• Price: $49.99 USD (digital & physical; currently on sale for $44.99 until March 12th on the eShop)
• Developer: Design Factory
• Publisher: Idea Factory International
• Release Date: February 27, 2024

A review code was kindly provided by Idea Factory International on behalf of Design Factory. We thank them for being able to cover something they’ve worked so hard on.

Sympathy Kiss is an otome with additional features on top of the “standard” visual novel gameplay. You play as 23-year old Akari Amasawa, who works as a designer at Estario, a mobile app developer. She transfers to the team working on the Estarci news app, which hasn’t been performing as well as it used to. Akari and her new team must work hard to keep the app alive, or the company will pull the plug.

I feel like most of the otome that I play tend to lean more towards the fantasy or historical genres, so it was a nice change of pace to have a more realistic and relatable setting this time. As Akari, you’ll have to balance your work with your personal life. I think most players can relate to that feeling.

In Sympathy Kiss, Akari has a nice variety of love interests to choose from; most of them either work with her at Estario or at least do so indirectly. You can view their Love, Work, and Best endings. Now, let’s get into their performance reviews:

Mitsuki Saotome

Mitsuki is a 24 year old who works with Akari and prefers to treat her equally due to such a small age difference. He’s very informal, encouraging employee socialization and even giving nicknames to his coworkers…including the boss! The game’s website labels him as a “Personal Space Invader,” which seems pretty accurate.

His physical affection can get overwhelming, and he’s a little blunt, which can make things a little tense or awkward sometimes. I don’t know if I was completely satisfied with the conflict resolution in his routes, but he’s pretty and I liked his character. I was also happy with his character growth.

Kohei Minato

In contrast to Mitsuki, 25 year old Kohei is more of a closed book. He’s very standoffish and dislikes socializing in or outside of work. Despite his antisocial demeanor, he is still very caring in his own way. I’m a bit of an awkward person myself, so I can appreciate his attempts to keep his work and personal life separate.

Lucky for Akari (and us as the players), she manages to get through to him. I liked the glimpses into his personality as he opens up, and even outside of his routes, his deadpan snark made me laugh. Again, I had an issue with unrealistic conflict resolution, but I still liked Kohei (and some associated characters).

Yoji Kobase

I must confess that I do tend to have a preference for the “megane” (glasses) characters, as well as the less abrasive tsundere characters. So I had a feeling that I’d like Yoji, the 31 year old director of the department, and I have to say that he was indeed my favorite love interest.

Given the potential power imbalance issue between Yoji as the boss and Akari as the employee, some of the romantic interactions could have been problematic because he didn’t always get explicit consent for some things he did, but Akari was always willing.

He’s a supportive director who really goes above and beyond what I’d expect from a good boss. Even in other love interests’ routes I really liked him. Although Yoji seems quite serious – to the point that he comes off as intimidating – he is very considerate, caring, and understanding. I really liked his best ending a lot.

Rokuro Yoshioka

28 year old “Regal Rokuro” is the heir to Tempesty, a successful company that’s collaborating with Estario. Due to his status, demeanor, and appearance, he’s often referred to as a prince. In my opinion, his storyline was expected and clichéd. However, he’s a nice love interest who freely offers his praise, and his endings were decent enough. I also liked the Estarci team’s shenanigans and support in Rokuro’s routes.

Nori Tainaka

Honestly, I wasn’t expecting to like Nori (22) very much after seeing him described as a “moocher” on the website. I changed my mind about him as I progressed through his routes, though. He stays with women in exchange for doing housework, and ends up convincing a sympathetic Akari to let him stay in her apartment.

While I most emphatically do not encourage this behavior in real life, fortunately for Akari, Nori isn’t a serial killer. (Memorable line: “I swear I won’t do anything weird…Hopefully? Maybe? Anyway, I’m not a criminal!” 😂) He does have some issues with boundaries – often hugging an uncomfortable Akari – but his story was interesting enough, and the date activities were more appealing to me. I’d say he was probably in my top three love interests for Sympathy Kiss.

Shuya Usui

I was looking forward to Shuya’s route, as he is the oldest love interest at 45. He’s the aesthetically pleasing manager of a bar frequented by Estario’s employees. While he’s a good character in other routes – and likable in his own – for some reason his routes are two episodes shorter than the storylines for the other love interests. His story seemed like it could have gone somewhere if it had been given more time to develop.

Secret/Bonus Routes

I was unaware that this game had more to it than the six love interests, as I try to stay as spoiler free as possible before playing anything. This section will remain as spoiler free as possible out of consideration for the reader.

There are two sub-routes that players can unlock by making different choices within the beginning episode of another character. Both of the secret routes only have four episodes, compared to the usual six for the love interests listed above.

One of these routes has character interactions that could be triggering, while the other route has a lot of potential and a different character archetype (in a good way) than I’m used to in these games. Some may enjoy the first option depending on their favorite character types, but it wasn’t for me. I really liked the more positive secret route, and wished it was longer.

Sugar, Spice, and Everything Nice

Most of the Estarci team members are love interests, with the exception of Nanami, Akari’s only (named) female coworker. I really liked the team dynamics, and I was relieved that Nanami was a great source of support for Akari instead of competition. The work environment seemed professional, but there was still a sense of camaraderie.

The platonic team rapport was sweet, but when it comes to the romantic scenes there is some “spice”: the game is rated T for “language, use of alcohol, and sexual themes.” Nothing is depicted graphically, but there are suggestive love scenes with CGs, written components, and kissing audio from the voice actors.

Features & Bugs

Regardless of my response to each love interest’s personality and story, I think their designs are all very attractive. Akari’s got a nice design overall, but some players may respond differently to her as a faceless protagonist. It was a little weird for me but not intolerable.

The way they handled Akari’s dialogue was also strange, as they wrote it in a more indirect manner, having her narrate what she said: “I told him that at first, I struggled to keep up with the pace of the app industry.” Sometimes I struggled to understand if she simply thought something to herself or if she actually said it.

Overall I actually liked the dialogue; Akari’s just could have been handled better. The only major issue I had with the writing was the way they included flashbacks of things that had just happened. Design-wise, I liked how big the text was, and it seemed like they included more dialogue choices than other otome.

And speaking of fun design elements, there are a couple of neat mechanics in the game. They included short “Spin-Off” episodes from the love interests’ points of view after each episode concludes in their route. I always love seeing events from the love interests’ perspective to add some depth to the narrative. We don’t always get to see that.

They also have you engage with the love interests by responding to their text messages or by using the Emotion Select function, which allows you to show your reaction to a conversation (this also impacts future conversations). I especially liked the text messaging – the stickers were really cute! When it comes to the spoken dialogue, I think the (Japanese only) voice actors did a good job of conveying the tone of each scene. The soundtrack also worked well for me.

Overall Office Otome Opinion

I had a few issues with some subjective design choices, and I wanted more time with several of the love interests. The storylines weren’t always the most original, but Sympathy Kiss feels like a more mature, relatable otome experience with a pleasant cast and good artistic direction.

8/10