Not Fear I’m Here Review

You play as Shen Tianxing, a math prodigy struggling mentally due to the death of his mother. A female psychologist, Dr. Zhou, deploys hypnotism to bring temporary peace, but suggests that finding love is the only way to overcome trauma. Dr. Zhou’s hypnotism takes players into a dark void with bright overhead lights, not unlike the succubus interactions in Soul Touch. Several hallucinations are used very effectively during a final session. Some hypnotisms feature four doors, linked to the four love interests.

Each love interest has good substance via their backstory and personality. He Mengmeng is a naïve singer who gets exploited by a streaming company. Li Shirou is your old high school crush, but her husband blackmails you into acquiring a bar that is losing money. Anna is the manager of that bar, dreaming of becoming an actor. And, finally, Zhou Jiajia is a motorbike mechanic who is often angry.

Because of character twists, the four are not derivative. For example, Shirou has a child and the situation with her husband is complicated. Anna’s dream of becoming an actor leads to roleplays, including her turning into catwoman when investigating that streaming company. There are a surprisingly high number of close-ups and the actresses are all good in their distinct roles.

Unfortunately parts of the story are missing. Initially it seems like the bar you are forced to acquire will be the focus, as one love interest agrees to sing there and another wants to work there, on top of the manager. But the bar finds success off-screen. Your main objective is actually to win an AI competition that feels shoehorned and anticlimactic. The player-character is not poor either; in fact, he is rather wealthy, so any problem involving money can be waved off. But most problems the story creates involve a lack of money.

Getting a perfect ending for each love interest is easy and didn’t require altering choices. This is because the biggest systemic issue is that there are not many choices—sometimes just one, probably to check if the player is still awake. But even though it is linear, it is not short or boring. It will take almost 4.5 hours to finish and under 8 to see everything. Video quality is good (no face filters) but audio is all ADR. Subtitles are mediocre, so get the better ones available here.

Not Fear I’m Here is unlikely to be high on anybody’s list of best dating sims, but not every game needs to be completely mesmerising to make it worth playing.