VN - Others - Completed - Making＊Lovers [v1.02] [Smee]

Loved the different stories about how some choices and a bit of luck lead to being with a totally different woman for the rest of your life. Graphics are good, though no animations. Had no chance to listen to the voiceover and soundtrack, though.

SMEE VNs tend to be a bit of a pain to read unless you have a fairly high tolerance for insufferable MCs. Their MCs tend to have the emotional and mental maturity of a hyperactive 12 year old boy, only increasing slightly to that of a mid-to-late teenager once you enter the heroine-specific routes - this can be humorous at times, but tends to feel forced most of the time (ie. "HARHAR, LOOK AT THIS FUNNY SHIT I JUST SAID", in extra large font, complete with smash sound effect and screen shake - basically the same idea as using a laugh track to try and make people laugh at specific moments). That said, Making * Lovers' MC is probably the most tolerable of all the SMEE VNs I've read (the others being HaremKingdom, Fureraba, and Sugar*Style). MC still tends to make stupid decisions and spout ridiculous/cringey shit, but with less intensity and frequency, while still retaining the humor. That said, if you absolutely can't stand SMEE VN MCs, then you will still likely find this hard to read at times (some of the worst of it was during the early parts of Saki's route for me).

Making * Lovers uses ladder-style branching choices, which split off very early compared to most other non-kinetic VNs - it has a very short "common route". The routes are highly concentrated on the chosen heroine and a few side characters, with most other heroines not even appearing again (or at all) after a route is locked in (eg. you can complete all other routes without even encountering Saki). This has upsides and downsides - the upside is it really digs quickly into each heroine's story and personality, whereas the downside is that there isn't a recurring friend group that gets well developed prior to locking in the chosen heroine. Without such a friend group, things like reactions to the relationship or various events are left to the less-developed side characters. These factors lead to Making * Lovers feeling more like 5 single-heroine VNs wrapped into a bundle, rather than one VN with 5 heroines.

The heroines are quite well written - better than most moege I've read. I would say most of them are equal or better than the "best" heroines from SMEE's other VNs. My personal route preference is Karen > Reina > Saki > Ako > Mashiro. I think Mashiro and Reina in particular would be a bit divisive among readers - both are quirky, but in different ways. Reina is quirky in an annoying/obnoxious way at first, but she gets a lot better as she opens up to MC. Mashiro on the other hand is quirky in a kind of cute/eccentric way at first, but to me her behaviors and mannerisms grew stale pretty quickly.

The art is great, and the music is about average as far as Japanese VNs go - nothing much to say or complain about here. The character designs are all unique and cute. H-scenes are pretty much standard for Japanese VNs, and there are no animations aside from character models blinking.

Overall, Making * Lovers is my favorite SMEE VN by a large margin, and among the better moeges I've read in general.

If there is any VN that I would say is a fantastic introduction to VN's I think I would have to nominate this one. The writing is charming and a lot funnier than I normally see generally, the MC does not feel like Mr. Plank when I read his dialogue. The girls are all cute and have personalities and quirks that are more than just skin deep box checking tropes which is wonderful when you start to get to know them better.

It's hard not to go into how well this works without spoiling but I do believe that this would be a good leaping off point for anyone wanting to get into VN's. As a little side note that I don't think gives away anything important. This also does something that I feel like I haven't run into quite as often as some mainstream VN's and thats the almost complete separation of paths for the girls. Not everyone knows each other and while some worlds may collide later you generally are never in the position of possibly having to hurt someones feelings by leaving them in the dust to pursue one route or another. For people who like to read VN's to get some nice cozy escapism, the absence of inter-personal drama due to wanting to 100% the game is very welcome. I will be adding this team to the list of devs that I definitely want to be following to support so they can make more gems like this.

I've only played through one route, but this game is extremely charming. The banter between the MC and the heroine I picked felt very realistic and made the game extremely enjoyable to play. I would highly recommend this to anyone who isn't looking for deep story development, but more so the relationships between the characters

Ive only finished one route and I can say I would give it 5 stars the slight variation in each route is nice but honestly the art is nice and the voice acting is honestly some of the best ive heard in any video game let alone VN's Smee does a bang out job and has made me even more excited to play more of their games.

Solid game that each girl has their own personality.

Scenes and voice acting were good. Enjoyable to play and go through the different routes. Would recommend you playing this blind without a walkthrough the first time and then going through the different ends as you want to do.

A very sweet and relaxing eroge. It's really refreshing to play through something so nice and wholesome. Highly recommend if you're looking for a light-hearted vanilla game that'll make you feel good-in more ways than one

I got interested in art's first, then... oh well five hours later i suddenly welcome sunrise... EH?!

Really like it. The humor, the uniques of each of heroines and great voice acting all together left big impression.

Recommended.

Played this game for 8 hours last night and got like half of Saki route so here are my initial thoughts.

Worth to note that there is no gameplay and choices are minimal. Based on what you do, you end up with X girl for rest of the run.

So, you start as basically yourself. virgin h-game addict with only one friend and a family. It was quite charming and interesting.
But then you find a girl and you lose it. You no longer talk to your friend (who basically has found you that girl) and you never again talk to parents and sister.
This is my main issue. MC really changes and he has no life expect for his girlfriend. But I guessif he did maintain it, then this game whould takemuch too long.

So now for the good part. Writing.
I love how you can learn new things from this visualnovel. And if you play it at 10pm, then some moments are funny af, cute and wholesome. Sadly MC isn't voiced for obvious reasons, so its hart to belive the way he sometimes talk.

Also we are on f95, so you are probably for porn. Thats fine. There isnt much sex scenes, but whats more sexy than healthy relationship and a happy girl? Jerk off to that you sick fuck.

Great graphics, funny bold and witty MC, rom com nature, multiple likeable girls and takes the relationship building or dating plot seriously like they are actually dating. Definetely worth your time and up there among my personal top vns. In terms of game details the game locks you in to a specific heroine REALLY fast and early. So without looking at a walkthough (https://steamah.com/making-lovers-walkthrough-with-100-achievement-guide/) you will not be able to predetermine who your heroine will be. There are also no animated scenes but there are lewd cgs of which are mostly uncensored as far as I know. Also there is a patch that allows you to remove the clothes of the girls when playing dialogue by pressing f12. (the patch is in the thread discussions and not pinned to the main post at the time of this review)

I've only played through one route, but this game is extremely charming. The banter between the MC and the heroine I picked felt very realistic and made the game extremely enjoyable to play. I would highly recommend this to anyone who isn't looking for deep story development, but more so the relationships between the characters.

So this is a comedy romance game done right. Hilarious, cute and fluffy AF. The game starts where most other games end, the pre-relationship part is less than an hour -common route before branching points included- and everything is on spot.

The characters feel alive, albeit in the funny side of goofy, the relationships progress naturally, there's no grinding, no stats and no need to "work" or motivate yourself to go through this game. Before you notice it, you finished it already. And it leaves you wanting more fluff.

The porn is pretty tame, everything is vanilla, but still great. And it's uncensored! A japanese game that's uncensored!

Might not be for everyone because "anime look", otherwise everyone should play this!