Amelia Waters is a brilliant 26-year-old romance writer who, after years of hard dedication and work, became the top romance novelist of the millennium. However, she has always felt that something was wrong with her writing and, after reading her books again, she finally found out what it was: the sex scenes were garbage. In need to fix this issue, Amelia talks to her manager and agent, Lee Yoon Ho, and asks for help. He manages to grab keys to a cabin, isolated from society, and takes her there for a week to help her get her head in the game and and [sic] for her to practice writing about sex.

When she hits a brick wall, Lee offers to help her again... with his body.

(Yep, this is totally the official summary for this game.)

GAME INFO
Name: Love and Romance: A Study of Intimacy
Developer: Michaela Laws
Date: Mar. 29, 2016
Genre: Romance

STORY & WRITING

At first, I was hesitant to try this game out since it's apparently NSFW, and sometimes I still forget that I'm already past the age of 18, hahaha. Kidding aside, I’m actually still not super comfortable with NSFW stuff because of my culture. We’re very, very, and I mean very conservative, especially about these topics. It’s totally taboo in my country. Sex-ed? Nah, nothing like that in our curriculums. Some senators were actually fighting to make it a bill just a few years back, I believe, but they were hurriedly shot down by the majority. Uh-huh, yep. It’s taboo, as I said. But well, I personally don’t have anything against these topics either so… fine, I decided to try this one out.
There are sex scenes, hence the NSFW tag, but it's not really like full blown erotica or whatever. I’ve played visual novels like The Second Reproduction, Saya no Uta, and G Senjou no Maou before and jeez, those definitely deserve the “NSFW” tag better than this one. But… hey, if you’re sensitive to these things, or if you’re below 18 (hehe) then feel free to skip this game.
It’s a story about a writer trying to discover new things in her own writing, so you can bet that the writing here is really good. (If it wasn't, I would have been really disappointed.) There are only two characters, the writer Amelia and her Korean editor Lee Yoon Ho, but I enjoyed all the dialogues between them. The whole story just has the two of them improving Amelia’s writing and their relationship with each other. I have to admit that I didn’t like Mina that much (beats me) but I found Lee Yoon Ho to be a total gentleman. But then, hahaha, the cynical part of me is screaming that he’s actually not a gentleman, and he’s just taking advantage of Mina. I swear, there’s a danger of him giving off those vibes. Regardless, the characterization is pretty good. The best part is that the story is really, really good. I was totally hooked.

ART

The art is quite good. It reminds me of the art for The Photographer, another visual novel that I enjoyed. Not sure if they’re made by the same person, but I’ll check. Haha. [Update: Nope, not the same. But the art style is quite similar, and the quality of both are pretty high too.) The backgrounds are okay. Definitely not on the same level as the sprite art, but still good, nonetheless. Some, like the car background, didn’t match the sprites, though. One thing that visual fans will definitely enjoy is the CGs. They’re all wonderfully done, perfect in evoking emotions from the readers. Coupled with the good writing and fantastic voice acting, they certainly provide a pretty memorable visual novel experience.

MUSIC & VOICE ACTING

Music is decent. They’re from Kevin MacLeod, which makes them a bit overused at this point, but I don’t really mind. I think the tracks did their job well, which is to enhance the atmosphere in a scene.

Now for those of you who’ve read some of my earlier posts, you’ll know I don’t usually care about voice acting. Like, I don’t mind if there’s no voice acting, and if there is, I’ll take my time to appreciate it for a while, and then most likely turn them off after I’ve had my fun. I’m quite a fast reader, and voice acting only slows me down.
But this VN? Oh, oh no. I loved every single line of voice acting. I swear, I absolutely swooned and sighed at every single word. Lee Yoon Ho's voice actor, credited as David o'Byron is... oh my god. Just... oh my god. Please forgive me for being such a fangirl, but... oh my god! He's amazing. Like, totally. I would play this visual novel over and over again just to hear his voice. Hahaha.

I can’t explain it, and heck, I don’t think I want to explain it, hahaha, but there’s just something about his voice that’s so hot and alluring. Totally awesome. I personally think it’s worth playing this visual novel, if only for that voice. Hahaha. Shame on me.

GUI

GUI is minimalistic and pretty close to the default Ren’Py GUI. It’s neither too flashy nor too tacky, so… no complaints here. At least the quick menu at the bottom right has my favorite auto-read button.

WRAP-UP

It’s a nice little game with pretty art, good story, and great voice acting. What’s not to like? Other than the fact that it’s R18, there should be no reason for you to skip this visual novel.


Presenting nine out of ten strawberries, with a cherry on top! The other strawberry had to be replaced with a cherry because of the mismatched backgrounds and my gripes with Amelia.

You can download this game for free here.