Yumeutsutsu Re:Master + Re:After Review

Jordan over at SwitchWatchTV has gotten his hands on Yumeutsutsu Re: Master + Re:After for the Nintendo Switch, and he seemed to enjoy it quite a bit. It is another visual novel, so this is a unique review for us here. However, we hope it serves you well and helps you to understand what Yumeutsutsu has to offer. Here’s the review!

Hello, everyone, and welcome to another quick review of a couple of visual novels. Yumeutsutsu Re:Master and it’s epilogue set, Yumeutsutsu Re:After. I thought I’d just slam them together for this review.

As will always be the case for visual novel reviews, we’re not going to go into depth about the story in order to avoid spoilers, since it can ruin the whole game. We’re just going over the premise, and what we say is what you’ll quickly learn in the first moments of the game. We will not show too much either.

STORY

The game stars Ai, a girl starting her first steps into adulthood as she wakes up one morning to her new life in the big city. At 21 she’s nervous about her new job and living alone. Her new job is for a gaming company. But that’s not the real reason she’s there. While she was convinced to take the job by the CEO, her real motivation was to reconnect with her estranged younger sister who wanted to get away 3 years ago without explanation.

The game’s narrative is mix of Ai trying to get back into her sisters life, fitting in with her new colleagues as well as moving on up the ladder in the company and helping develop the game the company is working on.

She’s naive, inexperienced and nervous, and I kind of relate to that when I was her age and moving to a strange city to basically start my adult life. It was very relatable despite the outlandish take on the concept. So it’s safe to say that I did really quite enjoy the story, there’s airs of mystery surrounding your colleagues, that I really wanted to find out. And while all the game development talk did go on a bit too long and dragged out in a few scenes, overall I liked the premise and the characters. It goes places I didn’t expect it too and the 9 endings for Re:Make means that there’s plenty of story to go around. The writing is pretty good, the translation seems to be well done.

And that’s just the main game. Remember, just to be clear, Re:Master is the main game whereas Re:After is a bunch of epilogues to the main story. Think of it like a dessert to the main course.

So far so good.

However… and it’s a big however. Yumeutsutsu is a mature rated game. This is not a game for everyone. Not at all. While the basic narrative is run of the mill, the fan service and risqué elements are everywhere. It’s roughly about 2 minutes into the game that you get talk of touching people up. This is a world of women. Literally everyone is a female in this game. God knows what happened to the blokes.

You and your sister have two mothers who are divorced, and so let’s say that this is a game with girl-on-girl seduction, which also kind of includes your sister. There’s partial nudity, lot’s of conveniently placed bubbles and lights, although a few buttcheeks do sneak through, and there’s constant seductive teasing. It’s half serious, half pervy.

There’s no judgement from me on this one. It is what it is. It’s what the game is going for, and if you enjoy this, you will be certainly very happy. It’s not a cruel game. It’s all lighthearted stuff, usually. I mean the story itself can get a bit dark in certain threads, which I really didn’t see coming. Just don’t play this on the bus to work or on your lunch break. You’ll probably be fired.

VISUALS & PERFORMANCE

In terms of visuals, I really love the character art work here. Yeah they feel a little static compared to The Fox Awaits Me which I recently reviewed, but I think the overall designs are more pleasing. The background work is slightly less interesting due to the real world nature of it, but I really do like the character designs a lot. It’s a small touch, but they also change outfits occasionally. When they’re out of work, or going to sleep. It’s not a lot, but it’s enough. As that’s usually a pet peeve of mine in most games. Where, no matter the situation, the characters always wear the same gear throughout the game.

And also, the game looks lovely when played in handheld mode. The colors truly pop and come to life on the smaller screen. If I didn’t have to record footage for the review, I would definitely have played exclusively in handheld.

AUDIO

The music is pretty good. I really enjoyed the mellow music, sometimes really sweet and magical that any game would be proud of. There’s a few light hearted “elevator music” tracks found in here which are less great but fine and don’t distract from the story. I really enjoyed the opening theme tune too. Really is excellent.

Voice acting in Japanese is also top notch. Everyone is fully voiced aside from Ai’s internal monologues which makes sense.

Less good, however, are the sound effects. Once in a while you’ll be greeted with incredibly abrasive sound effects that sound well out of place. Either rain, running water or even an elephant sound are just so bad in the mix. I highly recommend heading into the settings and turning the sound effects to very low.

VALUE

Now. The price. In the UK Re:Master, the main game, is £58.49 in the UK and $64.99 in the US. The epilogues, Re:After, is priced at £44.99 in the UK and $49.99 in the US. So together you’re looking at well over a hundred pounds and dollars which I’m struggling to come to terms with. That is eye watering. I do understand where they are coming from.

It’s a mature rated game, it’s a visual novel, it’s girl on girl action – this is probably the most niche game that I’ve ever played. And so, in the laws of supply and demand it’s reaching for the stratosphere in terms of price and I’m struggling to recommend it, even if I think it’s a high quality visual novel. I know you have to pay to get this kind of stuff, and there are lots of endings in this one, for both games, but I still think this is pushing the realms of what’s acceptable.

However. There is a much better option available guys. You know I’m all about imports, well, Asia has got your back. So in Japan there’s a physical release of both games together on one cartridge. But you don’t want that! Because only one of the games has English, the other one is Japanese. However. Next month, in May there is a Hong Kong version releasing physically, with both games on the cartridge with English. And it’s a lot more financially viable than buying both digitally.

I mean, buying this double pack basically gets you the second game for free in terms of price. If you want to pre-order the Asian double pack then there are links below in the description and pinned comment where you can purchase them, plus you can support the SwitchWatch team at the same time. I mean, due to this game’s nature, I’m confident this video will be demonetized by YouTube, so every little bit helps. Plus, when you check out on Play Asia you can get 5% off your order when you use our personalized coupon code: SwitchWatchTV.

Import Links:
5% OFF YOUR ORDER
➡️ Use our link （If you don’t, it doesn’t support us)
➡️ Use coupon: SWITCHWATCHTV

Yumeutsutsu (Asian/English ver.)

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Okay, guys! That’s our review of the Yumeutsutsu combo.Special thanks to SwitchWatch’s executive producer, Dane Wilkinson. Thanks for your support and all those who joined our membership. Be sure to head over to watch another recent visual novel review I did of The Fox Awaits Me. We try to keep them short in order to not give too much away.

Plus we have a review of Hyper Jam, which I think looks fantastic. Juan and Jason put that review together for us, and you should definitely give it your attention.

Alright, guys. Cheers! We’ll see you next time!