Kiss The Demiurge is a yuri visual novel released by YuriEureka, we would like to thank them for providing us a free copy of their visual novel for review.
The story starts out with Minori Nakahashi, a normal-looking high school student who is a mage. She is tasked by a secret military organization to hide magic from the world. Minori encounters a demon who tells her about the existence of potential magic users at this high school. The demon tells her about this magic club at the school and plans on offering a deal between them so they can get magical powers of their own. Minori reports it to the secret organization she works for, who is named U.M.I and they ask her to go and find this magic club.
Once she is there, she finds the club with three other members, Akane Aoki, Tomoko Tanaka, and Chitori Notawa. Each who have their own special powers and abilities that they can use to speak to sprites or cast certain spells.
Pros and Cons
Pros
Very fun and compelling story with dark elements and twists
Interesting characters depending on the route you pick
Relaxing soundtrack that is pleasant to listen to
Nicely drawn CGs
Cons
Character development suffers depending on the route you pick
Story has engaging plot points that fails to lead to anything
Voice acting is available but did not function on my play through
Characters
There are a total of three routes that you can choose from to explore in the VN. There is only one scene where you have a choice between which route you choose. So, you don’t have to worry about getting a bad ending and you can focus on the character you picked. The story elements that were shown were really nice and I enjoyed them when they were presented. I liked how the characters showcased their magical abilities in unique ways. This helped to further distinguish each character from each other.
The characters were very interesting, depending on the route you choose, my favorite has to be Akane Aoki. Who is a magic samurai who is a descendant of a samurai clan that has a long history of using magic. She wants to prove to society that magic is real and by doing so she can help the world out when she discovers it. She also wants to make a Fantasy based story, which is something I kind of want to do as well.
One thing I should note is that there are different scenes for each route, so there is some replay value to be had while playing. The ending may be the same for all three but you will have different scenarios for the characters.
The twists that the story offered were also very nice, despite them being a little obvious to me. I also liked some of the more charming moments and there was even some dark humor thrown in as well. I should note that if you are not a fan of this type of stuff, you may want to stay away from this VN.
Although that’s where the positivity I have for Kiss The Demiurge ends here as I have two major issues with how it presents its story. When it comes to visual novels, I will usually go into depth about the characters but couldn’t for this one due to the fact that I played Akane Aoki’s route.
This basically means that whatever route you pick, will determine what character development you get in the story. Now, you may say this is normal for visual novels, but keep in mind that if there are ones with multiple different characters, the other characters will develop at least to make them likable and to be a character. I just did not care for the other two characters in this visual novel really because I did not really know anything about them. Of course, this can be negated by playing all three routes in the visual novel but for someone who only wants to do a single playthrough, that may not please them.
Then there are some issues with plot elements, Kiss The Demiurge presents you with some intriguing plot points but unfortunately they go nowhere. I can’t say much of course due to spoilers but I do think there were some interesting moments in the visual novel that were shown and then they were left unanswered. Like why does this character do this or why does this character do that? I just wish there were some resolution to what the characters were thinking or what they would do in some parts.
Graphics and Performance
The art style for Kiss The Demiurge is rather charming, you can tell that everything is hand drawn and it’s good. The CGs are the most impressive in my eyes as they really show off, I actually like the designs on the demons the most, I think they really fit the art style. I tested the game on an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 3GB, AMD Ryzen 5 1500X Quad-Core Processor 3.50, and 16 GB of RAM, I experienced no issues while playing.
One thing I should mention is that the voice acting did not work for me, it was turned on but I heard no voices. So, I don't know if it's even implemented yet or not, however, it was shown on the trailers to be included.
Final Verdict
While Kiss The Demiurge may be rough around the edges, it still provides a decent experience that could be worth reading. If you are someone who likes to experience all routes in a visual novel, then picking this up at full price wouldn’t hurt but if you are going in for one route, I recommend it on a sale.