The answer is yes! So much yes. Sometimes too much yes. We don’t get much fanservice, three characters with bare chests, one CG with a pant-covered ass, kissing CGs, and more than a few sexually tense situations. More than a few. Oh boy, some scenes left many readers confused with how hot it made them while they were fighting to reason with themselves that it was okay to be turned on by it. I don’t have that reservation. It was wrong and hot and I’m totally okay accepting that aspect of myself. I would have liked more smut, but I’m okay with the heat this title brought to my loins chest face.
Now to bring the mood down, there are scenes leading to non-con and dub-con, or dialogue referencing it. No one is punished for these actions, since the story doesn’t revolve around them. These are not limited to one route and it is likely you will come into contact with them if you play this game. If you like that sort of thing, that’s totally fine, it’s fiction and there are no actual victims. If you are triggered by implications of sexual assault, this game is one big trigger party.
Cold Shower Rating: Pass. Some scenes made me pause and breathe deeply to cool down before I progressed the story. If it was smuttier, that ice bath would have been needed after the cold shower.
Angst: There is no shortage of angst in a game about the mafia. There are some routes that are strangely removed from the angst, but it’s there, circling below the surface and ready to rear its ugly head at a moment’s notice. I’m about to go on a tangent, but I promise, it has a point. When I played Collar x Malice, I had a MC death tracker going. I wanted to see how many times the MC ended up dying in a game designed around the idea that MC’s life is on the line. I was surprised with the final tally, honestly, but that’s not here nor there. The point is that sometimes I decide before a game that I’m going to count one specific thing, something that lets me focus my desire to quantify an experience. I decided with Piofiore to count all LI and MC deaths, and also who the killer was, so I could see which boy was death boy (and also best boy for not being all murder-murdery). My final tally also surprised me, and I’m not going to let you in on who did what or how many times each character met their end, but I bring this up to give an example of how much death there is in this game. Only counting MC+LIs, and only counting confirmed deaths, there are about 45 deaths in this game. Doing some quick math on how many endings there are, Best+Good+Bad+early ends, there are about 30 endings in this game. That means on average every route has 9 MC or LI deaths, and there is at least one substantial death per ending (closer to 1.5), if it was all spread around, that is. Some certainly have more of the killing than others, and again, this isn’t counting anyone outside of the MC+LIs.
Murder aside, Piofiore is a pretty angsty game in general. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it a million more times, these are bad men. They are criminals not only to the law, but to societal morals as well. Each LI has a questionable background with plenty of angst driving them. Each plot brings the drama to highlight the LI and bring out the angst in them. And the fact that there is clearly a Bad End for each LI means you’re sure to get some angst ⅓ of the time, at the bare minimum. I was constantly wondering what ending I was heading for because even Best Ends don’t always mean “happy” ends, just happiest available to the story.
Drama Llama Rating: 8.5/10. Drama llama is a dangerous llama. We made the mistake of riding it while it pranced through a minefield of death and despair.
Voice Acting: I’m at a loss for words. I sat here, staring at this section for time immeasurable, and I didn’t know where to start. I didn’t know how to start. The voice acting for Piofiore is killer. This cast of seiyuus is perfect. I go into a game not knowing much, so I wasn’t aware of who was casted as who, or even what names were associated with this game. Then Nicola spoke, and I screamed because I knew exactly who that was. Then Yang spoke and I instantly recognized his voice from another game I love. Then Gilbert was introduced and I screamed again when he spoke because of a joke that had been made from an observer about another character who he thought Gilbert resembled. Because, yes, it was the same seiyuu for both characters despite the observer not having heard the voice yet. I went looking up the rest of the cast, and I also knew of Orlok’s seiyuu, but didn’t recognize him because of his manner of speaking in this game. Anyways, they got some good names for Piofiore. And they all did wonderfully! Absolutely fantastic.
Kaito Ishikawa commanded respect as Dante Falzone. I wish he had a wider range of emotions written in the script, but I still enjoyed his delivery. Ryohei Kimura was absolutely perfect for Nicola Francesca. His sing-song voice and the amount of tension he can put into a line to make it dangerous and threatening without dropping out of the politeness he uses as a cover were exactly what Nicola needed to make him the character he was. Oh, Nobuhiko Okamoto… excuse me while I collect myself to try to express this in words and not just a series of grunts and moans. He is sex incarnate as Yang. Every emphasis on every syllable is perfectly placed to express exactly the attitude and thought behind the words he is saying. When he draws out a word in a teasing manner. When he barks an order. When he is low and menacing. And oh my god! That laugh! That god damned laugh just kills me. It murders me. Yang doesn’t need to actually murder me because I was slain from the beginning by that sexy voice. Perfect. Just perfect. Makes me simp harder for other characters Nobuhiko Okamoto voices as well. Toshiyuki Toyonaga murmured his way through Orlok’s broken, unsure speech. It was a rather cute display and I enjoyed the little nuances of the way he spoke. And Shotaro Morikubo comes back at us with another charismatic character, voicing Gilbert Redford. He does what he does well, and I’m glad he gave us another good performance.
If I could list everyone that worked on this game, I would. I didn’t dislike a single character. No one was muted. Everyone did fantastic. Top notch. The only issue I had is the sound engineering did something a bit wonky with recording. There are times for various characters - so I know it isn’t just one voice actor - when their speech would start out a little quiet, and then get louder like someone turned their volume up. I first noticed it with Gilbert, and Shotaro Morikubo does tend to come off a bit extra, so I thought they were doing it for his lines, but it wasn’t for every line, and didn’t seem to have a reason behind it. Sometimes it would just happen for three consecutive lines, then it wouldn’t. Then I caught the same thing with Dante in another part of the story. I verified with another person, so I know it wasn’t just me going crazy.
Expression Rating: Shu. Piofiore easily met my golden standard for voice acting. You know that feeling you get when someone really loves what they do, so they do it super well, and you can understand that through their work? That’s what these seiyuus make me feel when I hear them in these roles.
Art: I’m not sure art can get any better. The sprites are all beautiful. Every character has a few different poses, several different faces, but unfortunately no costume changes. Every character oozes personality just from their sprites alone; and once you start to get to know them, you can easily imagine what that certain narrowed eye look means, or what that cocked grin entails. Their faces are all expressive without being comical. Each LI, and character for that matter, has a style all their own, so I never found myself confusing anyone for anyone else.
There is a style-choice in the backgrounds that I found a little odd at first, but grew to like it within the first 20 minutes. It’s textured. When I saw it on the walls of Lili’s room, I hated it. When I saw it outside, I thought it added a lot of value to the background. As I saw it more and more (since it’s in every background), I realized that it wasn’t that bad when there was detail to the rest of it, but on the bare pink wall with nothing else, it just looked... :shiver: It looked gross. I could almost feel it under my fingertips and I hated the feeling I imagined. So, as long as I don’t have to see the walls of Lili’s room, I’m good!
Still Picture Rating: ★★★★★ Many gorgeous. Such texture. Very expression.
CGs: Literally the most beautiful art I’ve ever seen in a game. This is the reason I bought it, because I saw one CG and I was like, “This is absolutely gorgeous.” I had heard the game was coming out, but didn’t really care for a mafia game. Then I saw this picture and I couldn’t get over it. Every other CG doesn’t disappoint. There is literally nothing I can complain about. Body proportions are spot on (for anime-style that is). Sexy CGs are sexy. Action CGs are actiony. Granted, I just finished this game before writing this review, so it isn’t old and hasn’t had time to really get lost in my head, but I can look at every CG and remember exactly what was going on. They are so good. And something a lot of people seem to really enjoy is the amount of clothing changes Lili has in the CGs. I think that’s neat, since I would consider it additional work that they didn’t have to do. It’s so detailed. It’s so high res. And I’m going to add this here, along with in the UI/Mechanics portion, but the CGs have a sentence or two of the LI’s thoughts on the scene as an additional feature. It’s neat to actually hear his PoV of what was going on at the time, or how he felt, or what he was thinking. You’re killing me here. So good.
Look at this Photograph Rating: 100%. What is this? A perfect score? I didn’t think I was allowed to give these out. I don’t think anything will ever surpass the CGs Piofiore delivers. This is what I was waiting for in my life. More naked, though, please? I want to see hot guys with less clothes.
UI/Mechanics: Usually I don’t have much to say about the UI/Mechanics portion unless there’s an issue, not this time. This time I’m gushing. Guys, this game is gorgeous. I said it in the art. I said it in the CGs. I’m saying it here. The opening screen is gorgeous. The menu is beautiful. Starting a new game brings you to a screen with newspaper clippings to select what part of the game you’re looking for. The textbox inside the game is just magical, it’s detailed without causing issues for reading the text. I was blown away at all the detail and little things they threw in to make the game feel more immersive.
