Completion date: August 2, 2026

This will be a hopefully shorter review given it is a romcom/slice-of-life with less summary required and shorter game in general. I will put my verdict upfront before I go into the spoilers so this section will be spoiler-free.

Time to clear: 7 hours, best endings only

Rating: 4.5/10

Character ranking: Kanata > Gai (parody route) > Yukito > Shinnosuke >>> Tenma

Recommended play order: Honestly doesn’t matter at all – the routes are separate from each other.

Overall, I was not able to enjoy this game from 2012 maybe because of my own cynicism from aging. I may have loved it near its release but it has too many cliches and predictable plots when played in 2026. People around me all loved it. I would say if you’re looking to relax and brain rot with pretty art and a cute story, this is it. But for me personally, I felt it was way too overhyped.

The art is gorgeous with high quality CGs. Kinami Yuki did a better job here than their later work Tierblade IMO with a crisper style. However, this is my sign to stick to where I am the happiest: angsty story-heavy games, as each time I dared venture outside, I was burned. It didn’t help that a certain route I found very predator-ey and ranted about it extensively on X.

You play as Himeno Kyouko, a 17-year-old literal ojousama and high school senior from a rich family where you live with your dad, butler Shinnosuke & maid Satsuki. You are enjoying your afternoon tea served by your hot butler in some vacation villa until your world suddenly fades to black. When you wake up, the cardiologist gravely diagnoses you with the rare “glass heart syndrome” – your heart rate will gradually lower until zero, unless you can train yourself in a controlled fashion (as going too fast suddenly will also kill you). Instead of doing cardio on the treadmill (which you also do in this game), what better way to simulate heart racing than going on dates and falling in love?

**SPOILERS BEGIN**

Karasuma Yukito (CV: Suzuki Tatsuhisa)

Yukito has a bad reputation at school as the delinquent as he skips school often and can be rough around the edges. However, Kyouko first meets him when he puts his jacket on a stray puppy in the rain and leaves in the street without knowing he was being watched.

Kyouko approaches Yukito and asks to hangout. Despite their large differences in wealth, they learn about each other’s worlds by taking part in each other’s activities. Yukito takes Kyouko to the arcade where they play a shooter together & Kyouko takes Yukito on her private jet. She also helps Yukito with his homework by tutoring him.

This is the most “typical” high school romance and the only route where Kyouko comes clean proactively about her intention to date is to cure her disease (the other routes the LI find out in an emergency situation. During their dates, they grew close to each other. Kyouko feels bad for “using” Yukito but wants to be honest with him & confesses her feelings for him. Yukito returns her confession.

The finale is spiced up as the reason for Yukito skipping class revealed. He is the Kaito Kid of this game as part of a family legacy to steal the replicas of paintings that his grandfather drew when he was poor. In a somewhat dramatic fashion, he & Kyouko complete their final heist before he quits his double life. In the finale, Yukito is accepted as Kyouko’s boyfriend by her father & the two plan on moving in together.

Yukito is your typical high school LI. The two are the typical “miss goody two shoes & the bad boy” combo. He doesn’t exactly know how to talk to girls, gets shy and flustered very easily yet tries poorly to hide it (as when he was teased by his sister and mother). He is a gentle person from the beginning to end but can also get physical as when he defends Kyouko from the thugs. What the two had was very cute. I would have enjoyed it a lot more if I was still 15-20, but Kyouko saying “I will use everything I have (referring to her family wealth) to support you” rubs me the wrong way in the end lol. Girl, don’t marry a broke guy. 6/10

Asahina Tenma (CV: Hatano Wataru)

Asahina sensei is the school doctor but also gets pulled to teach various subjects by the principal. This is the route I hate-played because I didn’t understand what the point of making him a teacher is?? He looks smaller than Kyouko too I can’t take him seriously. I know Twilight released in 2008 & this is probably an attempt at paying homage to it but the amount of predatory-shit he says to Kyouko such as:

• So this is a date then (bro why are you dating someone underage)
• Wow the love we have for each other is mutual
• I will be your most loyal knight and protect you, my princess (bro you’re a teacher act like it)
• Teacher also loves you the way you are (underage???) the most
• When are you going to play with me again? (They were out in the field playing some sport I think, but I refuse to believe this guy/the writer didn’t know what they were doing and vomited in my mouth)
• Why tf is he gifting a female student roses in the middle of the school ??

