Mostly gentle school-based GxB otome with adult leading characters in their 30s and 40s. Five LIs, heaps of story, plus free DLC with half as much again. Nicely engaging, good value.

Teachers. With Love and Passion is a fully GxB otome visual novel with older than usual leading characters. No, not a young MC facing a cringefest of men old enough to be her grandfather, but one already age 30 with potential love interests ranging between 33 and 48 – or should that be, starting at 25 years old – but more on that later.

And yet, despite the more mature age range of leading lights, to these older eyes, the story still feels like it has been written with a younger audience in mind. The writing style is very much “easy reading”, with mostly brief and simple captions. However, the story has a LOT of content and will take some effort to work all of the way through – it was a combination of the above which led me, at times, to feel like not a whole lot was happening after what felt like an inordinate number of trackpad taps led to a drifting of attention.

Although the preceding comments need to be made, they should not be seen as a final judgment on the game as a whole. Let’s look more in-depth.

Story

Our MC, Hanna Fein, is a mature singleton whose best friend Christy is a teacher at a local school which has an urgent vacancy for a biology tutor – Hanna’s area of expertise, although absent of any teaching experience. Christy convinces Hanna to apply for the vacancy, and due to a chronic shortage of available talent, the headmaster Thomas takes a risk on her.

Christy also uses the opportunity to push home the fact that the remainder of the staff comprises four male teachers, all of whom are unattached (of course! 😂) and have very different personalities; along with a school nurse/doctor who also, remarkably enough, is also without a partner.

Having endured a bad break-up with a previous boyfriend, Hanna has been voluntarily single for several years and is not interested in forming a new relationship, but after being made to feel welcome by the staff, her initial nerves in the new job dissipate as she gradually becomes more confident as a teacher and more comfortable with the people around her.

The developers made an excellent decision to leave the actual lessons out of the story, replacing “teaching time” with a brief animated interlude accompanied by a jolly little ditty. This is enough to maintain awareness of the background whilst focusing on developing relationships with the other staff.

After a time, the overworked headmaster employs an assistant, Eric, a youthful 25 year old who seems to have an enthusiasm for contact with Hanna which goes beyond the call of his duties, resulting in him popping up in moments between her and her favoured potential beau.

Following a series of decisions, a stuttering potential romantic pathway may or may not open up into the beginnings of a relationship, or lead to a sturdy friendship, or even a failure for anything to happen between Hanna and her prospective leading man.

Inevitably, after a lengthy period of undramatic, almost prosaic interactions interspersed with moments of humour, teasing and a healthy sprinkling of camaraderie between her colleagues, real drama ensues towards the end of the story as (an expected) antagonist comes to the fore and throws some peril into the mix, bringing some excitement and intrigue into what is predominantly a gentle story of slowly developing romance where none was intended.

User experience

• Hanna’s name is changeable from the off. You can alter first name or surname or both. 👍
• Upon opening the game, the player is given the choice of Portuguese or English, and this is followed by an option for an additional caption (which appears high on screen to one side) which gives a text description of sound effects used throughout the story. Both of these are positives being placed right at the beginning, but unfortunately, the process is repeated every single time you restart the game. This would have been so much better if saved and remembered, and then included within the gameplay menu as options to be subsequently changed as desired. As it is, they add to what feels like a longer-than-necessary wait to actually start playing beyond the initial load-up. 👎
• One of the first things I noticed is that the cursor has been redefined as a heart. Little things like this always grab my attention and serve to demonstrate that a developer has tried to go the extra mile to improve user experience. 👍
• Some scenes involve texting conversations on the MC’s mobile. This graphic is very pleasing, with a beautiful dahlia in full bloom as Hanna’s handset background. 👍
• Player options boxes are unusually small for a Ren’py created visual novel. If you’re using a large screen with your games, this isn’t likely to bother you at all, but if you’re on a laptop or a smaller screen, then you’re going to notice. 👎
• Overall the English in the game is plenty good enough to get by without any difficulty, but it isn’t quite right. It’s like having a conversation with someone who can speak the language but it isn’t native to them, so it doesn’t feel completely natural. The biggest culprit is the persistent usage (and over-usage) of “it”, most notably where “that” would read correctly. 👎
• Upon finishing all other routes, a “secret” route will start which really ramps up the tension and makes for an exciting conclusion to the main game, leaving the player with a positive feeling upon completion. 👍
• Included in the package is a “three years later, at the beach” DLC which is almost half as long as the main game itself! 👍
• All of the expected VN features are present, showcasing a really clean UI (backstep achieved by, presumably, a scroll wheel – it works perfectly with the two-finger-slide on a trackpad), an easy access settings menu which doesn’t involve backing out of the story, and a full gallery organised by route. 👍

Verdict

Hanna is, absolutely, the sort of MC that a typical otome fan would want. Intelligent, mature and prettier than reality for most. Yes please, I can immerse myself into a story as her 😁 but I did find, perhaps due to a shortage of true depth (especially when allowing for the story length involved), that I didn’t get to feeling anything for any of the available men, except for Leonard towards the end, and I’m not entirely certain what those feelings were. Sympathy, perhaps, the most likely.

I found the story to be engaging but not captivating – around an hour of my playing time would have been used by my eyes becoming tired and closing for 10 minutes (not during late hours, either) due to a lack of compulsion to discover what would happen next. Hanna’s hopelessness at identifying her romantic feelings felt appropriate for a teenager, but broadly out of place for a mature woman who would be far more able to recognise them.

However, despite some edges lacking to make this a riveting read, the game remains a fun experience and sufficiently rewarding to play. I believe that those at the younger end of the age range will get more from the game than those who would view Lawrence as a toyboy 😂.
For the full asking price, there is a huge amount of material which ranges from decent to very good.

Therefore, while not at the top of the list of novels that I have enjoyed, Teachers falls into a higher quality bracket and is deserving of a recommendation.

Otome Lovers wishes to thank Honey Bunny Studio for providing a free review copy of this game.

Review also posted on Steam ➞

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