It's been a long time since any game similar to Princess Maker was released in English to the PC gaming world. And while Littlewitch Romanesque isn't a sim-life game, It does share a few similarities in a number of ways. Part-puzzle-game/Visual Novel hybrid, this little gem is an entertaining experience.

Originally released in Japan in 2005, after ten years, it's finally in the hands of English speaking players. The story is about a young wizard named Domino who recently was made an archmage. His task is to investigate and discover the mysteries of the Dark Tower. While he is there, he also has to live and train two apprentice mages. They are two young girls named Aria and Kaya. Aria is the outgoing one, while Kaya is more reserved. During there three years in the Tower, they will learn various spells and have many adventures, as well as misadventures. Other character's will also come to live in the Tower, providing extra support. In a way, the game plays out like an Atelier series game, if it was stripped of all it's combat and exploration elements. There is still a game portion however. 

The game part comes in the form of a puzzle game involving the use of die. Before you begin, you select your chosen teacher and room to take lessons in. These influence the types of die you can use as well as influence the odds of certain sides showing face up. The faces have symbols that correspond to several types of spirit, which are what you need to learn spells. To accomplish this task, rolling certain combinations of die will cast spells that affect the remaining die on-screen, thus releasing varying amounts of spirit energy based the arrangements. You can even influence what sides of the die will show-face up. Click on them too much and they will be destroyed, however. You can also quick cast spells from the list, but at the cost of losing all gained spirit. So that's a bit more useful in the beginning. So the whole game will revolve around trying to figure out how to best manipulate how many on-screen die you can summon, and how to use good combinations of spells to gain spirit. If you are really clever, you can accumulate quite a lot. It can be mind-boggling. 

The one design decision that makes this a bit limited is that each spirit type has an initial cap. The cap can be raised to higher levels, and they most certainly will need to be, as many later spells will need more amounts. The problem comes in with how you deal with it in the meantime. Excess spirit is wasted, so you can't fully take advantage of good strategies early. The game also is something of a time management sim, as most quests have a deadline. In fact it's nigh impossible to experience every event your first time through. So the game does have a fair bit of replay value. It's too bad that the only thing that carries over to a New Game Plus is your in-lesson spells. Not even the caps for the spirit types are retained. It would have been better caps had been removed, and those relevant quests gave spirit instead. Thankfully previously viewed events can be skipped. The game also has multiple endings including character specific endings. As for the sexual content, the game is actually pretty light on that front. You pretty much have to get to the end of a character's affection rating to open their path's conclusion(represented by a star quest)to even see anything of a sexual nature. Unless you fulfill the room construction requests, where you do get a little sexy. However, given the lightness of the content, it makes me wonder why it's even there in the first place. Especially since it's a fun little game on it's own. The good thing for players who might not care about the erotic content is that there is an edited steam version in the works with omits that content. However those who buy the 18+ version will be able to get a free steam key once it launches. It will cost you more though. However despite that one design decision, the game is a fun experience worth checking out, especially for magical girl and visual novel fans.            


Bottom Line: A great visual novel with an cute little story of two magic using girls, although it's erotic parts could be done away with, as the game is good enough without them. 

Acquisition Method: This game's review copy was a digital code provided by JAST USA.