• Price: $29.99 USD
• Developer: UNICO, Voltage USA
• Publisher: Voltage
• Release Date: July 25, 2024

A review code was kindly provided by Voltage on behalf of UNICO. We thank them for allowing us to cover something they’ve worked so hard on.

Content warnings: Rated T for “Fantasy Violence, Language, Suggestive Themes, Use of Alcohol.” Sex scenes are not shown, but described using more vague, suggestive language.

I love playing otome games, and I also find mythology really interesting. So when I saw that Astoria: Fate’s Kiss combined the two, I was instantly sold. Your character is a human who works for H.E.R.A., or “Hell and Earth Relations Agency,” which investigates any issues caused by gods or godly monsters on Earth. She really values her career and wants to become a field agent.

The premise of the story is that the main character (MC) sees an opportunity to make a name for herself by taking on a case. I named my character Percy Jackson (short for Persephone) to stay on theme, and then I chose to play through Hydra’s story first.

I really like being able to choose a specific route right away. Each character’s story is divided into 4 “seasons,” which all have 2 types of endings: passionate, which I think is the better one, and thrilling. From what I understand, you can get the thrilling ending by making any dialogue choices, while passionate endings require specific choices.

They also included the ability to view some events from each season from the love interest’s perspective, and there are some special event scenes for each season too. I actually really liked the way they chose to structure the storylines.

Most of the love interests are considered “godly monsters,” such as Hydra or Medusa, and are named accordingly. I found their interpretation of mythology extremely interesting; they didn’t give the monsters a monstrous appearance. Instead, they each possess an “Aura,” powers that manifest in the form of their namesake.

“Hotties of H.E.R.A.”

Out of the love interest pool, the majority (4/6) are male. I was pleasantly surprised that we not only get a female love interest, but also one who is non-binary! It’s fantastic to see more inclusiveness; Aphrodite says love is love. 💕

Unfortunately, it seems that they did not include a route that was available in another version of the game. But I am happy with the 6 we have.

Note: I’ve included individual content warnings for each love interest to the best of my abilities so players can decide if that route may be triggering in some way.

Hydra

Content warnings: Season 3 stalking & kidnapping, power imbalance (character with power kisses someone of lower status without asking – not between MC and Hydra).

Hydra is a suspect of a crime, so naturally he and the MC start out with a contentious relationship. I was prepared not to like him at first because I thought he’d be the usual jerk character. But he ended up being one of my top 2 favorite love interests.

I thought the pair had a lot of chemistry, and really enjoyed their banter. My only complaint was that I felt like we could have gotten more closure for the antagonists in Season 3, and Season 4 could have been longer. I love his nickname for the MC!

Cerberus

Content warnings: Season 1 mass suicide attempt

Cerberus guards the gates to the Underworld, and his case is related to his job. He’s a caring, sensitive guy. It was nice to see the writers’ depiction of his familial relationships. I think he has some seasons that are shorter than those of the other love interests, which was disappointing. I didn’t love Season 3, but his Season 4 was actually one of the better ones (even over Hydra’s). Overall I like his character but he isn’t my favorite.

Chimera

Content warning: Familial abuse

Chimera was another love interest who I wasn’t sure about initially. Intriguingly, he’s not a suspect of a crime, but is instead a client of H.E.R.A.; I hadn’t realized that H.E.R.A. wasn’t just a law enforcement agency.

Anyways, Chimera is nice and flirty, if not somewhat awkward. I liked his sense of humor. Season 1 had potential but the ending was slightly anticlimactic for me. I didn’t like Season 4. However, his Season 3 felt less cliché than the S3 storylines for Hydra and Cerberus, and I thought Chimera and the MC did have decent chemistry.

Hades

Content warnings: Power imbalance due to Hades’ status, non-consensual kiss (not between MC & Hades), obsession and abduction, manslaughter of some sort (?)

Hades was definitely one of my favorite love interests from an aesthetic perspective. He’s a gentleman who shares something in common with the MC. I thought he had a strong Season 1, and he has some great lines of dialogue both in and outside of his route. The romance seemed to take more of a backseat in Season 2 and 3 compared to the main storyline, although there was still some romance.

