Love Cult

Love Cult...baby Love Cult. Okay, cringe opening, I know. A game inspired by Cult of the Lamb, how cool is that?

The Story & Gameplay

An otome inspired by the game Cult of the Lamb is such a clever idea. I have not yet played it but it is on the ever growing list of stuff to try.

Doomsday is approaching and you play as Meridian, the only one who can save the world by using the forbidden art…the worst kind of magic there is…divine matchmaking. Desperate times call for desperate measures. The only thing after all that can conquer all is love.

The game plays out in segments like a tarot reading for the reader! Each act you pick a new card and whoever you get that is the way your story unfolds. A refreshing mechanic that adds some unpredictability to the story.

You don’t get to really choose who you want to pursue (Vanille, Void or Zephyr) due to the mechanics but if you save and reload at each reading you can manipulate that. It will get tedious to do that but it will help you romance who you wish. I went with the flow and got Vanille for my first play-through. One route took me about 2.5 hours.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3513879528

🌶️ Spice Level - medium. Sexual banter but no nudity or outright graphic stuff. It is mostly in the text.

Settings & Features

Settings & features include; audio controls, text speed, and display options. Save files are limited so try to save at choice points. There is a history log as well.

The Visuals & Audio

The music they chose for this novel is okay. There is no voice acting or ambient sounds but the music fits well enough as a backdrop even if it does get a bit repetitive at times.

A special shout out for hud design. The text is easy to read and the design is beautiful. Embellished borders and a celestial background of stars and constellations faded into the background. I normally don’t call out attention to the hud but this one is beautifully thought out.

A very cool set up to see your cg’s, and route endings! You get to unlock this screen after the intro into the game (maybe half an hour in). SAVE this screen so you can reload your routes and see your cg’s. The Fortune deck is set up as a tarot reading that determines whose route you experience first. So if you're going for a certain someone then reload. Also each character you unveil gives you an achievement.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3513776757

Mini-game Thoughts

Basically the premise is you collect hearts from your members and when they get a disturbing thought you click their thought bubble and give them advice. You need to summon more members to get enough hearts to pass the level. The good news is missed hearts stay at the top of the screen so you can collect them still if you miss them.

The frustrating part is the time. Thought bubbles will all pop up at once or close to one another and if you don’t answer them in time then the member will disappear. Sadly you cannot skip the mini games or turn off the timer. If you cannot get past the mini-game you have to keep trying.

I like the addition of the mini game and customizing my chibi followers but honestly hate the time factor.

Honestly how I got around it was I collected hearts, spammed members and just let them leave as dealing with their thoughts just gets frustrating on a timer. Just focus on collecting hearts as fast as you can.

Overall Experience

I recommend this game on sale, the story is well written and the way the gameplay is set up, like the reader is having a tarot reading done is a neat idea however the lack of art is so disappointing.

The majority of the novel is backgrounds with the sprites art (as you see in the previews). You unlock 3 cg’s of each character and they are hard won as most of them will come at the end of each route. I was really hoping for more art and cg’s sprinkled throughout the novel to be honest.

And the mini game, while a refreshing mechanic, does get frustrating with the timer. I see the strive from the developers to do something different and I appreciate that so much, I just wish the artwork had taken more center stage as what is there, despite being brief, is beautiful. ⭐

---

Please follow our curator page, Otome Lovers, if you'd like to see more reviews like this one!

I really wanted to like this game, but unfortunately it has a lot of issues. I was one of the Kickstarter backers for it, and thought it sounded really cool in premise, but in execution... not so much.

The game suffers from a lot of poor writing right off the bat. It's clear the devs tried to use "in media res"--that is, getting into a scene as late as possible for storytelling purposes--but this was not done well and left me confused. It is entirely too text heavy (even by visual novel standards, which is saying a lot), and you're not really sure where to start or what's going on from the beginning of the game.

There isn't even really a great introduction to let you get an idea of the world or the characters. You're just kind of clicking through the story hoping to pick up breadcrumbs of a concept, and it doesn't really come through enough to keep you interested.

I typically love games like this, but this one fell fully flat for me, and the tie-in of being "inspired by Cult of the Lamb" was... well, almost impossible to see in action. Maybe I didn't play it long enough to see, but that's also the problem: I didn't WANT to keep playing it to find out.

I will say, the art for this game is pretty, but I think most gamers would agree that graphics/presentation matters far less than actual game play, and this one just felt like a slog, unfortunately.

Editing to add: Steam doesn't count this review toward the overall score because I used a key to access it on this platform, but I didn't receive this game for free. I paid for it through Kickstarter and was given the key code when the game came out and DID pay my own money for this game.

Not very good to put it bluntly.

The text boxes appear all at once with no scroll which makes reading a bit of a chore, not bad but certainly didn't help. The Three Love Interests are a Tech CEO, a Seductress, and Well i would like to know the third one as he is what i bought this game for but because the events are random i never drew one of his cards and so i was forced into the Tech CEO route.

The only distraction from the fact that i had no agency was the mini game which looped the same 5 questions and became a glorified cookie clicker, and the random lore drops that appeared whenever a buzz word showed up. EVERY. TIME. The 'banter' is fine just some dirty jokes and allusions to sex. who cares.

I figured i would add some positives since this game wasn't all bad. The idea of random events is compelling for the main theme of love being fated and everyone eventually finding their kindred. The actual implementation of this was lacking but its a good idea that shows some promise. The music was. fine. but its only one track so don't get your hopes up. The CG's are charming enough. the random lore bits were fun, when the story wasn't tripping over itself with jargon.

not worth the buy, and i even bought it on sale.