“Sometimes in life, you can find yourself trapped in the darkness. It can become so hard to see past the pain and the trauma, but there’s always a light. Whether that be a person you meet tomorrow or a creative outlet that allows you to bring joy to yourself and others. Never stop searching for those lights. Always remember that even though things may be dark right now, your horizon is just a step away.”
-a line from Glass Heart: Retold

Meira Lovingston (name unchangeable) is the girl with the Glass Heart. She has spent her whole life in the hospital, starting from the age of two and a half. When she turned 18, she transferred from the pediatric hospital to the one she currently resides in. At the start of the story, Meira is now 21. As the game begins, Meira is told by her doctor, Jay, that she has begun to go into acute heart failure. If she does not begin to improve, she has “four to six months until the damage becomes irreversible.” Luckily, it seems that a donor heart has recently become available. Although, she won’t be able to get the surgery for one month and it only has about 20% for success. During the one month until her surgery, Meira gets to spend that time with one of six men, depending on the choices you make in the prologue.

Glass Heart: Retold, is as the name implies, a retold version of the original story. I did play and review the original game, which you can go and read if you’d like. Since I already essentially covered the game, this review is going to be a bit more of a comparison between the two, to help you decide which version you want to get if you can only get one or already have the original.

Major Differences

I’ll list the major differences for the game below, if you’re looking for a quick overview, but I’ll go into a bit more depth/written review below as well. These aren’t in any particular order.

• New opening, start screen, gallery, nurses finally have eyes, UI
• New CGs with a different artist
• Option for turning safe spaces off and on is in settings, not asked at the beginning of the game
• In the original version of the game, there was a diary that gave you updates as you made progress through the route by choosing the correct choices. This is not in the new version of the game. There is only an option to view the love meter with each LI all on one page.
• There is now a “notification” whenever you choose the correct love up option.
• New side characters with sprites
• Major rewrites to some of the routes with changes to the flow of the story and rewrites for some of the beginning chapters
• New opening movie (I cannot figure out how to get this to replay)
• The animated sequences where Meira has a voice actor and the CG’s have moving parts, are not in this version.
• Meira has a voice actor in CG scenes, but only in Tamaki’s and Jay’s routes at this time.
• The sweet and seductive epilogues are not in this version. You can view the CG’s for them in the game files though.
• Nathan and Eli have new VA’s
• The ending credits movies for this version are the same for all characters. There’s a good ending version and a bad ending version. The original had a unique credits ending for each character.
• You can finally hide the UI (except for Meira’s sprite when it’s on screen)
• Made in a new game engine, so it has most of the typical Ren’Py engine options and also it makes its own auto-saves
• There is no music section to listen to the OST in this version
• There is no chapter list to load from in this version, you have to rely on your saves.
• Added Achievements (although at this time they won’t show up on your profile)

Characters and Endings

The love interests in this game are the exact same as the original with one of them still being locked until you get a specific ending from one of the characters. The six are: 

There are six chapters total for each character and two endings (one good, one bad) for each. The prologue also has two bad endings.

There are a handful of new characters, and one of them, Li Lang, is fairly prominent in at least half the routes. The fact that he’s not a love interest, is such a shame. He’s too hot to just be a side character and some of the scenes he’s involved in are chef’s kiss. I don’t remember a whole lot from the original, but it felt like we learned more about Moran in this version of the game. Her whole character gets a rewrite and it changes the way Jay’s route plays out.

Differences in each route + some comments

Tamaki

• 5 new CGs.
• 2 unused CGs from the original.
• The first two chapters are different, and the rest of the chapters follow a similar story from the original with some differences.
• Staying with him feels more organic this time.
• Has two new characters that are his clansmen.
• We don’t learn anything about his ex in this version.
• 12 CGs total

• Him holding her bridal style on the bike is my big critique for this route, especially since it is a CG.
• Low on romance
• Has a praise kink. Lots of “good girl”

Will

Brayson

• 3 new CGs
• 1 unused CG
• His route felt pretty much the exact same so far except for a few new scenes.
• 11 CGs total

• Stupid Meira, risking her life for answers, but at least she’s self-aware
• Some of the VAs lines, dayuuumm gg
• Oh gawd his bad end 😭

Eli

Nathan

• 1 new CG
• His route felt pretty much the same
• 11 CGs total

• Love at first sight trope

Jay

• 3 new CGs
• 1 CG is kind of new, but it’s like a redraw of the original ending CG with different outfits. Same position.
• His whole route is different and rewritten because they changed Moran’s character.
• 12 CGs total

• Her PoV at the beginning of his route is quite depressing
• She’s a little slow on the uptake of Jay’s feelings in this route. Gurl, he’s given you so many hints, yet you keep denying them lol
• His last CG from his bad end does not load in the CG gallery, says not found

Art and Sounds

The art is the same as the original, with the exception of new sprites and CG’s. This is done by a new artist. It is a bit noticeable, mostly since the style is just slightly different so you can see it when an old sprite and new sprite are standing side-by-side. The only comment I’ll make on it, is that the anatomy for the guys is a bit off, but otherwise the new art is good and shows promise. The side characters, like the nurses and some thugs, finally have eyes, where before the eyes were just kind of not there (think self-insert heroines from older mobile games). There are also two CG’s of Meira that do not show up anywhere in the gallery.

