Beyond Eden: Dear Edward

Alrighty... If you are here because you've read Beyond Eden and are interested in this one... You might be disappointed. For one... Beyond Eden is dark and you know the rest. If you read it that is. This one... Is fluffy and light. It's also a Stat Building game... But not a hardcore one. IF you guys liked the way Alex was in the First Book... Ugh... In this one... He is a shell of his former self. The story follows through via Jeremy's GOOD Ending. You know... The lil kid? So that means... Alex ended up with no one. This time though, you follow Edward, the Gambler. A "career" I surely DID NOT pursue. Lol. So now you get two love interests: Alex and Francis. I will tell you straight up... If you go Alex's route... It's like "puppy love" and there is no romance there at all. Alex WILL NEVER act like himself and eh... Have you ever read a story where a character acts one way and then suddenly: "OMG, I LOVE YOU!"?... It's like that. It's... Ridiculous to say the least. I was in such high disbelief at the words on the screen... That I dropped the route immediately. Francis though? Francis works a wonder for this game. He is the best Love Interest for …

Beyond Eden: Dear Edward is a satisfying sequel/side story for fans of the original game. In contrast to the latter's dark and tense atmosphere, Dear Edward is a more lighthearted telling of the aftermath of Jeremy's route and the struggles of the Edenic family to remain in good standing with their aristocratic status in London. This time, Edward is the main character (we cheered!!!), but a cute yet obviously inexperienced one who once again gets himself indebted to Alex. Alex Wake—the protagonist of the first game—and Francis Taylor—who happens to be Eddie's old dormmate and school friend—also appear as LIs. The stat-raising mechanic of the game is pretty straightforward, and certain events require X amount of points in X stat to achieve favorable outcomes and some endings. However, only a few stats are really important to focus on in most routes, such as Observation/Deduction or Gambling and Spiritual Powers (the moneymaking skills), which makes others (e.g., Latin, Estate Management) quite obsolete. Although this makes stat grinding a bit of a pain, it's nothing too difficult with save files and having Eddie ignore some characters throughout the game. Fulfilling the debt is qui…

Over priced Censored images I enjoyed the game.

I've only done one playthrough but it was enjoyable. Since I played Beyond Eden prior to this game, I already had a match in mind for Alex. So that left one romance option for Edward. Francis is easy to love, though. I also liked the extras included at the end of the game. One was a mini episode for Joshua that showed more of Alex and Joshua's relationship. Another extra was some messages from the voice actors.

I felt like the life sim aspect of this game was underdeveloped and that the game itself was a bit expensive, but I greatly enjoyed it as a light-hearted spin-off of the original. Edward is a likable protagonist and it's satisfying to develop his skills, see him do cool things, and develop his relationship with the other characters. I found myself skimming the BL portions largely because I found that I cared more about other parts of Edward's story, but I think they were fine. I would've enjoyed the game more if there were more stat checks that mattered and just greater development of the stat-raising system in general; from my three playthroughs only six of the some dozen and a half stats came up at all. I thought the cupid system was a neat idea but I didn't actually experiment with it, so I can't attest to how well it was implemented.

I initially only bought this game because I want more Alex x Oscar but turns out this is such a fun VN to play! I very much love how fleshed out and 'complete' the character post-Beyond Eden had become,, Edward is still a cute brat but he's honest and hardworking, and his relationship with Francis is beyond adorable (*ﾉ∀`*) they became my 2nd most favorite pair out of the two games as soon as I was done with Francis' route ♡ Gameplay-wise, it's a simple but fun dating sim and it's not hard to decide which stats corresponds with which endings/lovers/whatever the player wanted. Even when I don't really want to pursue Alex or Francis, there are still many endings the player can choose that are not even romance-related. The Lane Hall Ghost mystery caught me off guard when I first played this game, since I had no idea there would be more aspects here than what you get in a regular dating sim game. It's really fun to read the mysteries and make decisions to pursue the truth! But all that being said, the highlight of this game is truly the cupid system! I can never thank the devs enough for giving Alex and Oscar such a nice and beautiful ending!! I've been rooting for them since the f…