Release Date: July 15, 2024 (North America)
Developers:  LOVE&ART and MAGES
Publishers: PQube
Platforms:  Nintendo Switch, PC (Steam)
ESRB Rating: T (Teen)

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SYNOPSIS

An unknown past and hidden secrets now revealed.

What road will the troubled boys choose as idols, and as people—?

B-Project is a special unit formed of the three male idol groups Kitakore, THRIVE, and MooNs. And last year, the four members of KiLLER KiNG joined as a new addition.

Shining more and more each day, their presence in the industry is more prominent than ever. The 14 members, each wholly unique, are all running toward the same dream, one much more difficult than anyone else could imagine.

And yet even today, all 14 members of B-Project gave their fans the ultimate performance on the country’s largest stage, the Japan Dome. If you close your eyes, you can still hear the voices of the 14 members echo in harmony throughout the venue.

That was step one towards greater success. We were promised a bright future.

—Until that moment, we believed it without a doubt.

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ART AND MUSIC

I wasn’t entirely familiar with B-Project’s illustrator, Utako Yukihiro, until I searched them up on google and realized they were also the illustrator and overall artist in charge of Coly’s new game (that’s all the hype in Japan right now), Break My Case. It was such a nice surprise, and it explained why the CGs in B-Project felt so familiar to me in terms of style. Needless to say, everything about the game’s art was such eye candy that I immediately bought all of the game’s art books! (laughs)

FYI: Speaking of B-PRO art books, I’m currently hosting a B-PROJECT Merch giveaway (sponsored by Otome Kitten), along with a few Nintendo Switch game codes provided by the lovely folks at PQube! If you’re interested in participating, head to Twitter/X to enter. (Click the image below to enter).

Being a game centered on raising idols, it goes without saying that the OST is also pretty solid. I love that the game actually plays B-PROJECT’s original songs (in the mobile game), even if it’s just in the BG. A couple of B-PRO tracks are also played during certain scenes in the game (e.i. when the idols are having a recording session or during their rehearsals, etc.). I do wish the game had some rhythm game element to make even better use of B-PRO’s fantastic discography.

Voice Acting

Asami Seto as “Tsubasa Sumisora” (MC/Protagonist) – Nanami (Norn9), The Maid (The House in Fata Morgana), Akira Mado (Tokyo Ghoul), Ichiyō Higuchi (Bunguo Stray Dogs), Kasane Randall (Scarlet Nexus), Young Geordo Stuart (Hamefura), Nobara Kugisaki (Jujutsu Kaisen), Kujou Sara (Genshin Impact), Baizhi (WuWa)

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MAIN CHARACTERS & STORIES

First of all, let me start by saying this is not an otome game but a joseimuke visual novel focused on idol raising. Therefore, there are no branching romance routes for individual characters. However, there are story paths that unlock two endings, each exploring storylines involving all of the fourteen main characters.

If you prefer starting with lighter content and gradually moving towards heavier topics, I recommend playing the Alternative Ending before the Backstage Ending. Personally, I found the Backstage Ending more enjoyable in the sense that I was more invested in this storyline compared to the former. So I would definitely recommend doing this over the Alternative End, if you’re only looking to do a single run in your gameplay.

However, if you’re a completionist like me, feel free to play the game in any order you prefer. I genuinely believe each of the boys’ backstories deserves to be explored, and these endings don’t spoil each other anyway. So yes, please have fun all around!

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Character Impressions After 100% Completing the Game:

👑Ryuji – Loved Ryuji! So cute, so pretty! Very androgynous looking. A bit snarky at first but is really sweet, tender, and kind after he warms up to you. He’s very professional in terms of work and hides his vulnerable side.

👑Tomohisa – Ouji idol. Just as they described him in the game – very princely. Filthy rich, I mean, really, really rich. Dude and his family have ‘connections‘, if you know what I mean (laughs).🤭 Born with a silver spoon in his mouth, but remains very humble. He’s one of the guys that I believe has strong feelings for the heroine. So pure.🥺🥺🥺 I love him. He’s one of my favs! 😭 There was one scene with him in the game that made me cry. Best boy maybe?

