'With Love from Madness' is a PC novel game where you can fall in love with a handsome guy but the conversation doesn't work at all. The love that can be seen in the midst of the chaos captured my heart.
Dating simulation games are played by reading text, and most of the text is taken up by conversations with characters. Therefore, the content of the lines and the type of conversations you have will greatly affect the appeal of the characters and the enjoyment of the game, but PLAYISM's PC game ' With Love Over Madness ' is a crazy novel game in which you can fall in love with handsome men, but none of them can have a proper conversation.
With love from madness | Game | PLAYISM Official Site
From Madness with Love - Trailer - YouTube
With love rather than madness | Jamsanpoido official website
https://rokettojam123.wixsite.com/jamsanppoid/frommadnesswithlove
Save 20% on From Madness with Love on Steam
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2101130/
The screen that starts up looks like this: At home, pixelated characters fly all over the screen.
'With Love from Madness' is a game full of strange things, from the characters' behavior to the world view, but as you can see from the movie below, the madness is overflowing from the moment you start the game.
Click 'Start from the beginning' to start playing.
First, you will be asked to 'Enter your last name', so enter your player name and click 'OK'.
Enter your name in the same way and click 'OK'
After checking the name, select 'Yes.'
Next, you can choose your first person pronoun from 'I,' 'Boku,' or 'Soregashi.' Click 'I.'
'Well then, with love rather than madness, let it begin!'
A video of the opening song, 'a song written entirely from actual sleep talking,' will play.
The opening movie can be seen below.
The protagonist, 'I,' is a second-year high school student who transferred to the private Shiritsu Koshian Karameruin Academy. Because the school he originally attended was blown up, he decided to attend this school, which is close to his house, and we start on the first day.
'I came early, so I might as well explore the school grounds. Where should I go?' So I chose the 'schoolyard.'
There, I met a small boy who seemed to be in trouble. I clicked 'Try talking to him.'
The first thing he said to me was, 'Lick my legs,' which was not a very friendly response.
The protagonist seemed convinced, saying, 'As expected of a rich school, they're warning us that the weak will be exploited.'
After that, he heads to his own class. The protagonist is in the second year Pome class, but the hallway leading to the Pome class has a mysterious atmosphere with fish swimming in it and a pink creature that looks like
In the classroom, a blonde, mischievous classmate suddenly approaches the protagonist, asking, 'Seriously?! Butt Bomb!' His name is Yusuke Saeki, and he apparently attended the same high school as the protagonist and transferred there as well. He talks to the protagonist in a friendly manner, but it seems like he's just talking to him with a certain vibe, making it difficult to understand what he's saying.
The next person we meet is the student council president, Aoruta. He has a cool personality and excels academically, but for reasons different to Saeki's, we don't understand what he's saying. 'With Love Over Madness' is fully voiced, but even listening to the audio makes it difficult to understand.
The protagonist is taken to the nurse's office where he meets the infirmary doctor, Shuji Arakawa. He is a charming doctor with a gentle demeanor and a constant smile on his face. Although he is able to hold a relatively normal conversation, he does make some strange remarks here and there.
The last person I met was Tamura Marshmallow, whom I saw in the schoolyard that morning. He still spoke harsh words to me.
The four characters that the protagonist can fall in love with are classmate Saeki, senior Aoruta, teacher Arakawa, and younger student Tamura. In the scene where the protagonist is shown around the school on her first day as a transfer student, she is able to meet each of the four characters in turn, so I have compiled a video of the conversations with the characters. If you watch the video below, you will get a better idea of what kind of game 'With Love Over Madness' is.
On the game screen, there are menus such as 'SCREEN' to make the screen full screen and 'TITLE' to return to the title. Click 'CONFIG' from the menu.
You can adjust the volume of the BGM, character voices, and SEs individually, or mute unnecessary sounds. In addition, the 'TEXT SPEED' setting allows you to change the text display speed in 10 steps.
You can also read the text back by clicking 'LOG' in the menu at the bottom of the screen. This is a common feature in visual novels, but it is especially important in 'With Love, Not Madness.' Below is a conversation scene with Aoruta, who is speaking in some unknown language, so it's impossible to understand what he's saying. Let's click on 'LOG' here.
Then, Aoruta's lines were translated and displayed. From the protagonist's point of view, it is not always clear what Aoruta is saying, but later in the story, important information can sometimes be obtained from 'LOG.'
For example, in the scene below, a female student with a similar appearance to Aoruta appears, but the dialogue window displays a '?', so we don't know her name.
