Roommates, Romance, and Ringing Hearts Review

You play as Takumi and live in a share house with five other women. The setup is like Five Hearts Under One Roof, with fewer sexual innuendos. Emulating such a successful game is smart. Unfortunately, like that game, it has little substance. It relies on modest laughs, lessened by flurries of unfunny silliness, like when one character gets trapped under a tiny pile of clothes.

The five love interests fawn over you immediately, which is par for the course. Nao is your bubbly childhood friend with great facial expressions. Nagi is an idol hopeful who cannot dance. Anon is your Chinese-speaking boss. Ruka is a famous young idol. And Mirei is an older woman with boyfriend problems. The last two get the least screen time. Despite the reasonable character outlines, we learn almost nothing about them as people. At the end of chapter 4, a sliver of genuine personality emerges from beneath their gravure exteriors, but it evaporates as quickly as it arrives.

Nothing actually seems to happen. The game teases fun activities before slamming the door in your face. When you help Ruka cook, all choices lead to a near immediate cessation of food prep. When the group throws a Halloween party, it ends right after the set up. And when everybody wants to go to the beach, you never see a single grain of sand or bask under the sun, after picking a swimsuit for your number one. Some missing pieces might be the result of Steam’s censorship, budget issues, or extracting content to make DLC with exorbitant pricing.

But most gaps are likely a creative misstep. For example, you go to school in chapter one, but the campus is only briefly revisited once more. The job you start work at in chapter two is similarly ignored. One ending featured Nao and Takumi confessing to each other, and then Takumi immediately stood up and walked straight out the door. Such flippantness was a constant issue.

Getting the best endings is a pain for the prominent characters, and it is not worth it. Even then, the game is short, taking under 2 hours to clear and under six to see everything. Video quality is mediocre but at least audio is from on-set and the English translation is high quality.

Roommates, Romance and Ringing Hearts is short on positives. And there are too many better experiences. Those keen on the Japanese theme will find that Refate: Echoes of Desire reigns supreme. Or try Blossom Voyage or Love Starts Again, if you prefer a simple dating sim. If you take a chance with this, don’t be surprised if the first confession makes you walk out and never look back.