• Price: $24.99 USD
• Developer: Lightbulb Crew
• Publisher: Shoreline Games
• Release Date: June 19, 2025

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

Content warning: rated M. Sexual references such as BDSM, panic attacks, reference to abusive ex

I love stories about magical girls, dating sims, and turn-based RPGs, so I was excited to see how Nova Hearts combined all these elements. The story begins with main character Luce returning to her hometown after recent struggles in her academic and social life. She reunites with old friends and attends a big party to unwind…so of course that’s when monsters attack!

Luce somehow transforms into a magical girl, and faces the monsters alone until her friend CJ transforms to join the fight as well. Afterwards they can’t find Will, the friend who came to the party with them. But when they find her the next day, she transforms as well when more monsters attack!

Now that our party is complete with 3 characters, we can really get into the battle system. I did have an issue with how slow the battles felt – I wish we could speed them up – but I think the combat can be pretty interesting. Each character has unique abilities, which require a certain amount of preparation time to use.

It’s different from the standard RPG where characters have speed stats; instead, characters act sooner or later than their allies (or enemies) depending on the preparation time of the ability you choose for that turn. You can manipulate the battle timeline and deliberately choose to delay your turn so that an ability will sync up with the timing of another character’s action, allowing you to use a combo.

All 3 party members have an “Emergency Power” as well, which is a special ability that can be used once per battle to heal your allies or prevent your enemies from damaging you. Whether you win or lose a battle, you earn points that can be used to unlock or strengthen abilities. Luce does have healing abilities, but there aren’t any healing items, and you can’t revive party members once they’ve been defeated.

It’s kind of nice to not have to grind for experience and level up characters. But it would have been nice if we could have upgraded party members’ HP, and I don’t think it’s possible to unlock and upgrade every ability in the game by the end. There are maybe 3-5 battles in each of the game’s 5 chapters, so you don’t have many chances to enjoy the combat or upgrade your characters more.

Some battles can be rather challenging if you aren’t strategic enough, but they’re manageable. I liked the combat system – I just wish we got to play with it some more, and that we could have used other characters who developed abilities throughout the story.

Although there are only about a dozen characters and no minor NPCs, the town didn’t feel empty to me. They managed to create a cast with enough personality (and varied roles, i.e. mayor, barista) that made the characters and setting feel complete. The story is told using a combination of in-person conversations and text messages.

When you select a dialogue option in either type of scene, it will increase a character’s love, friendship, or antagonism points. I think it’s pretty difficult to get someone to hate you – I’m not sure if that affects anything. It’s neat how your choices can even affect the friendship levels of mentioned characters who aren’t even participating in the conversation with you.

As far as the dating sim aspect is concerned, I like the dateable characters but had a few issues. I appreciated the wide variety of genders and sexualities, with heterosexual, cisgender, transgender, and asexual options, among others. However, I wasn’t sure about the polyamory aspect because it wasn’t explicitly stated that everyone was okay with it.

As I got further along it seemed like every love interest would be fine with Luce dating all of them, but in the beginning I tried not to choose options I thought would increase romance points for everyone but my favorite. I think I would have liked the writers to have given us a heads up that it was fine to date everyone.

The dialogue options often included flirty lines, which is appropriate in a dating sim. But I did kind of feel like conversations could go from 0 to 60 pretty quickly, with an option to boldly flirt with Basile the barista the first time you meet him – and at his place of work, which is a bit awkward.

The game is on the shorter side with a play time of ~10 hours, which is great for players with busy schedules, and does somewhat justify how characters start flirting pretty quickly. Personally I just prefer more buildup to the romantic relationships in stories.

Although the romance could have been stronger, I was impressed with the main story. I wasn’t expecting them to take the story in the direction they did. I was intrigued by the unidentified person who keeps texting Luce, and I did not see the plot twist coming at the end of Chapter 4!

The ending felt bittersweet, and certain parts of the story were not resolved. But I still enjoyed the writing overall. The designs – from the characters to the enemies to the backgrounds – also really appeal to me, and I appreciated the animated scenes.

Luce and her friends are fun and quirky, and I liked seeing how they reacted to the dialogue choices I made. If they could slow down the romance and speed up the battles, I think they could make a sequel that’s even better and resolve the unfinished business from the end of this game.

Nova Hearts isn’t perfect, but after finishing the game I would love to see more from Lightbulb Crew. If this sounds like something you’d enjoy, be sure to support the developer and check it out.

Additionally, they’ve partnered with Kitfox Games to create a bundle with Nova Hearts and Boyfriend Dungeon (great game) on Steam, which lasts for 2 weeks after launch. To further support the LGBT+ community, they’ve partnered with several establishments across the US to distribute merchandise, with some of the proceeds going to the Rainbow Railroad nonprofit.