Release Date: July 30, 2020 (North America)
Developers: Operahouse
Publishers: Digimerce
Platforms:  Nintendo Switch
ESRB Rating: T (Teen)

STORY

The main character, Miku Asanaga, is just a regular girl in high school. But she has one secret.

The loss of her memory.

Her memory before high school is completely lost.
Strange dreams, overprotective parents, suspicious amnesia……
What truth awaits Miku, through the search of her past?

Is it me who you love? Or is it the ‘real’ me?

ART AND MUSIC

Spiral Memoria credits the artist, Hazuki Futaba, for the game’s overall character design (both sprites and CGs). Some of her known works were Voltage’s Love 365: Court of Darkness and Rejet’s Bad Medicine  -Infectious Teachers.

Just like the rest of Operahouse’s previous installments, each character gets their own BGMs. The music was decent enough, albeit not quite memorable.

Voice Acting

Daisuke Kishio (Hayato Minakata) – Azuma Yunoki (Kiniro no Corda), Azusa Mukami (DiaLovers More Blood), Yasuhisa (7’Scarlet),  Makoto (Sweet Pool)

Yuuto Suzuki (Sosuke Okouchi) – Bradley (London Detective Mysteria), Shion Uno (Collar x Malice), Jek (Dance with the Devils), Lyon (Gensou Manège)

Kazuyuki Okitsu (Kazuma Yukawa) – Kyrie (OZMAFIA!!), Keith (Vinculum Hearts), Mycroft Holmes (London Detective Mysteria), Ray (EPHEMERAL), Epilogi (Cafe Enchante)

Matsuoka Yoshitsugu (Rin Okazaki) – Monshiro (Psychedelica of the Black Butterfly), Alice (Taisho x Alice), Takuru Miyashiro (Chaos;Child), Akaza (Olympia Soiree)

CHARACTERS

The game doesn’t force you to play any recommended route orders,  and all the plot spoilers are pretty much the same in every route, so, by all means, start whichever character you feel like. I played mine in this order: Sosuke – Hayato – Rin – Kazuma.

Walkthroughs:

• Sosuke Okouchi
• Hayato Minakata
• Kazuma Yukawa
• Rin Okazaki

SOSUKE OKOUCHI

Sosuke is the protagonist’s classmate. He’s the class president and a member of their school’s soccer club. He’s a serious guy who’s always looking out after people, he’s also rather popular with the girls.

In Sosuke’s route, he takes our protagonist, Miku to the amusement park on a date. They enjoyed all kinds of rides together until Miku bumps into Hayato Minakata who claims he’s a classmate of hers in her junior high school in Osaka. Miku, having no memories of her past due to her amnesia, obviously couldn’t remember Hayato nor believe if he was telling the truth. Sosuke’s thought Hayato was harassing Miku so he pulls her away from him. Miku, still boggled by the incident confesses her amnesia to Sosuke and asks him if he can accompany her to Osaka so she can find clues and figure out the truth of her lost memories.

This was a pretty basic route which I admit had some cute moments between the heroine and her love interest. However, it was just too bland and sure enough, ended in a rush.

HAYATO MINAKATA

Hayato Minakata is an artist from Osaka who claims he’s a former classmate of the heroine. He has a very strong Kansai accent and loves traveling alone in his motorbike.

In Hayato’s route, he and the heroine, Miku met at an art exhibit in Tokyo where Hayato asks Miku to be his model for a quick draw-up. They meet up at a park, the next day and Hayato tells Miku that he was actually a former classmate of hers from her junior high school in Osaka. Miku confesses to Hayato her amnesia and apologizes that she couldn’t remember him at all. Several days passed and Miku gets even more conflicted with her memory loss so she asks Hayato to accompany her to Osaka and help her recover her lost memories.

This route is basically the same as Sosuke’s story as far as how the events were segmented. It had a cute start but again, the finish was totally lackluster and rushed.