Kyouko also becomes down-bad for Tenma. You have you constantly pick options such as telling off your pursuers that you have someone you like, that you love Tenma. One night some stuff happened at the mansion & Satsuki tells you to crash at a hotel, but instead Kyouko goes to hang with Tenma in the school infirmary and invites him to sleep in the same bed with her??? Of course we got a “men are wolves don’t you ever say that to another man” scene yeah my eyes are rolling to the back of my head.

So, Tenma has fangs & wears bat-shaped hair clips and his dorm looks like this with a vampire coffin, I’m going to give you one guess on what he actually is.

Yep:

He is an old-ass vampire that has been sealed on the school premises and forced to slave away for the principal. His desire to protect Kyouko, when his old-time enemy reappeared and wanted to use her as bait helped him overcome the seal on his vampire powers. He also kept pushing for Kyouko to become a vampire and be immortal with him when they knew each other for three months… Even Kyouko was like uhh can we not take this slow lol.

During the final showdown Kyouko blocks a fatal blow by his opponent (of course she does) and is about to die. She realizes her love for Tenma (and probably also wants to live, just a thought) and tells him she now agrees to be a vampire.

So they share a longing kiss under the moon & Kyouko becomes a vampire oneesan (the infinity heartbeat lmao)

In the epilogue, Kyouko graduates from university and returns to teach in her high school alongside Tenma, where they are also vampire lovers and suck each other’s blood uwuwuwu

Even though the artist tried their hardest to make me not hate the route, I hated every second of it. Honestly, if they just went full Twilight and made Tenma a popular class president or something, a lot of this would have been acceptable. And before the weeb defenders come and say teacher-student relationships are normalized and even romanticized in Nippon, this route is living up to some stereotypes and kinks and not in a good way, lol. -2/10

Hoshino Kanata (CV: Miyata Kouki)

Kyouko met Kanata aka president of whimsy when she was looking for a date and went to the school tree rumoured where you can meet the love of your life. Lo and behold a man falls from the sky. Kanata constantly talks in a dreamy, slow tone, has an extraterrestrial being on his shoulder that he talks to, and doesn’t seem to understand basics on earth such as what football is, how to eat curry (drank it), what wedding rings are etc.

Starting as friends, Kyouko goes out with Kanata a few times, teaching him the ways on Earth. Kanata unintentionally hurts her feelings after telling her that he is an android sent from outer space & tasked with surveying planet Earth, but insisted on going alone as Kyouko would only be a “burden”. Kyouko cries and runs away while Kanata realizes his heart began to ache. He is developing feelings for Kyouko.

On Christmas eve, he shows Kyouko his decorated Christmas tree & confesses to her. However, reading that people in love kiss each other, he forces a kiss on Kyouko who isn’t ready at all – as a result, her heart rate goes into overdrive and is about to die. Kanata does something & Kyouko restores her heartbeat but the indicator on the top right is now green. Kanata tells her that every day she needs to “perform maintenance” with her new heart by hugging him, chest-to-chest.

However, from that day, Kanata contracts a case of narcolepsy and dozes off at random times throughout the day. Eventually, Shinnosuke realizes that Kanata is equipped with two android hearts but he gave Kyouko one of them when she was about to die. As such, Kanata cannot function normally anymore and is about to shut down. Using his final bit of battery, Kanata returns to his planet, wipes Kyouko’s memory, and tells her “goodbye”. He leaves behind a small female alien to perform “maintenance” of her heart.

Kyouko feels something is missing but does not know what. In the following week, she goes to the various places where she built precious memories with Kanata and regained her memory. Remembering Kanata mentioning the “reception” is best on top of a certain hill in the city, she goes there waiting for him, who returns one day telling her that he is fixed & will be able to stay by her side forever. The two ride a magical bike high in the night sky into the shadows.

