Love Spell: Written in the Stars Review (Spoiler‑Free)

I am always looking for games with great storytelling–and hot boys–so when I stumbled upon this game while browsing Steam, it seemed to check off all my must-have boxes. I had just finished Ephemeral -Fantasy on Dark-, so it came at a perfect time to fill the void before the next big Otome release. And oh boy, did it fill that void.

The Good

First off, the art is absolutely adorable. It was the first thing that I noticed with the title, and no one I’ve shown it to has been able to disagree. (And if I ever find a plushie of Philia, I’m throwing soo much money at it.) Combined with the music and cute magical sound effects, the game started out with a lot going for it. But with any Visual Novel, it’s the story that makes or breaks the title, and there were no worries on that front, either.

The idea that your average college student is given a Love Spell on what might be the worst day of her life, and she uses it after getting absolutely plastered is some A+ rom-com storytelling. Luna was such a fun and relatable character throughout the game that you can’t help but adore her, and the same goes for the Love Interests. It was great seeing her interact with all the L.I.s, especially since each one is so unique, and the shenanigans that they got up to unfolded nicely. All five characters’ personalities really stood out, and each route differs a lot from the others. If the stories were ice cream, you’d have the options between vanilla, mint-chocolate chip, parfait, and gun.

Yeah, you read that correctly.

The game is pretty similar to Japanese Otome, and it was easy to see how Great Gretuski Studios took inspiration from the Eastern games in Love Spell. For me, this was perfect. As an avid VN and Otome player, having that familiar structure went a long way. Add in the fact that the relationships get a little spicy with some sex between two consenting adults makes it that much better. Oh, and we can’t forget about picking Best Boy.

It’s Enix.

I’m trash for childhood best friend tropes and you can’t change my mind.

The Bad

There’s not a lot of things I would dock this game for, and most of them are personal preferences, the main being the speed of the game. I’m a fast reader, typically flying through text boxes like a horse on race day, but the transitions in Love Spell slowed me down. While they’re cute, they definitely took away from my enjoyment a tad. The auto-skip function was worse. Trying to go back and check out other choices in a route was really slow, even with the speed set to max. I would have also loved a setting to only skip read text like in other VNs or a rewind function because I may or may not have had issues turning off the Auto function and having to restart because the log reset after a scene transition.

A few other tidbits included repeated phrases, a few inconsistencies between what the text said and what the image showed (mostly in reference to MC’s apartment), and for choices to mean a little more than they seemed to. While these things were annoying or confusing during my time playing, they definitely weren’t bad enough to stop.

The Verdict

Except for the few things mentioned, Love Spell: Written in the Stars felt like a very well thought out, nicely polished game. I loved the characters, the stories were fun and varied, the art was much dorbz, there were plenty of times my heart went all dokidoki, and I’m ready to fight for Best Boy; and if an Otome is able to deliver you a boy you always remember, isn’t that a sign it’s done its job? So yeah, Love Spell is a win for me, and I’m eagerly awaiting the DLC character to drop.

Want the play the game? Love Spell: Written in the Stars is available on Steam and Itch.io.

A big thanks to Great Gretuski Studios for providing a copy of Love Spell: Written in the Stars in exchange for an honest review! Receiving a free copy has in no way altered the opinions depicted in this article.