Aug 15, 2019

Fluffy Store - Review

AsicxArt and SakuraGame has released another title with not one, not two, but three cute furry heroines this time in Fluffy Store. This kinetic visual novel is a comedy drama with fantasy and fan service. The game features a male protagonist Lin Yang who recently graduated from college, and decided to return to his grandfather's shophouse to open a convenience store. While sifting through his grandfather's personal items, a magical artifact made a fox girl Cherry, a bunny girl Purin, and a bear girl Puff, appear before him. Charmed by their cute and harmless nature, Lin Yang decides to employ them as his store assistants, and also tries to find a way to free them from the artifact.

As a comedy drama, the storyline is cute, interesting and funny with a wide variety of characters consisting of different customers at the convenience store, Lin Yang's parents, the wholesaler and Mori from the Fox Hime series (Yes, she is making a cameo appearance as a crossover this time for AsicxArt's fans who like Mori as their waifu. xD). These minor characters have a small degree of character and plot development. All the three main heroines are also sufficiently diverse in their behaviour and personalities, and how they interact with one another, with some unexpected surprises along the way. All these make this game appear interesting, dynamic and believable as the story progresses.

The artwork remains cute, funny and attractive in the game cover, Steam achievements, badges, emoticons and profile backgrounds which make it a good choice to showcase on Steam profiles. In the game, it has animated sprites in the form of blinking eyes and twitching ears, and depending on the mood of the heroine, the ears will also twitch at faster speeds. There is a very wide variety of facial expressions in every heroine where besides the usual blushing, grimacing, or pouting, there are also many minor and subtle changes such as the shape of the eyebrows which will change depending on the heroine's mood. This game also has the biggest number of CGs and SD CGs among all of AsicxArt's games.

Besides having believable voice acting to match the personalities for the three main heroines, there is a variety of sound effects and background music to match the different moods and settings which adds to the degree of immersion in the game. An example would be the store's electronic doorbell background sound each time someone steps through the store's front doors which adds to the charm in the game. A few of the background music in the game and Listening With You DLC such as Cheers to Unforgettable Memories, Darkness in Hearts, and Four Friends' Home also helps to establish the mood as a Chinese fantasy which very few visual novels have. In addition, the music Welcome to Fluffy Store, the lively and upbeat OP Intersect World and most of the remaining soundtracks by project lights in the soundtrack DLC provides an enjoyable mix of appropriate music to bring out this game as a comedy drama.

Part 5 of gameplay video with author narration and commentary on YouTube by Fluffy cactus

Darkness in Hearts BGM at 4:16 segment in video above.

Overall, Fluffy Store is AsicxArt's biggest and most ambitious title where it takes approximately 5 hours to read and listen through all the voice acting and dialogue. There is a lot of attention to detail on the voice acting throughout the visual novel which extends even to the menu options. Fluffy Store also has a wide variety of appropriate background sounds and music, along with each heroine's facial expressions, animation, and body language. For a couple of dollars, this game is highly recommended with the Listening With You DLC for having excellent quality in the artwork, voice acting, background sounds and music.

Lastly, I would also like to share that I worked to improve on the English translation for this game. I was motivated to do so following feedback from my friends in Steam, members of my Steam group (Visual novel, JRPG, Anime), and fans of the Fox Hime series over the one major sore point and weakness in AsicxArt and SakuraGame's earlier games. The game's excellent production quality and feedback from fans of AsicxArt, together with support by SakuraGame and my friends in Steam, helped to build up the sense of pride and excitement I have for this game to bring a cute, funny, and interesting comedy drama to an English audience.

Thank you to all my friends and family members who have supported me, and to SakuraGame for giving me the wonderful opportunity to work on the English subtitles for the game before release.