Happy Pride Month! What a better way to celebrate this beautiful month of love and pride than with a review of Flowers -Le volume sur printemps-, a yuri visual novel developed by Innocent Grey and published in English by JAST USA.
It has been a while since I got into a yuri visual novel. I had heard of Flowers from many yuri fans way back, but sadly never really got into it until recently. So here’s a complete rundown of what I think about it. Let’s find out if this is one yuri visual novel that every yuri fan should play.
The Basics
In Flowers -Le volume sur printemps-, you follow Suoh Shirahane, a shy, introverted girl who lived with her grandfather. She was homeschooled almost all her life before coming to Saint Angraecum Academy. She loves books so much that, all throughout the game, you’ll get to read excerpts and quotes from popular books and authors.
Due to her lack of experience in dealing with people, Suoh finds it very hard to get along with people. That changes when she meets people in the academy, like Mayuri Kohsaka and Rikka Hanabishi.
At the academy, they are implementing an Amitié partner system, where freshmen are required to take a special test to help the school assess who can be together in one room and help each other with academics. I might say this is similar to the petite soeur or grande soeur system of the Maria-Sama Ga Miteru franchise.
Aesthetically Beautiful
For the benefit of people who have not played this game yet, I will not let out many spoilers, but I have to say that this visual novel hits every aspect of what people are looking for in a yuri visual novel: good art, simple story, music that’s just right, and a memorable cast of characters. If you’re seeking those aspects as well as fanservice and skin, you won’t be finding those here, though.
As I went through each chapter, the story reminded me of Maria-sama Ga Miteru, with a romantic dash of Strawberry Panic, where the story is set in an all-girls Catholic school and you slowly discover the past lives and desires of each character. Flowers sort of executes this in the same way, and I had absolutely no problem following it. There are some minor slowdowns here and there, but the story and the way the characters develop their relationships are completely solid.
Like any other visual novel, there are good endings and bad endings depending on the choices you make. In fact, when I played this game for the first time, I got the bad ending. But it was still satisfying for me as it had been a very long time since I got into a visual novel like this.
What makes this game stand out for me is how they used the Lily flower (a very notable symbol of the yuri genre) as part of the UI, and I think that’s just nice. As you progress through the story, you will notice that the flower blooms. The UI and art also go hand-in-hand — I have completely lost count of how many times I’ve pressed the Print Screen button just to capture the art and some notable quotes.
I only had minor issues with Flowers. Slow pacing was one thing — but if you’re used to these kinds of stories, then you’ll have no problem following it until the end of the 10-20+ hours of gameplay. Years ago, my friends mentioned that there were some errors in the translation, but I seem to have no problem reading along with the conversations as I played it recently.
Characters
I greatly love the art for Flowers to the point that it would take me quite some time to proceed to the next chapters to praise it. Suoh is definitely one character that I can relate to, as an introvert. Although your main romance is really Mayuri, I would like to take some time to appreciate Rikka too. Her hair and glasses quite remind me of Yomi from the Black Rock Shooter anime. I have a thing for these kinds of characters, especially those who have the class president role.
Overall
I honestly lost track of some yuri titles, probably because of so much fan service over the past couple of years and a lack of time to go through them. After going through this game, it makes me want to go back into this beautiful genre and look for more.
I highly recommend Flowers -Le volume sur printemps, a beautiful yuri visual novel that hits every aspect of what yuri fans are looking for: innocent beautiful girl’s love. A great addition to your growing Steam library.
