Flattery will get you nowhere Kit Kat
The story starts out with you, an unnamed protagonist (you can choose their name) who wakes up with no memory of themselves. They are introduced to a woman named Kat who tells the protagonist that they are on a reality TV show where they can choose to date between five women. There is a catch, however, that being, if the protagonist fails to find a love interest, they will be killed.
With five different girls to choose from, will our protagonist manage to find love on this gameshow they have to take part in? Or will they die lonely and never get a date at the end? Or is there something else going on the island that they or the other girls don’t know about?
Pros and Cons
Pros
A somewhat charming story with some decent humor
Five different girls to pick from, each with their own unique traits
Nice art style
Cons
I don’t know if the main character you play is either a self-insert or a main character
Your choices do not matter in any meaningful way
Has an option for voice acting but there is none
Characters
There are quite a few characters in this visual novel with a total of eight unique endings in total. With that said, the visual novel does have five unique women for you to choose from, all of which have their own personalities and special traits associated with them. The story is in fact charming and has some decent humor in it. There are also references to other sorts of media that I have noticed.
The story is rather good and there is some good stuff enjoy in it. The dates that you go on with the characters you choose all felt unique and it’s something I like. The comedy aspect that was included was also nice as it broke away from the typical romance stuff that usually romance visual novels do and I applaud the developers for that.
All of the characters are likable in their own ways and are well-developed. Except for Yui, she is meant to be the childhood friend and animal lover but her character does not really go past those traits and is left empty. Other then that, everyone who you can date felt like well rounded choices.
The two characters that shined for me the most were Terra because she has green hair and wears a Pink Floyd shirt so she has quality taste in music, and is also a gamer. Then there was Violet, a women who is a very skilled cook and can be cold sometimes but is just as beautiful.
You have the ability to date all of these women on separate dates but the order in which you initiate the dates is up to you. I actually ended up liking Aillie more than I initially thought I would which was a welcome surprise.
Although not everything in the visual novel is perfect, and I do have a few issues with it. The first issue with the visual novel is the fact that I can’t even tell if the main character is meant to be a self-insert or an actual character. I want to say self-insert because you can play as any gender, although that’s kind of contradictive as you are giving three genders, he/him, she/her, or they/them. I am aware that the visual novel can’t put all genders in but originally, those three options were not included on release.
Find Love or Die Trying was free to play when it came out and you just assumed your gender from there on with no options. You were just thrown into the visual novel and that was that. Now this pronoun issue is not really much of a problem on the grand scheme of things but there are times when the character that should of been self inserted, is not.
This is because there are moments where the character just feels like a character, that is fleshed out. I am going to bring up Yui again here because I said she is meant to be the childhood friend. Well, I don’t think having the self-insert character and a childhood friend you have known since you were younger works here. I understand that the character that you play does have amnesia but that serves a different plot point.
Your choices also do not matter at all at any point in the visual novel. You can pick any options and choices for one character and throw the thought that you are affecting the story right out the window. This underlines the entire plot point of you being on a reality TV dating show and it also ruins all of the choices you made throughout the visual novel as well.
Graphics and Performance
The art style for this visual novel is very well drawn and colorful, with the detail on the art and characters being very nice and pleasant to look at. I do like how the areas were drawn and how the character models were designed. It all felt nice but there was that hint of something else is going on. I tested the visual novel on an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 3GB, AMD Ryzen 5 1500X Quad-Core Processor 3.50, and 16 GB of RAM, I had no issues while I was playing and it should be able to run on any PC.
Final Verdict
Find Love or Die Trying is a fine read if you are looking for a casual romance visual novel. Despite its flaws, the story overall is fun to go through. It will take around 2-4 hours to complete depending on your reading speed but for $5.99, that’s not bad of a price. If you are still on the fence with picking this one up, the inevitable Steam sales are always right around the corner.
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