Recent reviews by Kaia

A beautiful view of a new world that will soon fade away.
Melancholic at the surface, but filled with excitement for whats yet to come.
Reminding the player that what matters is, that we enjoy even the smallest of moments.

Get a journal. Take that picture. Remember.

*Almost* spoiler free review!

The premise is simple: You meet four (main) characters who become voice acters at your studio, learn how to produce bl (and other) audio dramas, get to know and/or romance one of them and live happily ever after.
The graphics are HQ, the voice acting is obviously the main focus. So what's wrong with Voice Love On Air?

Firstly, next to the very pretty anime artworks, the game also features AI art for the drama CD covers. Do with this info wahtever you want to. I do not support this and would like to know beforehand next time.

The gameplay loop is boring and repetitive and the main management part is a game based on luck rather than skill or good preperation.
To produce dramas, you have to reach a certain amount of points in 3 different skills. These skills are leveled by taking courses for 5 days in-game time (the player is looking at the screen, hands off of the keyboard), after you passed the threshhold you appoint 1 or 2 VA's and then you have to execute the acting by picking cards to support the actors in the voice booths. Your stats have no influence on which cards you can pull and if you pull bad cards you can't meet certain requirements, deliver a worse product and get less cash as well as affection from your actors. But none of this really matters, because you will swim in money after Y1. Or rather I did, but I also only produced S rank dramas because of lucky card draws.

I normally do not gravitate to this kind of game, but I know there are a ton of good VN's out there. This one is just boring. The story is bland and has no depth beyond ' my sister died ' and now the MC has a special emotion based power that's not getting explained in any detail at all.
The love interests are uninspired BL tropes I just can't take serious anymore at this day and age.
We have the ditzy cute one who's also abrasive at times when he feels inadequat but cries easily.
The cool and mysterious smart guy wearing glasses and being rich. His MO? He likes building bricks. (Thats kinda cute ngl, he's also my favorite)
The other cool but strong one who does not know how to show softness, because he has to be strong for his little sick sister.
And your childhood best friend. Who is obviously down bad for you (Aki) since minute one.
Is there nothing more original than this?

Before I end this review I'd like to open up another unpleaseant conversation. Please bare with me. I do not consider myself a fujoshi. I actually dislike this term a lot because of the community that surrounds a lot of BL works and makes me feel uncomfortable to sometimes even play or read anything like this openly, because of the blatant fetishization in the genre. I don't know anything about the studio behind this game, but I hope they will at least try better next time.
80% of the explicit dramas we can produce in this game are r* fantasies, non-con or hurting one character in the process. Why. WHY?
The very first audio drama is one. I actually thought about getting a refund, but I thought it might be random at first. It is not. The romances with the cast are 'normal' but at the same time, very same-y, like you can clearly feel that their focus is in a very specialized corner of BL. Now if you like this, please go on and pay 30€ (don't it's overprized, there are typos and bad translations everywhere), perfect game for you. I do not and that's why I won't recommend.

Let me preface with a very simple statement: I REALLY wanted to like this game, I would not have paid full price or played as much as I already have if this wasn't the case.

Right now, I tell my friends who have Coral Island on their wishlists to not buy it.
The game is 'released' as in: I assumed it was playable in it's entirety, play the whole story and expereice a FULL game.
I, we, you can't do that right now. (I'm writing this right after Hotfix v1.0-945 came out)
The story can't be finished, there is no Merfolk Storyline (and they are an essential part of the mid to late game), some romance scenes are not implemented - you can't marry certain characters yet and there is no indicator for that.
Quests are marked WIP in the questlog because they are not implemented.
The game crashes regularly (for a lot of people, I only encountered this since the recent Hotfix).
Character illustrations are not implemented yet or sloppily cut out with white edges where they should not be.
Some of the Achievements are at 0.0% rate because: they can't be completed at this point in time.

Go look up the 2024 roadmap for Coral Island and be surpirsed by all the things not included in the FULL game release and decide for yourself if you should buy now or wait if and when they will finish their fully released game.
They also release 2 hotfixes a month since releasing the game, trying to very slowly unbreak their broken game.

I will play further, if my savestate let's me and might edit this later on, but rn I'm not happy with the state of Coral Island at all.

I played this game to 100% and it was a *struggle*.
The first 3-5 hours were fun, leveling up and getting to experiment with different menus.
Then I learned that the bonuses do nothing and I did not gain more coins for different combinations.
It also did not feel relaxing when there are more than 2 (later even more than 1) item is ion the menu, because to satisfy all customers you have to rush.

The artstyle is very cute tho and I liked the small scope of the game.

I'd say, if you are not a completionist or don't mind a grind ( I spend atleast 15 hours grinding from lvl 20 to 40 / getting the last achievement), get it when it's discounted.

The gameplay loop is engaging enough to have around 20hours of fun (one life took me about 1 1/2h if I played seriously).
It plays out kinda like a board game, as others have already pointed out. The connect 3 or more mini-game at the end of each term is also easy af, so don't worry about that.
Artworks are nice and the sound design is decent, although after my first 3 loops I disabled the music to listen to something else in the background.
The Characters are fun if you experience their lifes for the first time (or 2 times as every char has a good/bad ending), but their stories are shallow, if anything. I stopped paying attention to them as soon as they weren't "needed" anymore.


• If you are here for the achievements, the community guides are very helpful~
I had fun until I needed the last character bound achievement and the friend i needed to unlock the respective area did just not come into my life. •

Normally, I don't like the repetitiveness of restaurant sims, but with tihs game I did not really mind it.
The main characters are likeable in a weird kinda way (maybe it's the ♥ Daddy ♥ Vibes) & the voice acting is great!
I also like the art style & how you need to play the whole game to get the achievements but it's not a total timesink.

I'd love to play a sequel or a similar game with this art style & theme anytime <3

ughh ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ steve

I tried to keep my eyes open for as long as possible, so that time does not pass, but I failed, life won't wait until we are ready to progress. It just... goes on. And some things we say or do can not be changed.
This game reminded me that, it does not matter how long we have to live, but rather how many peoples life we affect in a meaningful way in the time that's left.

I also learned, that it's a gift I can unfocus my eyes. *wink*

I cried ;___;

I liked every second of Half Past Fate & every main character has their little (love) moment to shine.
This small gem of a game (I did 100% in 4ish hours) consists of 12 chapters, every chapter features another MC, of walking around beautifully pixeled maps, short lasting fetch quests (+ using the aquired objects at the right time) & dialogues with a 100% lovable, diverse cast.

I was not moved to tears by the little love stories, they are not that complex or deep, but they made me happy. <3