Love Thyself – A Horatio Story is a visual novel set in the Endless Universe. Most of the games set in this world are strategy games, so this is a significant departure. It is more of a spin-off than a full game, as evidenced by it being free to play and being pretty short. The length isn’t a huge problem because it packs a fair bit of content into the game. While some visual novels might pad out their length with filler, Love Thyself doesn’t do that. The vast majority of interactions are at least semi-meaningful and if they aren’t advancing the plot, they are giving you important context for the world/setting. If you’re familiar with the setting, some of the background text will be redundant, but there isn’t too much.
The writing itself is pretty solid. While the main race of people in the game are clones, they manage to all feel distinct and individual, thanks primarily to the writing. Every character feels similar, yet unique. It is probably most impressive feat of writing in the game, as it would be very easy to either make the characters too different or too similar. I won’t get into plot specifics, as that is the main crux of visual novels, but in a general sense, the plot points are usually handled well. It keeps you engaged in a mystery by drip-feeding you bits of story and character background.
Love Thyself is a great example of a spin-off game done right. It takes the setting and world of a popular game, then does something unexpected with it. Many spin-offs make the mistake of trying to be too much like the original game and just wind up feeling like cheap knockoffs. Love Thyself feels like its own game, worthy of being played, even on its own.
7/10
- Amplitude Studios, Sega
- Steam
- Free to Play