So I opened 'LOG' and found that Aoruta-senpai was speaking a mysterious language calling out the name 'Emesu.'
From the second day of school, the story and events will change depending on your choices: join the Game Club, join the Occult Research Club invited by Aoruta, or go straight home. Click 'Go to the Occult Research Club.'
In the Occult Research Club, he meets the club president, Maximum Anago. Maximum is a very sensible person who enthusiastically invites the protagonist to join the club and worries about him when something unusual happens during the occult research, but he is a sub-character who cannot fall in love with the protagonist.
At the end of each episode, the screen will ask, 'Do you want to save now?' In the image below, it says 'Second half of April,' but even if you take your time, the episodes are generally only about 5 to 10 minutes long, and are divided into the first and second halves of each month, so you can read through them easily.
Each episode involves the characters spending time together on something like a short study session or a seasonal event, and although most are short, they are packed with character portraits and event CG for each scene, allowing you to really get a feel for the characters.
In addition to typical events such as sports day and Christmas, there were also some events that were out of the ordinary, such as when he joined the Occult Club and investigated the Seven Mysteries, and everything in front of his eyes became distorted.
During the investigation of the Seven Mysteries, the protagonist was in a dangerous situation and was on the verge of losing consciousness, but Tamura saved him. Although Tamura is known for using foul language, he seems to have some interest in the occult. I'm curious to see what secrets each character has that go beyond their madness.
You can check out the event CGs you see during the story from the 'Gallery' on the title screen.
There are about 13 to 15 CG images for each character.
As you read through the events from April to January, Arakawa suddenly says, 'Think of the face of someone you like.'
Furthermore, in March, the options 'Confess to that person' and 'Protect your current relationship' appeared. However, even if you select 'Protect your current relationship' here, the text will loop and you will not be able to proceed to the next step. Click 'Confess to that person'.
After that, in front of the school, I decided, 'I'm going to that person's place...to meet my person!' and I could choose which character to confess my feelings to. I chose 'Aoruta-senpai,' who I had spent many events with until February.
When he confessed his feelings to Aoruta, he received a positive response, but was rejected. Later, Emeth reappears and tells him that he is from the same country as Aoruta. It seems that Aoruta was not born in Japan, which is why they cannot communicate and why he rejected the protagonist's confession.
The story that follows can be read in about 5 to 10 minutes, but there are two endings for each character: 'Type A' and 'Type B.' You can enjoy a variety of endings, from crazier than the previous stories to a heartbreaking turn of events.
Also, if you choose a character with whom you haven't become close in the events up to that point for the confession scene, your confession will be rejected straight away.
The confession will not be accepted, and the message 'Game Over' will be displayed, and you will not be able to see any further events. Therefore, it is important to aim for the character you want from April and get along with them.
The first thing I felt when playing was that it just didn't make sense. The conversations were so hard to understand, and the background and events that occur that no one mentions in the game were so mysterious that it made me laugh. However, while the statements and exchanges are often incoherent, the events that occur are simple, such as 'he got hurt so I took him to the nurse's office' or 'he spilled his lunch so I asked him to give it to me,' and the balance between chaotic and common sense is excellent, making it easy to read. Also, each episode progresses smoothly, taking less than 10 minutes even if you read it carefully, so I was able to enjoy the charm of the characters along with the event CG without feeling stressed even with the chaotic conversations and developments.
Another thing to pay special attention to is the main character's character. Since there are only characters who are difficult to communicate with, the main character seems to be the more sensible person, but since he is always cheerful at this school, he has the momentum to make you think, 'Isn't the main character the strangest?' And even though he sometimes makes light remarks at characters who are difficult to communicate with, he generally faces them honestly without making a face, which is a good impression. For example, Aoruta is completely incomprehensible, speaking a mysterious language, but the main character does not flinch and takes a nonchalant attitude, saying, 'As usual, I don't know what you're saying, but you're not making a face, so it's fine!'
The following is a scene immediately after Aoruta's lengthy speech, and the protagonist says, '(I don't know what he's saying, but it was long) Wow! There are so many reasons! Aoruta-senpai really cares about his students... I think,' and he can guess his intentions from his tone of voice, facial expression, and the length of his lines, and communicates with him with almost no problem. The setting seems difficult, with 'no one can understand each other' and a 'world view that is too mysterious,' but the protagonist's cheerfulness seems to sum it up nicely.
'With Love from Madness' can be purchased on Steam or DLsite. The price is 1,680 yen (tax included) for the Steam version and 1,650 yen for the DLsite version. 'With Love from Madness' is designated as 'adult content.'