KAZUMA YUKAWA

Kazuma Yukawa is a leading scientist in the field of genetic engineering. Though still very young, Kazuma has risen through the ranks quickly due to his innovative research and stellar achievements. The heroine, Miku, knows him as her doctor who’s diligently helping her recover from an accident two years ago which caused her amnesia.

In Kazuma’s route, Miku seems to have this one-sided crush on her doctor-sensei, so everyday, after school, she visits him at his laboratory. Kazuma warmly welcomes her whenever she does and they would often spend their time together talking just about anything until it’s time for her to go home. Miku worries that she’s bothering Kazuma a lot with her impulsive visits. Kazuma notices this, so he takes her out on a date to an art gallery. He asks her out on another date the next day too. Their dates continue until one day, Kazuma decides to confess to Miku, what she really is, to him.

I find this route refreshing, because unlike Sosuke’s and Hayato’s story, it didn’t follow the same linear structure as the previous two. His start, however, was pretty boring and Kazuma’s character was not thoroughly explained and fleshed out despite him being an important character who’s very much involved in a lot of things, plot-wise (shrug).

RIN OKAZAKI

Rin is a mysterious transfer student. He’s popular with the girls, smart and good at sports too. However, he also has a weak body, so pushing himself too hard will get him really sick. He claims to know a certain truth about the heroine’s identity.

In Rin’s route, he introduces himself as a transfer student in Miku’s class. As he became popular among the girls, rumors begin to fly around saying Rin lives in a haunted mansion who happens to be the same address of a young boy, his age who previously passed away. A curious Miku follows Rin home from school and discovers that all these rumors are true. As she lurks around outside the mansion, Rin’s butler, Tachibana spots her and lets her inside the house. Rin gives Miku a tour in his mansion as Tachibana prepares them some fancy tea. They became real close to each other shortly after, to a point where Miku will spend time at Rin’s house after school on a regular basis. One day, Rin tells Miku it was time for her to know the truth about her past.

I liked how cryptic Rin is. He’s also probably the only bachelor that had a believable romance with the heroine. However, his story was just too gloomy. Just like Kazuma’s, his route didn’t follow the same structure as the other two bachelors’ (Sosuke and Hayato). All of his endings were sad.

MIKU ASANAGA (Heroine)

The main heroine Miku, is your typical bland, high school protagonist in otome games. Everything about her is pretty generic that she didn’t really left any good (or bad) impression for me to talk about. I like her character design though, I think she’s really cute. Miku’s personality and drive changes according to the choices a player makes in the game, so I guess she’s one of those self-insert MC’s.

 

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LOCALIZATION

The localization has definitely improved compared to Digimerce’s previous entries. However, there are still some phrases and sentences that are seemingly awkward here and there. The dialogues were translated as how it should be in Japanese (you can call it ‘literal translation’ if you want) but there wasn’t much flavor added to it which is important in localization. Maybe I’m just nitpicking here? Idk. You can definitely give it a passing grade as something readable that won’t deter your experience though.

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TRAILER

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OVERALL THOUGHTS

Spiral Memoria ~The Summer I Meet Myself~ is a very short game. I finished the entire thing in six to seven hours total. I admit, I’ve skipped a few scenes in some routes as they were basically the same exact dialogues repeated in every segment and I didn’t have the patience to sit through reading the same thing all over again.

Story-wise, how should I say this? Spiral Memoria, true to its title, will have your memories spiraling through the distance because it was just not that memorable of a game. ┐(‘～` )┌ Majority of the bachelors’ romantic relationship with the heroine feels too forced because of how short each route is. The story they were going for definitely had potential and I was even a little shocked with the presented plot twist, but the whole execution of it was totally a miss for me. There were so many plot holes that were unanswered especially in Kazuma’s route and most of the endings were cliffhangers to a certain degree. I can’t really expound more on the game without going into spoiler territory so, TLDR; Spiral Memoria’s story had potential, unfortunately the execution was a total flop.

I am not sure if I would recommend this game unless it’s on SALE and you’re absolutely out of voiced otome titles to play with in your Switch console. If you’re interested in trying out some of Operahouse’s voiced otome games, I’d recommend getting Kitty Love instead (that game was really cute).

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