My Sweet Confession Review: Ahh, Young Love!

Platform: PC | Release Date: May 8th, 2020 | Hours Played: 1

We’ve all made some pretty stupid mistakes in our lives. If we didn’t, how would we grow and become a better person?

This is the central plot in My Sweet Confession, a fully-voiced yuri visual novel about love and forgiveness.

The heroine, Ichika, is your average teenage girl who is in love with her best friend, Hana. However, when Hana asks her to confess to a boy on her behalf, jealousy gets the better of her and she sabotages it, along with their friendship. Determined to win her back, Ichika sets out a plan on her own.

The game evokes a 90s anime vibe from its plot to its voice acting. It’s simplistic and cute interface along with the clean backgrounds gives it a light-hearted feel to the game’s overall atmosphere.

The music used, although repetitive if listened for long, is very upbeat and dramatic. It perfectly matches the exaggerated moments that a teenager (especially an anime-like one) can feel.

Ichika’s naïve and ditzy personality reminds me of heroines from animes like Usagi (Sailor Moon) and Miaka (Fushigi Yuugi). Her unapologetic positivity and inability to function as a normal person can come off as annoying. However, the way she puts her heart on her sleeve makes you want to root for her.

The way her voice actor (Amanda Parker) expresses her lines with such a bubbly and cheery tone definitely brings the lines to life. That isn’t to say the other VAs didn’t do a great job as well. Some of the sentences can feel a little awkward with some of its phrasing but the way they were effortlessly voiced really helps the story flow naturally.

I enjoyed the character of Ayumi, the best friend and straight man counterpart to Ichika. She brings the curtness that balances out her optimism. In the short time that the player knows her, you can see true loyalty to her. Some Japanese-VA mannerisms are used in the game and Ayumi’s VA (Julia Gu) has a “Kya!” line which was my favourite scene.

To be honest, I was hoping that there would be an ending where Ichika would fall for her instead.

Apart from Hana being Ichika’s love interest, there was not much we knew about her character. In general, there was potential for the game to explore all these character’s more – such as the reason why Ichika felt so strongly for Hana or why Ayumi and Ichika are even friends.

The art, especially with Hana’s design, reminds me of countless short black haired girls in highschool anime. Although I did like Ichika’s design, there was something off with her sprite. I felt her nose was a bit different compared to the others so she looked a bit strange in my opinion.

Regardless, the CGs emit a different style that felt like an illustration from a storybook. While keeping the base art-style, the way its colours were used were fitting and I enjoyed it. I wish there were more CGs available to collect as a few of the bad endings used the same CG (apart from one I really enjoyed but posting it would be a spoiler!)

All the endings were easy to achieve and apart from 1 or 2, the rest don’t go into much detail. Without spoiling much, one ending I did enjoy was where Ichika decides to forget Hana instead. Although a bad ending, Ichika does continue her positive outlook on life, which made me appreciate her more (in spite of it being a bad end)

7/10

My Sweet Confession is at its core, cute and light-hearted. All the elements fit the theme really well that it’s very aesthetic and relaxing to play.

I only wish that the game could have been longer. This way, it would have been able to explore the relationships between the characters in more depth and give it more meaning.

However, the plot is intended to be simple feel-good romance with a super sweet ending. Although this could’ve come off as simple had the character of Ichika been a male instead, handing it to a romance between two girls without any prejudice or overdramatic storyline is refreshing. It’s a definite must-play, especially to support a company encouraging these types of games.

You can purchase My Sweet Romance for £3.99/$4.99 on Steam and itch.io