☪Kazuna – Masunaga-kun! The leader of MoonS. He has a very gentle demeanor, takes care of his members, and is also very smart. All the MooNs members and Tomohisa love him. 🥺 After playing the game, I honestly just want to hug him. I think his backstory with Tomo was my favorite part of the entire VN, tbh. It gave me so many feels— hit a home run perfectly. Character development: 10/10!

☪Momotaro – Momo!🥺😭 Gosh, another fav. Very perceptive, can read the room. Oozes with enigma. I honestly didn’t care much about him at first, but his backstory and monologues really resonated with me. It was so good, so raw, and being voiced by Kakki adds the cherry on top!

☪Hikaru – Another Morikubo genki character? Yes, please! Has a bottomless stomach. Always eating. Loves food. Very energetic, cheerful, loud. I want to say there’s another popular character voiced by Morikubo with a very similar story/situation as Hikaru (iykyk!).😭

☪Tatsuhiro – Muscle man of MooNs. Sporty. He looks intimidating at first due to his build, but he’s very passionate about his career as an idol and he always does his best. He also takes good care of his members. The fact that he gets totally exasperated and nervous when it comes to talking to women makes him adorable af. 🥺

☪Mikado – My best boy pick. 🥰 An otaku. Such a lovable dork! Very smart. An upstanding student. Always on top of his studies and very hardworking. His family (mainly his father) is very influential and does not support his career as an idol, so he works hard every day to prove him wrong. He’s very quirky and switches to his loud, eccentric persona when he talks about his favorite magical girl, Mamirin (laughs). 😂 Honestly, he’s the biggest dork all around! I love him so much. His backstory, in contrast though, also made me cry. Like damn, I did not expect them to touch on such a heavy subject but here we are!😭 I love this boy to bits!

☆Goshi – Hot-headed tsun tsun. Musical prodigy. Very passionate about music. Songwriter. Does his own mixes and composes most of Thrive’s hit songs. Initially, I thought Goshin would end up being my favorite next to Mikado because man, I love seeing the dude’s pissed-off tsundere face all the time.😂 Sadly, I wasn’t a fan of how his story arc went here, so my bias towards him got pushed to the back burner. He is still adorable as heck, though!

☆Yuta – Sunshine boy. Very cheerful. Loud and clumsy. He plays the mediator every time Goshi and Kento butt heads. I was kind of surprised by how much I enjoyed a few of his scenes with the heroine, actually. He is quite baby, but also has a mischievous side. I enjoyed seeing his comfortable dynamic with other THRIVE members, Kento and Goshi.

☆Kento – The tallest and eldest member of B-PRO. A ladykiller. The flirt. Possesses a carefree and somewhat idgaf attitude. I think out of everyone, Kento has the most complex personality in B-PROJECT. He hides a lot of his true feelings beneath his nonchalant attitude. In the game, we explore a bit of his backstory that helps explain his character’s actions. He’s also one of the boys who I think had feelings for Tsubasa, the heroine.

🗡️Akane – Despite his short height, Akane is actually physically fit and really good at kendo. He is good-natured and friendly to everyone, though underneath he possesses an inferiority complex, especially when comparing himself to the members of Thrive. This complexity to his character is further explored in one of the endings in the game.

🗡️Miroku – Serious. Quiet. Kuudere. Extremely hard-working and somewhat of a perfectionist when it comes to his career as an idol. He is Akane’s homie since Day 1.

🗡️Haruhi – One of the Teramitsu twins. Very extroverted and quite the opposite of his brother Yuduki. Haruhi’s character arc caught me off-guard ngl. And I have to say, unlocking the twin’s backstory certainly had some interesting twists!

🗡️Yuduki – Aww, Yuduki. Such a soft and gentle soul. 🥺 Contrary to his twin brother’s extroverted nature, Yuduki has a calmer, more affable demeanor. He is also rather introverted and very down-to-earth. As the older one of the Teramitsu twins, he worries a lot about his brother and makes sure to keep an eye on him. As someone who enjoys soft characters, I absolutely adored Yuduki in this game. 🥰 His level-headedness definitely adds more to his mellow charm.

