[PC] Haruka Ao no Hanayome ni – Review

Title: 遥か碧の花嫁に
Developer: Lump of Sugar
Release Date: 28th July 2023
Age Rating: 18+
Length: 15+ Hours
Links: Official Website, VNDB

At the start of summer vacation, Haruki gets into an incident where he finds himself drowning in a stormy ocean. Thinking its the end, he loses conciousness as he fails to save himself.

He awakes to find himself in a strange, and very fancy bedroom. Shortly afterwards, a woman dressed in a maid dress comes to see him and tells him that he was rescued and brought to the City of Atalancia – which just happens to be 5000 metres under the sea. The city is inhabited by a race of humans who had evolved to retain more animalistic features – such as increased physical capabilities to land-dwellers but also including animal ears and tails. It also transpires that it was not only Haruki caught up in the accident, but also his younger sister and childhood friend who had tried to rescue him – they were also brought to Atalancia.

After a touching reunion, Haruki is summoned to meet the Princess of the city – Irionela. She is the one who saved Haruki + co and has a strange request for him – she offers to let him stay and wants to be his bride!

Unsure of what to do, Haruki agrees to stay in Atalancia for the summer and his vacation sure has gotten a bit more interesting!

Thoughts

Lump of Sugar are a company that I have bought a lot of games from because I like the artists they use (& their games always have nice OSTs) but they have to be one of the most inconsistent companies when it comes to release quality. It’s frustrating when games like Tayutama are great so you know they have it in them to make a high-quality product. So which side of the spectrum was their newest release Haruyome?

Like most games, Haruyome begins with a common route that is used to introduce the reader to the setting and characters. The setting is surprisingly interesting and developed for a moege, with the explanations behind the abundance of Kemonomimi heroines being somewhat thought about (although there’s of course some bs reason that the royal family must marry someone from the surface, creating the situation the protagonist finds himself in). I did find that the middle part of the common route dragged a little but it picked up towards the end and I liked the little twist.

Natsuki

As a protagonist, Haruki is pretty forgettable. But we’re not here for him so let’s swiftly move onto the heroines. Beginning with childhood friend Natsuki who is the typical cheerful girl who is happy to go along with everything happening. She’s a member of her school’s swim club and competes at national level so is happy to stay in Atalancia so long as she can keep up with her training. I’m sure there’s people out there that liked Natsuki but I found her a little boring, sorry.

Rosania

Rosania (or Rosa as most people call her) is a maid who works for the royal family of Atalancia. She’s cool, calm and collected most of time and is extremely protective over the two princesses. Rosa is not just highly proficient at cooking and cleaning but is also tasked with heading weekly trade trips to the surface. Rosa’s route had decent enough romance and she was perhaps the most interesting character in the game but the drama in her route felt very forced. The ending was cute though.

Lill

Lill is the younger of the two princesses and has always had a weak body, leading her family to be very overprotetive of her. This meant she spends a lot of time inside the castle reading and is fascinated by the outside world, specifially the surface. Whilst normally shy and softly-spoken, she does get easily excited. There’s no denying that Lill is adorable but the romantic buildup in her route was terrible. It’s a shame because her route probably had the most plot.

Irionela

Irionela (Rio) is the crown princess of Atalancia and is the person who saved Haruki. She is a calm, kind girl who takes her role as future queen seriously. She has a tendency to be protective over Lill. Rio is very serious about wanting to marry Haruki. From the outset, Rio seems to be the closest thing this game has to a true route. The romance here was decent and I liked Rio herself but the actual plot was a little predictable. Her ending was very, very sweet though and probably my favourite of the four.

Since this game takes place mainly in the palace of Atalancia, there were very few side characters. The only one with a sprite was Haruki’s younger sister Minamo – I don’t know why Lump of Sugar have shied away from imouto routes lately but Minamo did get on my nerves at points so it’s probably for the best, lol. It would’ve been nice to have some other side characters and I think it would’ve benefitted the common route in particular but it wasn’t a huge deal.

They know why we’re here

One of the true consistants in Lump of Sugar games is the nice artwork from Moekibara Fumitake – he’s been a favourite artist of mine for the best part of a decade so I will always enjoy looking at any game he works on. He likes Kemonomimi heroines and he draws them well. The girls in Haruyome do indeed look great but I can’t help but think even less effort was put into the blank slate of Haruki in most CGs. Just cut him out of them at this point. The SD CGs from Nagare Kasane were disgustingly cute and my only sadness is the lack of them.

As per usual, the vocal tracks in this game were excellent. The opening was from Kicco, who in my opinion has never produced a bad song. My biggest surprise though was the ending song “Mermaid Tears” by Ouse Akira – the more I listen to the song, the more I enjoy it and Ouse is quickly becoming a favourite singer of mine. I also thought the voice acting was good and really liked Rio’s va in particular.

The H Scenes in this game were generally fine but were sometimes wildly out of place and ruined the attempted “serious” plot. Nice.

Conclusion

My Score: 6/10

So how good was Haruyome actually? Uhh, it was okay.
The heroines were likable, the setting was fairly interesting and there were some parts of the game with decent plot or romance but no route managed to actually be good in both aspects which was a huge letdown. The production values were quite high but when it comes down to it, nothing important about the game was particularly great or memorable.

Overall, not the worst Lump of Sugar game I’ve played but definitely not one of the better. I wouldn’t really recommend this game unless one of the heroines really interests you. I’m down bad though so will probably keep supporting this company lmao.

Thanks for reading~