Kanata was second last in my pre-ranking but his launched himself to #1 because his story was actually touching 😭😭😭 despite the length of the route it delivered some good old angst. When he told Kyouko sayonara… 😭 then when the two rode to the moon (Impey: ?).. Also Kanata’s theme in general makes me think of Tierblade – a combination of MC/Cradle. I know this game came first but it made me an emotional mess for sure. 10/10

Masaki Shinnosuke (CV: KENN)

Shinnosuke is Kyouko’s overprotective butler who goes “so anyways I started blasting” at whoever he perceives as trying to get too close to his ojousama. While he was one of my most anticipated routes, his route ended up being a huge snoozefest because the two never really formally confirm feelings for each other until the very end. The two go on dates, have moments where they cheekily half-ass confess to each other such as reciting confession lines in manga/anime but under the pretence of roleplay and date practice…

Anyways, Kyouko catches Shinnosuke calling someone at night talking about some deal and showing he is more than ojousama’s loyal butler. He also makes various references to Kyouko “I am teaching you this so one day you will be strong enough even on your own” implying he is going to leave one day.

Eventually, Shinnosuke comes out as working as a spy for a rival of Kyouko’s father, and gives the rival enough information to overthrow Kyouko’s father’s company. However, the rival then suddenly demands Kyouko to marry him – because he’s always had a thing for Kyouko’s mom yet she chose Kyouko’s dad instead of him, so he is always bitter. Shinnosuke loses his cool and says wait this wasn’t part of the deal, you promised me you’d find a way to cure her disease. ??? Like why would you just believe this guy and whatever he promises, are you daft?

We then see a flashback of Shinnosuke used to be some child soldier that works for some illegal organization and abducted a young Kyouko. However, he grew close to her while trying to tend to her needs and calm her down while holding her for ransom, and eventually defected his organization. Kyouko’s dad just decides to keep him around as Kyouko’s personal butler because his six-year-old daughter insisted and said she couldn’t leave Shinnosuke anymore… despite this kid just trying to abduct his daughter and could be a double agent for all he knew… and it eventually happened… fool me once shame on me fool me twice…

Eventually, Shinnosuke crashes the rival’s engagement announcement/wedding I forgot with Kyouko dressed as a prince in the fairytales, because this is what Kyouko’s dad said to a young Kyouko when she turns 18, a dazzling prince will come and swoop her off her feet. =_=

I was not impressed by this story whatsoever. The romance was non-existent. They didn’t have quality moments together, just in the same room and not being forward with their feelings; Shinnosuke blindly trusting the enemy and screwing over Kyouko & her father majorly in the process; then the writer tries to shove us some flashback so we as readers accept this pairing because “omg they go so way back”, but if anything left a even worse taste in my mouth because he betrayed Kyouko TWICE. KENN again gets cursed with a shitty story. I really can’t. 1/10

Doumyouji Gai (CV: Matsuoka Yoshitsugu)

Gai’s route is a parody route because in game, he is 8 years younger than Kyouko aka he is literally a 10-year-old boy. On paper, he is her “fiancé” because before they were born, their fathers during some ?drunken conversation made a verbal promise to have their kids marry, only Gai wasn’t born until much later after Kyouko was born…

You don’t really have date events with him. If anything, Gai becomes mesmerized at how Shinnosuke kicks the bad guys’ ass & begs the latter to be his sensei. He then trains hard so he can protect his beloved fiancée one day.

One of the endings you just spend Christmas with him or something and get a CG of a shota holding your hand & that’s literally the end.

In the second happy ending, Kyouko & Shinnosuke set up a fake scenario where some burglars ransack the house when only Kyoukou & Gai are at home. This achieves nothing but traumatizes this poor boy & makes him crash out at Kyouko for deceiving him. He yells that he hates them and disappears from their lives until many years later he returns from overseas, beats Shinnosuke’s ass & declares that he will steal Kyouko away from his ex-sensei.

The story is quite literally non-existent, but the story isn’t really all there for most of this game, so I actually didn’t mind it as much. Plus, Matsuoka’s voice makes everything better, right? ¯_(ツ)_/¯ So before I knew it, I am done with this game and confused as to what I just played. It really felt like a CG collection trip & some voice acting, but otherwise I probably would have been better off if I never played it… I may come back to the FD at some point, because the Switch version is a 2-in-1 but would definitely be looking to sell the game otherwise. To be honest, I am surprised I even managed to write near 3k words for this review because that’s how much lacking in substance this game was… onto the next game.