Developer: MintLip,
EDIA / TEAM Entertainment Inc.
Publisher: PQUBE Limited
Platform: PC, Switch
Tested on: Switch
Him, The Smile & Bloom – Review
For many people, flowers are a vital part of romance. So maybe it’s not a surprise that Him, the Smile & Bloom is an Otome visual novel revolving entirely around a flower shop. With that sweet blossom fragrance filling the air, four male love interests can be wooed in their respective routes, though this game’s more mature approach to romance and unique features might catch you by surprise.
Story
Him, the Smile & Bloom approaches things a little differently than most Otome games do. Rather than having one blank slate female main character and a bunch of male love interests who you can get to know during the game, with your choices eventually locking you into one of their routes, choosing which guy to date is one of the first things you do. Each male character comes with their own love interest, meaning you also play four different girls throughout the game. This allows for the story to feel more realistic and personalized, rather than the woman being devoid of personality. The routes differ from extremely sweet and cheesy to a bit more dark and dramatic. Every route does have choices that lead to a more positive or negative outcome, with one or two of the ‘bad endings’ being quite shocking. Overall though, the game has a very grounded feel with familiar if a bit cliché tropes making up a majority of the conflict.
To give a brief overview of the main characters: there is Wataru, who is young and carefree. He’s a true ray of sunshine and his love interest, Serina, balances him out nicely by being older and more dependable. Ginnosuke is the charming guy who has girls fawning all over him. He can date Ami, an interior designer who is married to her work and has to do a project for the flower shop. Then you have Hokuto, the manager. He’s the mature, calm type with a possessive side. His love interest is his childhood best friend Fuuka, who has a crush on him. And lastly, there is the mysterious and quiet Tenya. This sensitive boy can be romanced by the equally introverted Miku. Since you basically have four different couples here, all the routes are more or less happening at the same time, with references to events crossing over between the stories. All the boys work in the flower shop, while the girls are connected to the shop or to them in various fun ways to make the world feel more cohesive. The game has a 17 and up rating, so while there is no visible naughtiness, a lot is certainly implied.
Graphics
The developers of Him, the Smile & Bloom are veterans in the Otome visual novel genre and recruited several established artists to work on the game. This is reflected in the quality of the art, which is wonderful. Every male lead and some of the side characters have multiple emotive sprites during dialogue. The backgrounds look nice and varied. But our favorite part was the CGIs you can unlock during each route. One small critique is the fact that the female leads do not have any sprites, and their dialogue is displayed in a bare text box that feels strangely out of place. We found this a bit of a disappointing choice for a game that otherwise gives the girl leads a lot of personality.
Sound
Likewise, as with the art, MintLip managed to snatch a bunch of well-known voice actors for their game, including a popular Japanese idol. The quality of the voice acting is excellent and we truly enjoyed it. We liked how each voice actor gave their own flair to the character they were playing. The game also has a pretty good soundtrack, with the intro song and credit song being twin pieces by the same artists that stood out to us on the OST. The background music was decent and atmospheric too.
Gameplay
Him, the Smile & Bloom is a true visual novel in its most bare-bones definition. Aside from the occasional choice where you can slightly influence the main character’s actions or dialogue, you spend the entire game reading text without there being any gameplay elements. Obviously, this is not a complaint, and more of an expectation when it comes to Otome games. Each route has a few different endings depending on your choices, and while you can’t rewind mid-route, the game does allow a ton of saves and easy access to unlocked chapters. This, combined with the relatively short runtime per route, allows players to pretty easily see all content.
If you complete all of the main stuff, each character does have a side story to explore, as well as some DLC content. The game isn’t very long, but we appreciated that most of the time, the love interest and his female lead start dating before the end of the route, allowing us to also experience some of the relationships after the confession. This is not something you often get in Otome games. Additionally, there is a glossary of flower names and their respective poetic meanings to gradually unlock throughout the game, which we found a nice touch. The translation to English does seem to be a bit iffy here or there, with names sometimes being Westernized with different spellings, sentences being a little wonky, and other small hiccups.
Conclusion
Him, the Smile & Bloom is a very solid Otome visual novel aimed at an adult audience. Don’t expect any outlandish fantasy elements or a harem of boys, as you get four unique stories that showcase different types of relationships while also forming a cohesive story. For a small dose of romance, we found this game more than sufficient to sate our appetite.
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