Girlish Grimoire LittleWitch Romanesque is a very interesting visual novel, with several features and ways of doing things that are unusual, although not unheard of. The game has uncomplicated gameplay that feels like something along the lines of resource management. While the visual novel isn’t exactly difficult, it does require paying more attention than most visual novels, and that is noteworthy in and of itself.

The story’s setup is pretty simple. The player’s character, an Archmage named Domino, is sent to a tower that is a remnant from the bygone Age of Towers. Accompanying him are Aria and Kaya, two students from the magical academy, Grimoire. Domino is tasked with raising these two young mages-in-training into full-fledged mages within the three years he lives at the tower. The game’s ultimate goal is, of course, to raise the two girls while teaching them as much magic as you can so that they can pass exams, help people, and gain diplomas.

Over the course of the story, quite a few other guests show up at the tower, most of which end up residing there as well. Each character that gets involved with life at the tower is enjoyable and entertaining in their own way, and most of them are possible romantic targets. (Thankfully the two girls are not, so no worries there!)

The game takes place over the three-year period that is split into 156 weeks. Each of these weeks allows you to take one action: you can teach the girls, which will garner them experience; have one of them learn a particular spell; or complete an available quest. In addition to these actions, an event or two can happen in a given week. Generally, a scene may play before you make your choice for the week; after you choose an action, a scene (if any) happens in response, and another follows after that. This brings you to the next week.

Ultimately, the flow of the game is very simple. However, things do get hectic once you get past the first year or so. Quests require Aria and Kaya to have learned various magic before you can complete them, so picking which spells to learn and when is important for choosing which quests to do, as they have time limits. While it may be possible to do the majority of them your first time through, it’s more likely that you’ll miss a good number of them.

The girls are taught the spells through a neat little dice game. Each girl begins the week with three dice. One is the girl’s die, one comes from the teacher (you’ll unlock more teachers as you go through the story), and one comes from the study location (again, you’ll unlock more as you go through the game). You get a roll for each day.

Experience comes in the form of various glyphs, each of which is a different type of experience. The dice that are rolled will have a glyph on each side, and each die will be different. This will come into play when you unlock more teachers and locations, since you can change them to favor whichever experience type you are searching for.

While the dice rolls are straightforward at the beginning of the game, they quickly become rather crazy as the girls learn spells. Each spell the girls are taught throughout the game can actually be used in the dice rolling game. They have various effects, whether adding dice that have specific glyphs to the rolls, or sending a whirlwind across the board to knock extra experience out of the dice, or even just making all the dice yield extra experience.

Each spell has a glyph requirement for its casting, and every time that group of glyphs appears on the dice, that spell is cast. The player is also able to have the girls cast specific spells at the cost of the already gained experience, or bump the dice at the potential loss of experience from that particular die. The dice game gets to be quite a bit of fun later on, once you learn how best to manipulate the rolls.

That is the majority of LittleWitch‘s gameplay.

The story branches out incredibly naturally. I was genuinely surprised a year or so into the game, and onwards, as events started to come together and actually play off one another. The events happening in the beginning of the game were quite disjointed. Once everything got moving, however, some events played directly into past happenings and even small things I had done. Neglecting a teacher, for example, resulted in a scene, as did neglecting a room.

The story was quite enjoyable, although some things felt out of place. The H-scenes seemed off, for example. The characters’ personalities seemed to fall away during them, and the writing was clearly not as polished as the rest of the game (not poor translation, mind you, but rather the original writing). The scenes were generally pretty short, and seemed unimportant in the grand scheme of things. If you’re after some good H-scenes, this isn’t the game for you. Girlish Grimoire was much better at quality storytelling in the regular portions of the game.

There were some other minor—but awesome—things I wanted to draw attention to. First, I want to applaud the translators on this one. There were a few small editorial errors like misspellings in some places, but the translation was spot on with some added flavor. Adding a bit of flair to translations, like making sensei equate to Maestro here was something that took some getting used to, but the game is better for it. And the use of speech bubbles instead of the traditional text box at the bottom is a really neat touch.

The game’s art is simply phenomenal. The style is distinct, colorful and pleasing, using a watercolor palette and softer lines and curves. Character portraits are fantastic, and the CGs and spell cards are all beautifully done. I can’t stress enough how much I loved the art in this game.

Overall, I would certainly recommend LittleWitch to anyone who enjoys visual novels, unless they’re just looking for super ecchi content. While there are plenty of fan service shots, the actual ecchi scenes are lacking here, but the story is fantastic.

With a non-adult version on the way, it may be worth it to consider the game if you’re uninterested in the adult content. This is a fun visual novel with some neat gameplay quirks, a fantastic story, and a beautifully done translation. Girlish Grimoire LittleWitch Romanesque will likely be on my list of visual novels to recommend to others from now on.

Girlish Grimoire Littlewitch Romanesque: Editio Perfecta was reviewed using a code provided by JAST USA. You can find additional information about Niche Gamer’s review/ethics policy here.

The Verdict: 8.5

The Good:

Added some neat gameplay to an already fun visual novel

Great cast of varied characters all voiced incredibly well.

The style of the game (speech bubbles, art style, menu design, etc.) is just amazing.

The game reacts to your decisions far more than expected – makes for a varied experience on later playthroughs.

The Bad: