Symbiotic Love - Yuri Visual Novel

Disappointing. Melancholy love was a lot better. AND this game has a serious problem with achievements not working.

Painful yet beautiful story. I wonder that what have changed Qingwei and Zihua so much after this 10 years. Can't wait for other sequels.

First of all I want to say that this game should definitely not be treated as a prequel, but rather as the starting point for this series. I played Melancholy Love first as the synopsis (originally) suggested I should do, but already noticed that it felt like a sequel with pay-offs for Symbiotic Love that I couldn't possibly get. That being said, Symbiotic Love is an intriguing story that has plenty of length (~12-14 hours for 100% completion in my case) and narrative depth to it, with switching POV (point of views) between the two protagonists. The main group of girls is very interesting and entertaining, with the poor, but sociable Jisuo being the lynchpin that drives the plot and the rich, but sheltered/caged Zihua as the main perspective that the results of your choices revolve around. This story has one of the strongest and more unnerving hooks for a love story I have seen in a while. It becomes clear in minute one that this story will go dark places (the main theme being Romeo and Juliet is not accidental), which only makes the Slice of Life segments all the more bittersweet. The play with time jumps can even cause whiplash at times, but I overall could follow the plot well enough. Many plot points are more on the subtle or subtexty side and this being a series, some questions will absolutely not get answered here and are left open for later games. It also includes 5 endings that are entirely choice dependent. Much like with Melancholy Love, the game features Positive/Negative audio cues when making a choice, which is a rather unique feature. To achieve ALL the different endings the player has to really think how to interact with those positive and negative choice balances, even involving the two main characters specific choices. The game explicitly delivers on the yuri, no subtext here, which I didn't doubt after playing Melancholy Love, but it certainly takes a slightly different approach to it. As a standalone experience I would definitely recommend the game at this price, but it benefits from having a sequel at the ready which builds on it, so I would say the Bundle is worth it more than simply just buying Symbiotic Love alone.