• Price: $49.99 USD (digital & physical)
• Developer: D3 Publisher
• Publisher: Aksys Games
• Release Date: March 6, 2025

A review code was kindly provided by MMPR on behalf of D3 Publisher and Aksys Games. We thank them for allowing us to cover something they’ve worked so hard on.

Content warning: Rated T; murder, guns & bombs, kidnapping, stalking (?), terrorism, corruption, mentioned alcoholism & child + spousal abuse, suicidal ideation

Despera Drops has been on my radar since its initial release on Switch in Japan in late 2023, so I was really excited when Aksys Games announced its English localization. It’s an otome that tells the story of a young Japanese woman who has been studying at a university in Italy; one day she witnesses a murder and gets arrested as the main suspect. 😱

Mika (default name) finds herself in a prisoner transport van with six others, and finds these “real criminals” extremely intimidating. We get a brief introduction from each of her fellow prisoners, which includes the crimes they “allegedly” committed. 😉 They’re certainly an interesting bunch!

Chained together in the cramped and uncomfortable van, they jump at the chance to get both fresh air and freedom when the van overturns. Mika doesn’t want to flee the scene because she believes that will worsen her current legal troubles, but she’s completely outvoted on the matter.

All seven of them were taken into custody under suspicious circumstances, with no trial or access to legal representation. Multiple law enforcement agencies, news channels, and unknown entities are after them. As such, they reluctantly decide to stick together to figure out what’s going on.

Tensions are high at first as they get used to life on the run and each other’s personalities. Several group members are not terribly impressed with Mika’s moral dilemmas about breaking into houses for shelter or eating/stealing the food there. She’s initially a bit judgmental without knowing their circumstances.

Several of them remain somewhat uncooperative – and more concerned about themselves – until they gradually start bonding with the other fugitives over their experiences. With their faces all over the news in Europe, they often have to leave their latest safe house in a hurry.

For the most part they try to escape bad situations without resorting to violence, but that’s not always possible. I think they usually try to be sneaky and come up with clever plans, but sometimes one of them will make a dumb decision that requires the others to bail them out.

The “infiltration missions” are one of the best parts of the game for me. Sally, the hacker of the group, makes it so that Mika can access security footage on her phone and give them directions when they need to get in or out of a building.

I thought it was a really fun, unique feature; it’s one of my favorite mechanics that I’ve seen in an otome. The music that plays during these missions kind of reminds me of Persona 5 a little bit, and I thought it really amped up the tension as I made the decisions that would deplete the time meter.

While suspenseful, these missions thankfully do not have an actual timer (the meter only goes down after a choice is made). I also appreciated how they maximized their use of space on the screen by manipulating the placement/perspective of character portraits, which made scenes feel more dynamic.

Now, I did take issue with the fact that the events of each mission happen exactly the same way in each route. The common route is pretty long, spanning the first 12 chapters out of 16 for each playthrough. We do get to choose the love interest who we interact with for a few scenes in the common route, but I started to get a little bored with the common route after my second or third playthrough.

Since the common route takes up 75% of the game, I don’t think they gave us enough time to really appreciate the romance. That’s not to say that I didn’t like the characters – I just wish we had more time to get to know them better and really develop the romantic relationships.

Found (Fugitive) Family

I actually quite liked the majority of the escapees. Ash is a very standoffish grump who’s very sweet once you get to know him; I think he has to be my favorite character overall. You can only meet this one character in his route (who I also loved), and Ash’s After Story was lovely.

Hamiel, on the other hand, was my least favorite character of the main cast. He gets a little better towards the end, but I kind of wanted to shake Mika and tell her to have some self respect when she gets with him. 😅 There was one hilarious scene that took place at the Galleria (I think?) in his route, which I enjoyed.

Gib will probably be a controversial love interest, given that he’s 17 years older than 21 year old Mika. To his credit, when the romance starts to develop he tries to resist getting in a relationship with her, pointing out all the reasons why he’s not good for her.

I found myself liking Gib, who’s slightly awkward but means well. He’s very protective of Mika. I did think certain plot elements were pretty predictable in his route, and the romance felt rushed and unrealistic at times. But he’s kind, and he has some of the best reactions to things like Sally’s nicknames.