The characters move around and their lips are open when talking and closed when not. The new movie opening looks really good and is well done. Unfortunately, some of the sprites look a bit hazy/fuzzy. The backgrounds in the game seem to be the same ones. There is a good variety, but it seems most of them are probably just assets. There may be a few unique ones (like the one for YOLO’s apartment).

The whole game is voice acted, except for Meira (aside from the few CG scenes she speaks in Jay and Tamaki’s routes). Nathan and Eli have new VA’s as some of the biggest changes. In general the voice acting is done well, but it still is a bit hit and miss for some, but it’s mostly the more unimportant side characters (the quality of their mic is the biggest issue).

Features

Has:

• History log
• Backstep
• Skip Text
• 9 pages of saves with 6 saves per page, also an auto save page and a quick save page
• Text speed
• Auto forward speed
• Skip read
• Quick save and load
• Autosaves

Does not have:

• Cannot replay voices in history log
• No chapter skip/skip to next choice
• Chosen choices are not highlighted

Safe Spaces

This option makes a comeback in this version of the game as well. Since there are some mature situations and content in this game, you can have the option to skip them entirely. You can check the Steam store page for what may potentially pop up. The safe spaces option gives you the chance to read a brief summary of the situation that is coming up and have the ability to read the scene or skip it entirely. You can find this option to toggle on and off in the menu.

Achievements

Getting all the achievements is easy. You just need to start each route and get all the endings, which is two per character and two in the prologue

UI and System

The text box is the same, but it now has the options in a different place since they added the extra features. Meira also now appears on the bottom right as a sprite instead of the left. The game now has the options for the typical keyboard commands most visual novels have, which means you can now hide the text box. The only caveat to this, is if Meira’s sprite is on the screen, it will still be there even if you hide the rest of the UI. The game also does not close whenever you hit the escape button. Hallelujah!

The chapter screens have been changed. Instead of the moving video with the chapter text and character sprite, it looks more like a journal with an animation for turning the page. It definitely fits the game theme much better. Viewing the gallery is a much more streamlined version now. I really liked the unique gallery-view in the original one where it showed all the love interest’s on one screen and you clicked on them to view their gallery (they even said a short line when you clicked).

So…Which version should you buy?

I gave this a lot of serious thought, because both versions definitely have their pros and cons. Having this version made in a different game engine, to me, makes this game superior. I loaded the original version up to make sure I could get some of the differences that I may not have realized written down, and my computer had some issues with it. The steam overlay even had some weird issues in the black borders on the bottom of the screen. I also found a bug with the diary, and it’s just a bit of a slow game. So this version is definitely the one that wins for that aspect. 

On the other hand, this version does not have the sweet and seductive epilogues, which was probably one of my more favorite aspects of the original game. You can view the CG’s for them in the game files, but it doesn’t quite hit the same as reading the actual epilogue story. I do think the rewriting for this version really helps with the flow of the story more, but it doesn’t feel quite like a definitive version. There are still some things that I feel could have been a bit fleshed out more. Tamaki’s ex was pretty much written out of the story this time, with just a brief mention. Li Liang feels mostly like he’s just there, and then suddenly he’s not. I’m not entirely sure if the game really “benefitted” from him being added, but I did enjoy him being added. If not to just tease us to a hot bad guy that we can’t romance. Jay’s route is probably the biggest change in the game. While I like this new version, I did really enjoy the uniqueness that his story in the original version had.

Honestly, you could go for either game version and still get a fantastic story, since it still hits all the same beats. Neither of them feel quite like the definitive version, even though I feel like this version was trying to be that. If you have the option, time, and money, you could definitely go for both to experience the differences for yourself. In the end, if you only plan to choose just one, I would lightly suggest this one and just hope that the devs will eventually finish adding in everything to this game. Most of what’s left to be added, is to finish adding in Meira’s voice acting for the CGs in the rest of the routes, and adding in the sweet and seductive epilogues. Maybe even a DLC for a Li Liang route. 👀 They could even go in and add the animated sequences, and give us the last of the ones that the original version didn’t get. I know the devs are currently very busy working on their new game, Shattered Souls, but I really do hope that they will come back to this one sooner than later to wrap up this game version to make it really be the more definitive edition.

Route Order

I wouldn’t say there’s any kind of suggested route order. You can play the routes in (mostly) any order you’d like. If you’d like some sort of idea for an order that you want to make and follow, Nathan and Eli are the most removed from the other routes in terms of story. Jay has some plot points that the last three do, and Tamaki, Will, and Brayson are the most interconnected, with Will and Brayson specifically being connected.

_{Brayson is still my top favorite for this game and is probably one of my top fav indie otome love interest’s.}

Otome Lovers wishes to thank Eternal Love Studios for providing a free review copy for this game.

Review also posted on Steam ➞

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