Genre: Adventure
Developer: SMILE
Publisher: Sekai Project
Release Date: Oct 26, 2018
Edited by KnightAvenger
The third line of the game involves a girl asking to see the main character’s penis. This sets up the type of game that The Ditzy Demons Are in Love With Me is clearly from the start. That said, it doesn’t dive deeply into outright adult content completely, but this game by SMILE keeps it at adult comedy level (at most) of the first couple hours of the game.
The copy of this game I’m reviewing is on Steam and without the DLC. You can buy this game on Steam and then separately buy and download the DLC to enable the age-restricted scenes. This is a controversial topic, as some would argue that the game price is being split so the base game is cheaper and some would argue that the DLC is an extra cost and they feel they should get the full game from the base price. Whatever your opinion on the DLC issue, just be aware that it is required for those scenes. That said, even without the DLC, the game has some adult CGs censored using the beam of light technique or adult CGs which aren’t completely explicit, along with erotic text. Even without the restricted content, it’s certainly not family friendly with very high sexual content.
The game, as a whole, is a comedy, but it does have a basic story to it and some depth to the characters. In short to avoid major spoilers, the main character is kicked out of his current living situation and forced into living with and managing five girls who he (later) finds out to be demons with her own problems, such as a succubus unable to deal with sexual things or a mummy unable to keep clothes (or tight bandages) on. The demon world is said to be extremely similar to the normal world, so other that those things, the girls are mostly the same as humans.
You have five main heroines: a succubus who is your childhood friend, an angel who is your adopted sister with a brother complex, a mummy who is your little sister figure, a yuki-onna who clings to you for warmth, and a witch who also happens to be a model and the school idol. While these all are stereotypes, each girl has her own separate backstory and you spend at least one day dedicated to each of them in the main branch, before it splits into the character branches. There are also a number of side characters and strange pets, including a floating ball of fluff which sings.
I found each of the characters unique going beyond her stereotypes and having her own charm. The comedy of the story comes mostly from their interactions with you and each other. All characters, other than the main character, are voiced, including the side characters, some of which have their own routes.
Approximately 6 hours into the game, it directly asked me to choose a route from the five main heroines and showed three grayed-out ones for side characters. There were no choices before that and no choices after that in the version without adult scenes. I would estimate that each main heroine route takes about 1.5-2 hours and the side character routes take less than 30 minutes each. All reading times are based on reading through carefully and listening to the voices.
After completing the first main route, all side character routes opened up, as did some bonus after story scenes, design documents, a wallpaper and a comment for the voice actor for each main heroine’s story completed.
The graphics and sound are certainly on point for this game. The art is all high quality and the background music is catchy but unobtrusive. The voice acting is all done well. The game makes use of some cute SD art scenes for comedy purposes at times, too, which works well.
There are a wide variety of options and extras included in the game. It has all of the basics, including screen size, sound levels and so on. It goes as far as giving options on displaying the ejaculation countdown (which didn’t appear for me due to playing without DLC), if auto mode should wait for voice to complete and whether it changes color on read text and whether you get confirmation dialogue in eleven different situations. A nice touch is the narration of in-game options, so, for example, it says “auto-mode” when you enable it. A nice little unadvertised bonus is a “panic screen” for if someone walks in the room. Just press the ‘P’ key and one of many images will pop up and hide the game. All in all, SMILE has done quite well with making this a polished experience.
In its current state, I noticed the occasional error (“Well, why don’t put put some sunblock on me, then?”), but they are fairly rare. Pre-release, there were quite a few more errors, specifically with placement of line breaks, but, fortunately, they have been since fixed, as far as I have seen. I only note this in case other reviews which have not played the current build say otherwise.
Overall, I was pleasantly surprised by The Ditzy Demons Are in Love With Me. I expected the story and dialogue to be a thinly veiled delivery for the adult content, but it was genuinely quite good and kept me interested throughout. The characters were likable and the game made me laugh out loud several times while reading through.
Pros:
- A well told story with plenty of comedy.
- All characters were likable.
- Character routes not only for the main heroines but for three side characters.
- Lots of little extras included.
- Graphics and sound are all well done.
Cons:
- Minor spelling issues.
Eden gives The Ditzy Demons Are in Love With Me a Drastik Measure 8.0 out of 10.0 (80)
The Ditzy Demons Are in Love With Me is available on Steam for $24.99 (USD).