Now we get into the routes where the friendships/romances are paced a bit better. Ramie is 2 years younger than Mika, and he’s an outgoing guy who’s considerate and observant. When he notices that she’s in low spirits, he does his best to cheer her up. He’s not my favorite, but I liked him, and his storyline was more interesting than the love interests discussed above.

Camu is the most awkward and cringeworthy yet earnest love interest in the game. Oh boy. He’s an otaku who uses Japanese phrases (“A very OHAYOU GOZAIMASU to you, ladies!”) and often misinterprets Japanese culture. Fortunately for him, “…knowing that someone loved something from Japan to this extent tickled [Mika].”

So he’s a little problematic in this regard, and yet I was exasperatedly entertained by his antics. I liked how concerned Camu was about Mika’s wellbeing. His route also includes a plot twist I did not see coming, and his happy ending version of Chapter 16 takes an absolutely hilarious turn. The direction they took with his ending and After Story was disappointing, but he’s still better than Hamiel!

Then we have our last character route with Sally. She’s childish and comes up with silly nicknames for the others. As the only other girl in the group – who also has a fascination with Japan – Sally latches on to Mika, calling her “Bestie” right away. I guessed a part of where they’d take Sally’s character based on something said very early on in the story.

Loose Ends

There were a few areas where I found the plot to be predictable, but my biggest issue with Despera Drops was that the overarching plot seemed rather cliché and unfinished, with many unanswered questions at the end. I liked a lot of the ideas for the storylines, but I don’t think they took them far enough.

Due to the limited number of unique chapters for the love interests in their routes, they were unable to expand on their subplots’ relation to the main story and tie things together in a way that made sense and that felt like a complete story. The True Ending raised more questions than answers for me, and I honestly thought it was the most disappointing route. (The post-credits scene for the True Ending was at least humorous.)

To avoid spoilers, I am abbreviating the antagonists’ names below.

Additionally, the antagonists’ motivations were confusing and disjointed. They gave us a small glimpse into “C.N.”’s background, but I didn’t feel like they wrote enough about “Cha.” or “H.S.” or “Con.” (I don’t remember them explaining the meaning of a very important acronym, either.)

There are a couple of other elements that could have been stronger. For one thing, the occasional verb or definite article was missing from the text, and there were also a few typos (i.e. “Unknown Gentelman”). Sometimes the translation didn’t sound as natural as it could’ve been (“I’m sorry for being so willful” versus “difficult,” “stubborn,” “defiant,” etc.)

The soundtrack was fantastic; I loved the theme songs, and the other music worked well to establish the mood in each scene. The voice acting was great, and it was nice to have voice acting for Mika since the heroine isn’t always voiced in an otome. However, the sound effects could get annoying at times (especially the police sirens).

When it comes to the game’s art, I think they missed a couple of opportunities. Given the length of the common route, I would have wanted more group CGs. The common route only gets 2 CGs (including the van transport scene at the beginning).

They also reused the motorcycle + sidecar CGs a lot; each love interest has their own motorcycle CG with Mika in the sidecar, and there are day and night versions. I thought they could have switched things up more here.

There aren’t any real fight scene or infiltration mission CGs, either. They describe foods from European countries a lot, but we don’t get any images depicting them. And speaking of “feasts for the eyes,” we also don’t get any fan service CGs. (There’s maybe one that’s borderline.) Where are our shirtless men? 😭

I’ll admit that the CGs we do have are absolutely gorgeous, though, with “character design by Kozaki Yusuke of Fire Emblem Awakening, Fire Emblem Fates, and AI: THE SOMNIUM FILES fame.” The backgrounds depicting European locales are stunning as well!

They provide some interesting facts about the different European countries and food here and there. Their glossary is the best one I’ve ever seen, as instead of just providing a bland definition, they have our cast of fugitives comment on the entry instead! I got a kick out of reading these.

While the story is the biggest weakness of the game, at the end I asked myself if I was at least entertained. And my answer to that would be yes. Despera Drops isn’t my favorite otome ever, but it does still have a lot of positives.

I think the game has a few of the best features I’ve ever seen in an otome, and I really appreciated the way they incorporated smartphones and news channels into everything. Although they don’t go too deep into the characters, they’re a fun group that made me laugh a lot. The side characters contributed to my enjoyment of the game as well; I’d love to see a spinoff with Rebecca as the heroine.

If you can get over its flaws, Despera Drops is a decent international adventure across Europe.

7.5/10