Tsubasa Sumisora (MC/Protagonist)

While working part-time at a record store during her high school days, the heroine was scouted by an agent from GANDARA MUSIC for her deep understanding and receptivity to music. After she graduated, she was invited to join GANDARA as an A&R and offered the role of managing the idol group B-Project

The game began with Tsubasa already close to the boys, so she was already her confident self, managing all the tasks needed as B-PRO’s A&R. I love that she’s voiced as well; it adds more flair to her already adorable character. I also found her personality charming. Throughout the game, she’s constantly running around handling all her duties as B-PROs manager without fail, which honestly was impressive to me. Managing an idol group, let alone 14 members, isn’t easy! She continually showed in the game how capable and deserving she was of her job, despite being young.

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SYSTEM AND LOCALIZATION

I like that they made use of the heroine’s mobile phone as the actual interface of the game. It was very clean and very simple. What’s different in this game from your regular visual novel is that the in-game choices here are your actual text responses to the characters. In the game, the heroine uses her JOIN app to communicate with the different members of B-PRO. Depending on how you respond to the guys, it influences the story outcome of the game. It’s a shame that you can’t actually create save files while your JOIN app is open, so save files need to be made before opening your JOIN app to check or respond to a message.

Other interactive components in B-PROJECT RYUSEI*FANTASIA that kept the game immersive for me were:

• The Calls
• The Voice Mails
• The ability to send stickers in text 🥺
• Side Stories for each main characters
• The MUSIC section that includes actual B-PROJECT original songs.
• Animated sprites

While the game doesn’t allow you to create save files during text messaging, its system offers a couple of user-friendly tools to help you smoothly progress in your gameplay, such as:

• Automatic Quicksaves that remain even if you exit the game.
• The ability to switch from English to Japanese texts – very helpful if you’re someone who’s trying to study or brush up your Japanese.
• Easily accessible configuration settings.
• RECORD section, which helps you track your game progress in terms of collecting endings and epilogues.
• An easy-to-understand instruction manual that explains all the in-game mechanics you need to know.

Localization

The game’s localization was pretty good in terms of keeping translations true to the original tone of the Japanese game. I noticed that the translations kept the honorifics in names, which I don’t really mind. Unfortunately, I believe the game fell short in its QA, as there were a lot of programming mistakes that I’ve seen during my gameplay. One example was that sometimes the protagonist’s default name, or whatever name you assigned your MC, turns into “{player_name}”, and some command prompts, such as those during auto-saves, appear untranslated on the screen.

Another thing that bothered me at first, but became more tolerable over time, was how longer text dialogues are all crammed into one text box instead of being broken apart or placed in separate text boxes. It wasn’t that I had difficulty reading them, but it seemed like an odd choice to cram small texts like that together instead of using multiple text boxes.🤷🏻‍♀️

Lastly, I wish this visual novel had rhythm game segments to utilize B-PROJECT’s original soundtrack because, damn, their songs are really solid! If you want to listen to their entire discography, they are easily accessible on Spotify!

And if you want song recommendations, my favorite will always be THRIVE’s “LOVE ADDICTION” – this track is honestly GOATED af. Esp. Goshin’s (Toyonaga’s) rap parts! Also listen to Summer Mermaid by MooNs, such a fun banger song!🥰

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TRAILER

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OVERALL THOUGHTS

This game had a fairly decent length, possibly on the longer side if you want to unlock every epilogue as well as play all the extra stories and special stories of the 14 main characters. I believe it took me around 60-65 hours to complete B-PROJECT RYUSEI*FANTASIA, including clearing all the endings and finishing all the epilogues of the 14 boys.