The Extras section is equally well done. I enjoy the way the menu was set up. If you go into CGs, they’re organized as you would expect, with no cost spared to how nice the backgrounds and options are. And then (I mentioned this in the CG portion) there are voiced lines for each of the CGs of the character and his thoughts about that moment. It’s ridiculous that something so small could make me so happy, but hearing his PoV was awesome. It’s the little things that really pushed this game over the top for me.
All other features were as expected. There are no additional mechanics for this game other than standard for visual novels. Saving was easy. Loading was cake. I didn’t get lost in the menus despite them being in Italian in some areas (for flavor). There was an explanation for things that needed an explanation, i.e. “These are the episodes after the BEST end.” I didn’t use the status page during my play throughs, because I’d rather not know where I’m headed. It tempts me to reload choices and make different decisions so I can “win”, so I just don’t use it because I enjoy the game more like that. However! I have heard that the status page, although equally as wonderfully designed as any other part of the game, is difficult to understand and notice changes on until you have greatly skewed your path one way or the other. Also, being unable to access the extras section until you finish a route was annoying. I wanted to see some pretty CGs when I was only an hour in; waiting was excruciating.
What’s this button do? Rating: A. They could have put this UI over a off-white screen with just words scrawled across the background in crayon and I would have praised how amazing it was. Everything is easy to find and understand, options were set to ideal settings. Nothing but good things from me.
Errors: Okay, how’d they do on errors? Surely there has to be something wrong with this game, right? Actually, you’re partially right. This was probably their weakest portion of the game. The dreaded errors! But even for being weakest, it is still pretty strong. I’ve come to understand that all translated titles (even the $50 ones) come with a minimal amount of errors. Piofiore, although far from bad, was trekking into the worrisome territory. Add to the translation problems (outlined below), there was a sound issue I mentioned in the Voice Acting section, and I’m starting to make that “Eeeeeehhhhhhhh” sound that means it’s barely skating by.
I can’t recall any spelling errors, but I have a vague memory of someone pointing out a spelling error to me that I didn’t even notice because all the correct letters were there, it was simply just put in the wrong order; like thief and theif. There were a few text-wrapping errors, under a dozen for certain, where spoken dialogue would be split into the following thought box, not that character’s textbox. Missing words were common. Throughout the whole of the game, this happened close to 50 times, I’d say. Capitalization was the most common, so common that I stopped noticing it. Both were instances where they don’t capitalize the beginning of a sentence, or they have two letters capitalized. “NIcola” was most often given this error. Which was funny that it was always him. There were some grammar issues, where the wrong tense was used, under 50 of these errors (I’d guess). The occasional dropped punctuation, or misused punctuation. There was one where “,,,,” was used instead of “....”. Most of these are small issues, but the small issues add up when they occur so frequently. There was only one time (that I can recall) that the completely wrong word was used in a sentence, and it caused me to laugh uncontrollably for several minutes. It went into my screenshot collection. “I stood in front of Dante’s office, straining my eyes to hear when I should enter.”
All-in-all, there are problems, but the game is far from unplayable due to them. Yes, it can be annoying when you get stuck on a sentence because a word is missing and it’s just not coming together in your brain. I’d give Piofiore a passing grade, but just barely. Like I said, there’s enough there that I found it worrisome, but not enough that I would consider it grossly neglected. There’s a lot to this game, and sometimes small issues like these ones get overlooked because our brains are amazing things that fill in what we know should be there instead of what is actually there.
Here there be Bugs Rating: Pass. There are plenty of creepy crawlies in this neck of the woods. You best be prepared to do battle if it gets much worse, but for now, you’re safe from bugs.
Background Music: I left this game running on my big screen t.v. while I would take a break and eat dinner, or lunch, or do a chore or two, for no other reason than because it was artfully composed. I didn’t mind hearing the same BGM on that one screen on repeat for 30 minutes at a time. It’s good music, guys. It’s really good music. I’m sad that Aksys didn’t offer a limited edition set for Piofiore where I could have the OST. I would buy the game again just to get it, if it was available. Then I’d hand a copy of the game to a friend and pretend like I got it for them all along while I enjoy the extras that came with the purchase. Eventually, I’ll look up if any of the music is for sale somewhere that isn’t too difficult to obtain. I haven’t actually done that, yet, but considering it is the first step to throwing my money at people.
This is the funniest and best review of Piofiore I've ever read! I've only played 1 route so far (Nicola's) and I agree with you with the most part so I'm looking forward to enjoying the rest of the game!
ReplyDeleteStroking my ego there. Thank you, I'm glad you enjoyed it! I think this was my longest review to date, so I'm glad it still held that entertainment value without being bogged down with all my rambling.
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