Thank you Aksys Games for sending us a review code!

Tales from Toyotoki: Arrival of the Witch came out on PC two years ago and it has Very Positive reviews. It’s about a high school age boy named Hikaru who was raised by his aunt after his parents died. His relationship with his aunt is strained and out of nowhere she ships him off to Toyotoki Island to live with his grandfather. Apparently, his grandfather never got the memo because he was off traveling when Hikaru arrived all alone.

Toyotoki Island is an interesting place. They’re not fond of outsiders, but thankfully Hikaru was welcomed on the island because a girl named Akari vouched for him upon his arrival. According to Akari, she and Hikaru hung out when they were little. However, Hikaru has no memory of their playdates. After bringing Hikaru to his grandfather’s residence, she heads back to her house.

Hikaru quickly realizes his grandfather's residence is empty; he's now left to fend for himself with little money to sustain him. There’s a sugarcane field nearby and Hikaru heads over there to sleep and meets a strangely dressed girl named Lilun. She teaches Hikaru how to build a hut and they share of meal of fire-roasted snakes for dinner. After a couple of days of “roughing it” Hikaru decides to break his way into his grandfather’s house and offers to share it with Lilun. She cautiously accepts the offer and their captivating story begins.

Lilun openly admits that she’s a witch and is surprised that Hikaru accepts her as she is. Much of her power is obtained from the jewelry that she wears. Lilun is familiar with and conducts rituals to obtain favor from powerful spirits. For example, to give closure to one of the characters, she summons a deceased spirit to give the person an opportunity say goodbye to their grandmother.

Toyotoki Island has a few powerful families that are tied to the island’s traditions and worship of a dark deity that demands a human vessel to reside in. Lilun was sent by her village to defeat this deity. Gathering information from islanders wary of outsiders is a difficult task. Throughout the story, Hikaru will make friends in high places and his grandfather will call occasionally with insights to the mysterious practices and rituals that take place on Toyotoki Island.

Tales from Toyotoki: Arrival of the Witch is broken down into multiple chapters that take place from the perspective of different characters. While there are choices to be made, they have no impact on the direction of the story and just provide background information if desired. Ultimately, there is only one route as there are no bad choices/endings possible. Upon completing the game, you will unlock some short stories and Akari’s notes about the island’s mysteries. The Append short stories are included in the console release but are available as paid DLC on Steam.

According to my Switch, I played Tales from Toyotoki: Arrival of the Witch for fifteen hours. The writing is weird, but good and I like how all of the loose ends are tied up in the end. There are some head scratching moments and others that will have you sitting on the edge of your seat.

There are multiple female characters that Hikaru will befriend and some of them he’ll develop romantic feelings for. Despite living with Lilun there is no mention of them fooling around. There’s a bathing scene with the girls, but nothing is shown. Nudity is described in one instance, though it’s a funny moment and not a sensual one. One of the females is old enough to drink and when she does, she gets inebriated. There is some language (*ss, b*tch, d*mn) and when God’s name is used in vain it’s typically in lower case.

Graphically, this game is all over the place. Most of the backgrounds are hand drawn and look great. Other backgrounds are photo edited and a couple are straight up photographs. The character art is interesting but limited as the characters are often described changing outfits but are never shown in them. Like many cartoon characters they wear the same clothing all of the time.

The voice acting is in Japanese and is very good. Emotions are well conveyed and sound believable. The background music is pleasant to listen to as well.

Overall, Tales from Toyotoki: Arrival of the Witch is a well done visual novel and will stir many emotions as you read through it. Christians may want to think twice as there are many occult references and summoning and interacting with spirits is romanticized in this game. Death and the afterlife portrayed in this game differ than what the Bible teaches. I do look forward to checking out future titles from Fragaria and I hope that they’re more Christian friendly.