Animal Lover

[H1]Cringe, chaos, and complex characters: this one's not for the faint of fluff.[/H1] Animal Lover is what happens when you impulse-buy an otome game and end up deep in a rabbit hole of time-travel, curses, awkward flirting, and… very loud feminism. Took me about 6.5 hours for a first playthrough and around 8 hours total to get all achievements, though I only unlocked 4 out of 7 endings in that time. And no, I'm still not sure what I played. The game’s premise is offbeat from the start (no spoilers, but yes, it involves animals and yes, it gets weird), but it leans fully into its bizarre energy. The writing is funny and surprisingly sharp, with moments of real emotional depth. Each love interest has a distinct backstory and worldview, largely shaped by the century they were yoinked from, and their dynamic with the modern-day MC creates genuinely thoughtful clashes, especially around gender roles and expectations. The main character is a big plus: not your usual self-insert but a woman with opinions, sarcasm, and the spine to stand her ground. It’s refreshing. The romance pacing is decent, and the narrative even finds room to treat heavy subjects like grief, homophobia, and iden…

Animal Lover is an urban fantasy visual novel about helping a set of men break a curse that affects all of them. The gameplay mechanics are standard choices in visual novels. The main selling point is the characters. I think they're all well written and distinct from one another. It is a little weird that a visual novel has a canon route but I also agree with it so I'll let it slide. If I had to offer a criticism there are some characters that are implied to exist but don't have any presence in the story. For example, the main character has parents but we only hear from one. In short, a good visual novel with good characters.

All around great game with great dialogue, great characters and a heroine who was smart and relatable and not annoying in any way. I enjoyed my time with it immensely.

just no

With hindsight I don’t know if I would recommend it but the story was interesting, original and well told, which is ultimately the most important thing.

Spend hours caring for digital pets, making sure they’re fed, happy, and occasionally alive. Somehow, I got more emotionally invested in pixelated cats than in real life this week. 8/10—cute, relaxing, and slightly soul-crushing if you forget to feed them.