It was neat to see his interactions with Zeus and Poseidon, as well as his “found family.” Persephone has a different relationship with Hades in this story, of course, and I really liked the inclusion of her character. For the most part I enjoyed his story; I liked his personality (and he’s also adorable when he blushes).

Medusa

Content warnings: Familial abuse, power imbalance (character with power kisses someone of lower status without asking – not between MC and Medusa).

Medusa is the only female love interest. She comes off as rather cold and distant at first, so I wasn’t sure what to make of her. But like Hydra, she surprised me in a good way, and is in my top 2. Her storyline was also unexpected yet engaging; Season 1 seemed to involve mythology to a lesser degree. I liked her personality, background, and hobbies.

Alex

Content warning: Power imbalance as Alex is MC’s boss, sexual harassment in Season 2 (not between the MC and Alex)

Alex is the non-binary demigod love interest, and they happen to be the MC’s direct superior at H.E.R.A. They are very supportive of the MC in every route, having known them prior to employment at the agency. It’s entertaining to see them blush – especially considering that they’re a child of Aphrodite! 🤣 Similar to Hades, I thought the romance wasn’t as strong as the main storyline. But Alex is still quite likable.

Supporting Cast

Oftentimes I’ve found that otome games don’t tend to give quite as much background on friends and family – for the MC or for the love interest. In this game, I think they did an amazing job of establishing the romantic relationships, but also involving the characters’ friends and family.

We get to see the MC, her family and friends, the love interest, and their family and friends. They actually include a decent amount of scenes introducing each group to the other. One of my favorite characters is May, the MC’s best friend and coworker at H.E.R.A. She’s just so supportive of the MC, her career, and her relationships.

Another aspect I appreciated was the inclusion of lesser known gods and monsters. They didn’t just include the “Top Tier Gods,” as they call them. I’m not an expert on mythology, but know enough to be impressed by the effort they put into writing the characters and into the world-building. I’d definitely be interested in seeing routes for Meg, Charybdis, Aphrodite, and maybe even Helios someday – as well as their interpretation of other polytheistic pantheons.

Opinions on Olympus

Astoria: Fate’s Kiss is one of my favorite otome in recent memory. There are elements that could be better; for example, I love the romance but do think that the MC and the love interests fall in love way too quickly (the phrase “insta-love” comes to mind).

It’s great that the MC is career driven, but from a “real world” perspective she’s kind of unprofessional for entering relationships with the suspects/clients she meets at H.E.R.A. while she’s still working on their cases. She gets distracted by her romantic relationship a lot, which affects her work.

That being said, I still like the MC. She’s a strong, determined character who isn’t willing to stay on the sidelines. (Her inner dialogue is also quite funny.) It’s nice to have more mature characters with established careers, as well as sex positivity. (The most that’s shown is shirtless male characters and female/female-presenting characters wearing lingerie or a binder.)

The basic framework of each love interest’s storyline is a little formulaic in some respects (particularly Season 3). But the writers don’t subscribe to the typical rom-com misunderstanding trope, and for the most part the characters have good communication.

I really liked how they used a combination of art, text, and music to convey the story. There isn’t any voice acting, but I didn’t think that harmed the experience. They used a large font size for the text, so that is a great accessibility feature.

The fight scenes were some of my favorites not only because of the characters’ Auras, but also because of the music track they used for conflicts. It was easy to figure out the kind of scene that was happening because they had individual tracks for work, romance, combat, and more.

I liked the character designs and the different outfits they wore; the female antagonists had some of the better costume designs, and I adored certain outfits worn by the MC. The character portraits were very expressive, and the background art was absolutely gorgeous!

My only complaint about the art is that you can’t see the entire CG all at once in the story or in the gallery. You have to scroll down in the gallery version to see the whole thing. However, they made it easy to unlock CGs by telling you which season and episode you need to experience to unlock them.

The game doesn’t achieve perfection, but I think it comes close to it. It has an interesting concept, great characters and fun dialogue, and fantastic art direction. Astoria: Fate’s Kiss provides players with a lot of high quality content for a reasonable price. ✨

8.5/10