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As for the story… Wow, it’s actually surprisingly good?! 😳 I have to admit, I was not expecting anything from this game other than your typical idol management gameplay and assumed the stakes in the stories would be pretty low and mundane. I was wrong. B-Project RYUSEI*FANTASIA is anything but mundane. I’d say that the game still offered stories with low stakes wherein, no character meets a tragic death.😂 HOWEVER, the game clearly was not afraid to touch on very heavy subjects like mental health issues, abuse, and other distressing human topics that will, in one way or another, hit home to players. I was not expecting the waterworks to come rushing in during my gameplay, but alas!😭

What really stood out to me was the writing. I feel like the scenario was written wonderfully delving deeply into the backstories of each main character and their relationships with one another. All the seemingly human problems the idols face feel very raw and relatable, and they are all resolved satisfyingly at the end of the game. I also wanted to point out that the heroine actually felt very involved in the story. She isn’t just a supporting character but is actually someone who actively drives the resolution of the various issues the idols encounter. And, I thought that was quite refreshing!

The Backstage Ending was by far my favorite out of the two endings. Though I honestly thought the game’s scenarios for the most part were quite well-written. Look, I’m a firm believer that slice-of-life VNs are the hardest to concoct because it’s incredibly challenging to hold an audience’s attention without having something blow up out of nowhere or inserting character deaths for shock value in the story (I’m half-joking but you get the gist lol).😂 Slice-of-life VNs focus on the everyday experiences and emotions of the characters, which means they rely heavily on well-written dialogue, character development, and realistic scenarios to keep players engaged. I was quite taken aback by how compelling the narrative for B-PROJECT is. The subtle exploration of relationships and the personal growth of these precious boys were right on the money! They really kept me invested all throughout.

There were so many thought-provoking themes explored in this VN that struck a chord with me. For instance, the perspective that everything is perceived differently by each person reminds us that one’s happiness may not reflect another person’s emotions. It also highlighted how idols, like everyone else, are human too and prone to mistakes. Lastly, what hit home the hardest was the emphasis that everyone faces silent battles everyday. People endure struggles that are often not visible to others. Despite outward appearances, where someone might seem fine or even happy; they could be going through a lot of pain, trying to mend unhealed scars inside. 😥 These themes, though heavy, were explored beautifully in the game that I was moved to tears.

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Fourteen Lovable Idols that will put a smile on your face.

As a Damassu girlie (Toshiki Masuda fan), my fav. boy has always been Mikado. However, after playing the game, I have become very biased towards Tomo, Momo, and Yuduki. Needless to say, all the boys were quite lovely, and there are certainly characters to satiate everyone’s preferences. Also, since the game didn’t really have any explicit romance, there were still plenty of scenes that showed how much all the guys really love the heroine, albeit some not romantically, but rather seeing her as someone special to them. Personally, I feel that while not overtly implied, the game definitely hinted at some guys having romantic feelings for Tsubasa, like Tomo, Momo, and Kento, for example.🤭

As for my personal nitpicks, there was only one aspect of the story that had me raising my eyebrows a bit, and it mostly involved my gripes about how certain business-related issues in the storyline didn’t seem very realistic for the idol industry. If you’re curious, enclosed in spoilers below is the scene that really had me rolling my eyes when it came up.😂

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Do I recommend this game? YES.
While I could say that this title is certainly for fans of the series, it doesn’t require you to have prior knowledge of B-Project to enjoy this game fully. I’m saying this as someone who knows very little about B-PRO but had an absolute blast playing this visual novel.

B-PROJECT RYUSEI*FANTASIA presents heartwarming, well-written stories of fourteen idols that you’ll gradually come to love. I highly recommend it if you’re seeking a feel-good game with ample compelling drama to keep you hooked. It’s the kind of game that rewards you with satisfying endings after seeing through the characters’ journeys. By the end of the game, as the credits roll, it left me with a sense of catharsis and refreshment– an odd combination, I know! But I think it’s one of those games that are not only enjoyable at the surface, but also a deeply emotionally enriching experience. At least, that’s how it made me feel! 🥹So yeah, if this is the kind of mood you’re looking for, this game is undoubtedly the right pick!

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