Sunflower is the sequel to Kory Toombs's earlier visual novel LVN Fake News, and is a kinetic visual novel that includes adult yuri content. We continue the original story focusing on Alina as the protagonist this time directly after the events from LVN Fake News. Alina happened upon a church amid a sunflower field near her home one day, and thought she saw Lidiya. Despite Lidiya's earlier actions against LVN News Program (which nearly got the broadcasting station shut down), Alina decided to try to know Lidiya better because she had gradually built up an attraction to her.
This title retains the charming light-hearted background music by Bittersweet Entertainment from the first game. It keeps the charm and humour in the daily broadcast segments at LVN News Program and adds a bit of adult humour when two supporting characters read a parody comic series called Captain Yuri. There is also an emotional segment in the game when Lidiya recounts her past which helped to provided a variety of feelings throughout the game.
The artwork is made by a different artist this time, and for an adult visual novel, I feel the artwork is a vast improvement over the anime style artwork in Kory Toombs's earlier visual novel. As another pro, this game does not require an uncensored patch. You can play the game fully unlocked upon purchase.
Sadly, Sunflower has a few noticeable cons. The first, and probably biggest con is that the novel suffers from a very short storyline, only lasting about an hour if read casually. The others are minor, but worth mentioning which include the inherent faults in the Visual Novel Maker software where it is not possible to scroll back or retrieve the message log history to check on dialogue that was skipped or clicked too quickly. This also prevents the ability to take and upload screenshots through Steam.
In addition, I feel that in the only non-H CG in this visual novel, it failed to capture the rain that occurred in the scene, and showed a bright sunny weather instead. Although this isn't something that will bother everyone, it does break the immersion when the scene does not match up to the text.
Overall, Sunflower has a bit of humour, quality artwork, and charming light-hearted background music to attract interest for a sequel to the LVN News series. However, the short length of this kinetic visual novel, predictable storyline, lack of Steam profile features, and current price ($4 at the time of this review) prevents me from recommending the game. If the game could expand further with an appropriately priced DLC or free update, or if the price becomes more attractive, I might be more comfortable with recommending the game in future.
Initial gameplay video on YouTube by DoddyX