I completed Hanaemu Kare to & Bloom (Him, the Smile & Bloom) on Nintendo Switch a couple of weeks ago. "Hanakare" is an otome visual novel with a small twist - there are four female protagonists and they each have their own love interest. Flowers are the central theme of the game and they are incorporated in each of the stories.
The presentation of Hanakare is very nice. Art, music and professional voice acting form a holy trinity of pleasantness. Too bad the four female protagonists aren't voiced and they don't get their own sprite in dialogue boxes. The background art looks detailed and inviting. The CGs are high in quality and there's a good amount of them on each route.
The UI looks good and sophisticated, with soothing earthy tones. I've developed some presbyopia in recent years and it occasionally causes me problems trying to read in games, mostly when playing handheld on Switch. In Hanakare I found the dialogue font easy to read and the text was not too tiny. The only text I had trouble reading was the smaller print in the flower book entries.
The characters are nice, they have good interaction and I like how they're all working adults. Ami is an interior designer, Serina works in a flower shop, Fuuka is an office worker in a trading company and Miku works in a botanical garden. Each of the love interests work in Fill Flower, a popular chain of flower shops.
There's a handful of side characters as well who all were a nice addition to the cast. Store manager Kozue Arisawa was my fave.
My favorite protagonist was maybe Ami, I liked her looks, sophisticated style and her confidence in her own abilities. Determined and somewhat selfish Fuuka was a close second.
My favorite love interest was the energetic, devoted and sincere part-time worker Wataru, very likeable character. Ginnosuke's cheeky attitude made him another favorite of mine. I'm not sure which would have been my top favorite route.
Hanakare is a truly perfect specimen of slice-of-life. No teleporting into fantasy worlds, solving crimes or getting abducted by aliens - just nice down-to-earth stories about daily life of people and their relationships. There's no common route so don't go expecting some grand storyline. There's some humorous events in the game too but I would have welcomed more of them.
Each route has three different outcomes which represent best, normal and bad end: Glow end, Bloom end and Wither end. The overall vibe is cozy and relaxing but some conflicts arise in the bad ends. One of the bad ends was true red flag material, but at the same time it was also the most interesting ending.
The post-game Special stories don't have their own CGs which is fine, but what bothered me is that they ended very abruptly. Finishing all the routes and special stories unlocked 2 completion CGs to the gallery.
There's a Halloween themed DLC story available as well. I didn't play it as I couldn't be bothered to create a Japanese eShop account to purchase it.
The ability to jump into any character's route from title screen without a common route is a welcome feature. Unfortunately the chapter select is limited to viewing just the selected chapter at a time, then returning back to menu, meaning you can't use it for achieving different endings. There's also a baffling choice of making it impossible to rewind and replay scenes from the dialogue log.
I played the Japanese release and the English translation of the game was ok. There were some minor typos and grammar errors (as in most otomes I've played). Worst issues were occasional mixed pronouns (referring to a male but using she/her) which was confusing. That said, the translation was better than I had initially anticipated. It wasn't perfect or even very good but I enjoyed my time with it. Note however that English is not my first language and I probably don't have particularly high standards for translations.
Hanakare is on the shorter side, I completed all content in 25 hours according to Switch. It didn't overstay its welcome and didn't inconvenience player by having to repeat a common route multiple times. I thought it was a refreshing change to the typical otome formula.
With some better UI features, better localization and a little more emphasis on humor the game would have improved its standing on my otome ranking list. It still gets my recommendation as a game well worth looking into if you have a hankering for some slice-of-life.
