This was intended to be a scored user review, but there is not even a product page on the site so here I am. Given that there will be some “fantasy booking” in this piece, maybe it works better as a blog.

Reading to be warned off something carries the risk of being drawn to something else. Just minutes before TGA 2022, yours truly read a review on Destructoid to see if D3 actually cleaned up their acts with Samurai Maiden (The answer to which is a loud “hell no”.), only to be informed of Perfect Gold, a short and sweet visual novel. The purchase was made by the time Christopher Judge jokingly called his brother “Dr. Judge”.

As the “visual novel person” currently getting highlighted by the Giantbomb community moderators, I think I have the confidence to say that Perfect Gold: Alchemy of Happiness, or Perfect Gold A Yuri Visual Novel is an entry level installment into the genre.

Short and Bitter-Sweet

The length is one big reason why it’s a good entry. Whenever a visual novel is marketed as “short” on Steam, it needs to be rated on a curve. Highway Blossom is sold as a shorty, clocked in about 12 hours. The dozen hour count is definitely short compared to Type-Moon epics’ couple of days worthy of playtime. But those are still way too long compared to Perfect Gold.

Yours truly got all 21 Steam achievements in this game just under 4 hours and the story is not rushed for it. Longer visual novels regarding romance usually have the potentially agonizing “Will they, won’t they” period. Perfect Gold cut through the phrase, right to the chase and is mainly about the aftermath of “So they did, now what?”

People usually say that class difference between lovers is what makes fiction about romance work. Yours truly can agree with that fullheartedly. With that kind of difference making dumpster fires out of marriage even in real life. Well, dumpster fire is when the real story about lesbian love starts.

In the fantasy world of Perfect Gold, homosexuality is no source for bigotry. A lady celebrity being engaged to another lady is something for people to celebrate. But class is class is class and snubs are not excluded here. So the pair of point of view characters in Perfect Gold, Marion LaRue and Audrey Clary, are having a fallout with each other because of the different ways they are dealing with snubs around them.

Unlikely 1986 Hong Kong A Summer’s End where there is a fake ending with its 2 female leads separated, Perfect Gold only have the bitter-sweet ending where they sorted their mess out and the sweet-sweet ending where they going out on a date. But I still cannot in good conscience calling this game a dating sim. How could a simulation for dating letting you playing both sides after all. Throughout the story’s about 20 chapters, time periods and points of view would be exchanged between chapters. Really a seeing through both sides experience.

Eye-catch

While yours truly find Type-Moon’s presentation with motionless graphic impressive at times in their epics, Perfect Gold’s commitment to motion graphic is equally compelling if not more so.

In the screenshot above, the pov character’s portrait in the down left corner is just a motionless sprite whole the other character sprite in the centre of screen is slightly animated in terms of facial expression, lip movement and other gestures. The scene where sky is shown, the cloud would switch a couple of patterns to give readers the illusion of movement. Even the collectible CGs are motion graphic in this game. So for the production value that even Type-Moon’s nearly triple-A asking price, both in money and time, cannot buy you, Perfect Gold would give you for at most 8 bucks.

Fantasy booking time

The screenshot above contains the full English cast for this game. They all did well to tell this story convincingly. The first five all have character sprites and dedicated volume bars in the game’s audio option menu.

This might also serve as an epilogue to a blog series I did. If you came to this blog through my humble profile page on Giantbomb, first thank you for placing faith on a stranger on the internet as another, second please scroll down to see more. I have the habit of thinking about how a English language game can be marketed better in Japan with a dub cast jam packed with “all” the Usual Suspects. Perfect Gold somehow triggered that area of my brain again after I decided to be done with that habit after rushing 7 pieces for Mass Effect trilogy out of my head.

Anyway, shout out to 2012’s overlooked Tari Tari. Yours truly did not see this pretty well-produced show with a Usual Suspects filled cast until October, 2022. The first 3 are partially based on the actors’ performance in that one.

This is the game title screen featuring the 2 love birds who are also the points of view one see the story through.

On the left, her name is Audrey Clary, a princess type with British accent. Yours truly imagine her voiced Saori Hayami in Japanese. Ms. Hayami played the almost tall, dark and handsome high school girl Sawa Okita in Tari Tari and has a naturally haunting yet soothing voice.

On the right, her name is Marion LaRue. Much like Konatsu Miyamoto played by Asami Seto in Tari Tari, this one would instantly make one thinking of the Shia LaBeouf yelling “JUST DO IT!” meme.

Ms. Hayami and Ms. Seto played up a beautiful friendship between their characters in Tari Tari. So beautiful in fact that it’s almost romantic. Perhaps they can play up the romance finally in dubbing for a foreign to Japan game.

This is Marion’s fabulous sister Simone. Somehow, I have Atsuko Tanaka’s voice in my mind just by looking at this sprite, since that particular f word is the only way I can describe Ms. Tanaka’s voice with. She played the softer on the inside music teacher Naoko Takakura in Tari Tari. Partly why Takakura sensei seem harder to approach is due to Ms. Tanaka’s most famous role: Major Motoko Kusanagi in Ghost in the Shell, both the famous double feature of Mamoru Ishii and Standalone Complex. She just seems like the kind of cop one should run screaming from. But neither Simone nor Takakura sensei is cop, they just try to help.

Now from the Tari Tari trio to the Psycho-pass duo.

This is Professor Margot Beaufort, the teacher of the love birds above though she only talks Audrey through her mess while the LaRue sisters rekindled. This old lady with short hair design is almost a calling card to Yoshiko Sakakibara, who played police chiefs with similar looks in both critical acclaimed Psycho-pass and the less warm Akutama Drive.

Now the nothing berger named Irene Kang. As the art book of this game states, she is here mostly because the artist wanted a cute girl in cute dress. The coppest of cops can be under the sweetest of sweetfaces and Irene is no exception. Which is why Ayane Sakura, the voice behind Mika Shimotsuki in Psycho-pass, is a perfect match.

Al’right, enough with that type of speculation. I suppose if you want something short and not THAT sweet to get you into visual novels, you can do a lot worse than Perfect Gold. Maybe give it a try in the coming Steam Winter Sale.