I apologize in advance for the long review.
I'd like to say that I'm a fan of otome games, but I can't. I want to like them, but I always end up having too many issues with them to be able to fully enjoy them. Many times this has to do with the heroine herself. Too often I find myself playing an otome game where I can't stand the character I'm playing as, can't relate to her at all, and never want to. I avoid spending too much money on otome games for this reason, and yet something about this game interested me enough to get it anyway, even though I was almost certain it'd be a waste of money. It wasn't.
You play as a girl named Cardia, stuck waiting for her father's return alone in a mansion due to the poison in her body that will melt anything she touches. She has no memories of her past, only her father's words warning her to never go outside and never fall in love because she is a monster. One day the Royal Guard shows up to capture her, only for her to be "stolen" away by gentleman thief Arsène Lupin. He is searching for information on Isaac Beckford, genius scientist and Cardia's father. Together they decide to search for Cardia's father and find a way to cure her poison, and along the way they are joined by several others who share their names with literary and historical figures.
The game is a visual novel. That means the majority of the game is made up of reading text, with some choices every now and then to determine which of the various endings you get. There are five characters that Cardia will be able to choose from, each with one good ending, one normal ending, and a handful of bad endings. There are 13 chapters in all, chapters 1-8 being the common route with minimal changes depending on your choices. Starting from chapter 9, the game splits into separate routes for each of the five characters. The route you end up on is determined by your choices during the common route, and this character is the one Cardia will develop romantic feelings for. At first you will only have four routes available to you, but once you finish those you will unlock Lupin's route, which is considered the true route of the game.
Now to talk about the pros and cons. I'm not sure where to start, because I loved almost everything about this game. The story was very interesting. One of the best stories I've seen in a romance visual novel. Each one of the characters' endings gives you a different piece of information about what the story, and then Lupin's route brings the whole story together. It's not as romance-heavy as some other otome games (but there's still romance, don't worry) and the common route is a bit longer than most, but in this way I never felt like the romance was rushed and I really got to know each of the characters.
Speaking of characters, one of the things I loved about the game was the relationships between all of the characters. Everyone is very supportive, not only of Cardia but of each other as well. They're all working toward different goals but are willing to help each other out in any way they can. Even during the specific characters' routes the others aren't completely pushed aside. The individual characters are fantastic as well. There's Victor Frankenstein, the soft spoken alchemist; Impey Barbicane, a flirtatious engineer (and a great cook); former war hero Abraham Van Helsing; the mysterious nobleman Saint-Germain; and Arsène Lupin, gentleman thief; along with many other great characters.
And then there's Cardia. I said previously that one of my biggest issues with otome games is the heroine. I often find them to be too much of a doormat, unable to think for themselves and make decisions on their own, and the decisions they do make being completely illogical. Cardia is none of those things. She starts off being fairly naive due to spending all of her time alone in her mansion, as well as not caring much about what happens to herself, but she quickly gains the knowledge, skills, and confidence to be able to make her own decisions and take care of herself in dangerous situations. She still relies on the others at times, but she doesn't depend on them.
Visually the game looks stunning. The character artwork is great and their expressions are varied. The steampunk setting leads to some very beautiful and detailed backgrounds. The CG artwork is also great, and all of the CGs can be viewed in the Event section of the Memory Trunk option on the menu. The menus themselves also look fantastic.
Overall, the sound is pretty great. The music is good and very fitting. The voice acting is well-done and I recognize many of the voice actors from other games and anime. The audio is in Japanese only with English text, like most visual novels are. The main issue I had was that the voices themselves are very quiet compared to the music and sound effects, as well as individual character's voices being different volumes. However this issue is easy to rectify because not only are there different volume sliders for music, movie, sound effects, and voice, but you can also adjust each individual character's voice separately. Also, if you keep Cardia's name as Cardia, the characters will say it in-game.
There are many other helpful options in this game as well. There is an option for button configuration which you can set up however you'd like. There's a skip button that lets you skip through text you've already read, making the common route much easier to play through once you've already gotten one ending. You can also look at the dialogue history and replay any spoken dialogue, or you can rewind the game back to a specific point. This means that if you make a choice you don't like, you can easily go back and choose the other option instead of having to reload your last save. But if you do want to save before a choice, you can use the quicksave and quickload options to make things much quicker. And in case you want to quickly get to a certain chapter, the Path of Genesis option on the main menu allows you to start from any chapter you choose. You can also start the characters' routes with maximum favor, guaranteeing you get their good ending.
The biggest problem with the game, which isn't much of a problem at all, is the localization itself. There are a few spelling and grammar issues here and there, and a few instances where the translation could have been better, but overall these are minor issues and are hardly distracting.
Now, a (mostly spoiler-free) route order recommendation! You can play through this in any order you want, I'm just going to give a couple of different orders I think are best. If you don't care and want to choose yourself then you can go ahead and skip this. These aren't the order I played in, but they're the orders I think would work best. The order I originally played was Victor, Impey, Van Helsing, Saint-Germain, and then of course Lupin. My order in terms of favorites is Victor, Saint-Germain, Lupin, Impey, and then Van Helsing. However, all of the routes were fantastic and I didn't dislike any of them. As far as actual recommendation order though, I have two that I think work for different reasons.
1. Van Helsing -> Impey -> Saint-Germain -> Victor -> Lupin
This route focuses on Cardia. In each route, you learn more and more about Cardia, about her poison, about her father, and about how to cure her. Van Helsing's route, I would say, is the one that least focuses on Cardia's predicament. Victor's, on the other hand, is much more heavily related to Cardia's own issues. And then of course Lupin's is the final route no matter what. So, if you want to gradually learn more about Cardia, this is the order I would recommend.
2. Impey -> Victor -> Van Helsing -> Saint-Germain -> Lupin
This one focuses more on the other characters. Impey's story is largely unrelated to the others, as far as I can remember, so I recommend playing that one first. However, in Victor's route, there are events involving a certain character that won't quite be explained until you play Van Helsing's route. In Van Helsing's route, there is a scene that raises a lot of questions about Saint-Germain. In Saint-Germain's route, I felt like I got to know Lupin a bit better than the other routes, so playing that one right before Lupin's worked well.
But, again, this is just a suggested order and the game is perfectly enjoyable no matter what route you play first.
TL;DR: This game's fantastic and I highly recommend it.
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