Thank you Intragames Co. Ltd. For sending us this game to review!

7’scarlet was originally released for the PlayStation Vita in 2016 and received positive reviews. Two years later, it made its way to Steam though the porting job is messy to say the least. When the game is first launched it will have configuration window where you can adjust the resolution, full screen settings, and look over the key bindings for the controls.

The first time I played the game (on my work lunch break), I lost my progress because I didn’t know how to bring up the game menu (C). The second time I played the game I took note of the quick save button (F3). After watching the whole intro movie again (which is unskippable) I got to where I left off before and did a quick save. I was a bit miffed upon launching the game a third time and finding my progress all gone! The fourth time was the charm as I used the main menu and did normal saves with the three slots provided. Thankfully, these saves are stored in the cloud if you’re like me and play games on multiple devices.

The story is about a girl whom you get to name whose brother went missing in the mysterious town of Okunezato last year. Her childhood friend, Hino, offers to take her there to investigate on their break. Your character’s memory isn’t the best and she has blocked out some traumatic events that others are aware of. For example, she’s not sure why, but she doesn’t like strawberries though that was not always the case. Throughout the many different routes this visual novel offers you’ll learn how that came to be along with the origins of her memory fragments.

7’scarlet is an otome visual novel meaning that it’s a reverse harem with most of the male characters being datable throughout the different routes. Not all of them are available from the get-go. You have to complete one route before the next one unlocks and each of them offers a bad, normal, and a happy ending. Thankfully, when you begin a new game you can begin after the prologue or at the beginning of that character’s route to save time. Like other visual novels, you can fast-forward through the text that you have already read (F2).

The characters are tropish with some being more interesting than others. Your childhood friend is a jock who has been in love with your character for a while though she’s oblivious to it. She can also date a smooth talking chef, an intellectual med student with glasses, a clumsy guy who attracts cats, and the hotel owner who is quite frankly a spoiled jerk. There is a true ending route that’s pretty heartwarming. Once all of those stories are cleared, a new route/character becomes available. After all of the routes have been played, all of the story holes will be filled.

The endings are determined by how you answer various questions throughout the game. There’s a handy Steam guide that will tell you how to unlock all of the achievements and ending types. The limited number of save slots makes things a bit challenging, but I highly recommend saving often as this game is very unstable and is prone to crashing often.

From a moral perspective there are several things worth mentioning. Romance is possible and thankfully it’s just limited to kissing. Some of the kisses involve tongues though. Killing and murders are another prominent theme. Though blood isn’t shown (other than the screen flashing red), it’s described in great detail. Language is used as well with d*mn and *ss showing up occasionally. Alcohol is consumed though I don’t recall any of the characters getting drunk. There are references to other gods and ghosts.

Other than the lousy interface and stability issues, this game is great when it comes to the visuals and voice acting. The artwork is really nice and the movie cutscenes are a nice touch. It was nice to see animated fireworks instead of a still frame of them. The characters have different facial expression, with and without blushing. The Japanese only voice acting is well done and conveys the characters' emotions nicely.

I’ve spent over eighteen hours playing through all of the routes and endings and enjoyed the story thoroughly. I experienced many crashes and glitches that hampered my gaming experience and as a result only recommend buying this game on a sale or playing it on the Vita system it’s ported from. If you enjoy otome visual novels, 7’scarlet is worth adding to your wishlist.