To Be In Love With Girls Group Review

The premise of To Be In Love With Girls Group is fine: you’re an agent who must create a 4-person girl group. Initially you’re sent to sign the biggest up and coming star. She ignores you, just like in real life. Thankfully your work’s receptionist has a good voice, and she’ll be #1 if you can build her confidence. Then there is a dancing influencer who has no fans, #2 if you can make her popular. A rock n’ roll solo artist can write songs but has hit a creative wall, #3 if you can inspire her. And finally that star that ignored you is #4, if you wait until chapter 5 out of 5, when she joins without drama. All four are romance options, along with a friendly colleague and your boss.

While the setup seems good, it sounds far better than it is. The story is a jumbled mess and has several continuity issues. Many things don’t make sense, like your male friend picking you up on a motorcycle inside the lobby and a store that is just a house with one rack of clothes. When you tell #4 to steal a costume and run, she is appalled and the game ends, but if you say you don’t know what to do, she steals the costume, runs, and loves you for it. The timeline does not actually show a lot of choices and scenes. There are branching paths, with early endings if you mess up the relationships. Some good endings also end the game early, and one with #3 is actually good. The game ends abruptly after the girl group forms and dances (no song), even though the boss says this is only the start.

The good news is that the actresses do alright with what little they’re given. Wang Juan (#1, receptionist) is a country girl working multiple jobs and her lack of confidence is adorable plus she has a good connection with the player. Ellie (#3, rocker) is aggressive but appealing, and she is the only one that sings, and sings well, despite the game implying her voice sucks. #4 is played by Wu Xiao Xuan, who was actually in a C-Pop band (Hello Girls 2016-2019), and she is in this for about 5 minutes, excluding lame dream sequences. Your colleague is probably the third best romance (the actress was also in Flaky Love – Epic Games Store), but sadly pretty much none of them have adequate endings.

Video quality is good overall. Audio is live recorded and mostly clear, however scenes regularly have crap background music that seems like it was pulled from a 1910s silent movie. This lame music is often too loud and completely unnecessary. Translation is worse than typical and it shows English above the Chinese text on videos. The game is shorter than average, taking 2 hours for the first run and under 4.5 for all scenes. And with no skip button it takes longer to replay with only fast-forward.

P.S. It is worth comparing this game to the Korean FMV game My Love for the Girls Group (available on Epic Game Store) which actually has three members of a real, possibly defunct, K-pop band—Saturday. While not amazing, My Love for the Girls Group is better because it is longer, has more energy, superior endings, respectable branching paths, and good chemistry with the main cast. So play that first before you try this one.