• Price: $49.99 USD (digital & physical)
• Developer/Publisher: Idea Factory (International)
• Release Date: April 8, 2025

A review code was kindly provided by Idea Factory International. We thank them for allowing us to cover something they’ve worked so hard on.

Content warning: rated T. Brief mentions of mass murder, threatened sexual assault, kidnapping, passive suicidal ideation, attempted suicide, occasional blood.

One of the latest otome localized for Western audiences, Battlefield Waltz really appealed to me with its lovely art and an interesting premise. Main character Lan lives in a village led by her father, who has taught her how to use a sword. One day while he’s out patrolling, the village is attacked and he is killed.

Lan flees, but she’s soon caught by some of the attackers. Desperate to survive, she ends up merging with the fabled cursed sword to defend herself. In the aftermath, she finds herself in the custody of Nirvana, a prominent military academy. They tell her that because of how powerful the cursed sword is, she needs to remain in the academy to prevent kidnapping attempts from other countries.

She reluctantly agrees with their plan, and begins her first day as a student at Nirvana. The story starts out at a slow pace, introducing the cast and getting Lan used to her new surroundings. The swordsmanship she learned from her father doesn’t seem to measure up to military standards, and she must also adjust to using the cursed sword.

The common route lasts for 5 chapters before branching into the love interests’ routes. I appreciated the writers’ world-building efforts; we get to explore a few areas outside of the academy, and they give us some background on important historical events.

I liked the majority of the main cast and side characters. Yuriana is a great new bestie for Lan – her first scene in Wilhelm’s route is quite funny! None of the love interests felt problematic to me (although otome fans who have played Amnesia may have flashbacks to Toma with a few “joking” lines from one of the Battlefield Waltz love interests).

My favorite love interests were Abel and Lustin. I always enjoy the “tsundere-lite” characters who don’t come off as massive jerks with their behavior prior to showing their softer sides to the main character, so I really liked Abel. Lustin is quite flirty, but he’s not invasively so, and he’s kind to Lan (plus his interactions with Abel and Pash are often amusing).

While I did like the characters in Battlefield Waltz, I think there were areas where the writing could have been stronger. We do get some background on our love interests, but they condensed their stories into only 3-4 chapters so their routes often felt too short and somewhat lacking in depth. I’ve said this about other otome before, but perhaps if they’d cut down on the amount of bad endings they could have fleshed out the backstories and romance a bit more.

I also think the game suffers from some confusion about its identity. The story mostly takes place on Nirvana’s campus, and I felt like they leaned a little too hard into some “slice of life” elements for a story set in a military academy. In my opinion they didn’t go far enough in developing the slice of life, military drama, or romance elements. I found it odd how “in love” Lan and her love interests were after only a handful of months together.

Additionally, it just didn’t feel like a very realistic depiction of a military academy or the kingdoms that supervise it. When characters do something that seems pretty treasonous to me, they barely get a slap on the wrist. The monarchs involved with the academy seemed way too nice and forgiving.

There’s a lot of discussion about war, but the students barely see any combat. And for such an important part of the story, I thought that the cursed sword was massively underutilized. They missed a lot of opportunities to expand on the story; Wilhelm’s route had potential, but it only has 5 chapters total without a common route.

I wanted to see Lan become a much better fighter over the course of the story as well. I didn’t want her to start out as an overpowered fighter from the first time she used the cursed sword, but I wanted her to improve more than she did.

There aren’t many women at Nirvana besides Lan and Yuriana, and a lot of people think that female fighters are weak. This perception isn’t helped by Lan constantly apologizing for everything – as well as the guys stealing the show in each battle. This isn’t to say that the story is bad, but it could have been a lot better if they’d expanded on it some more and put more emphasis on the women in battle besides Ignis.

The story’s translation was decent enough for the most part, but I noticed typos here and there as well as the occasional awkward English; one glaring example would be the use of “received” multiple times when they probably should have said “blocked”: “I’m surprised you received that [blow].”

I also thought that some of the character names were oddly translated. エリアス was turned into “Alias” instead of “Elias,” and while ラスティン is funny as “Lustin” since he’s a flirt, Rustin looks better to me.

My biggest issue would have to be the way they squeezed the plot for each love interest into a small amount of chapters, with a few odd translation choices as a secondary concern. However, they did create very likable characters, and some of the storylines (Pash and Nike) were actually quite emotional at times.

The art is gorgeous, and there are a ton of fantastic CGs for each individual character as well as some group shots. I especially liked their system for unlocking bonus content; you earn “magic stones” for reaching each ending. You earn 20 for each bad ending you view, then 200 for each happy ending.

Completing the story for the first time by viewing the happy ending unlocks the secret shop, where you use your magic stones to purchase bonus CGs and short stories. I usually view bad endings first and then the happy ones, but I’d assume that there are some players who only like to experience the happy endings. This system is a nice incentive to view everything the game has to offer.

Battlefield Waltz has some “battle scars” here and there, but it definitely has multiple redeeming qualities. I liked the characters and ideas enough to be interested in a fan disc. They could really do something interesting with Pash and Nike’s happy endings especially, as they both have more unique plans for their future with Lan than the other guys.

Perhaps they could include new routes for Asaka and Xiaolei in a Battlefield Waltz fan disc, as those were the two characters I would want as additional love interests the most. Xiaolei’s personality and aesthetic are so fun, and they could expand on an important aspect of Asaka’s character that wasn’t explored much here.

Battlefield Waltz first came out on the PS Vita in Japan in 2014, and we’re fortunate that they chose to localize it for Western players for the first time. Despite the above-mentioned content warnings – which are very brief parts of the story – if you’re looking for a more lighthearted otome with less focus on darker plot elements, this might be a good one for you to try!

7.5/10