Title: DIABOLIK LOVERS LOST EDEN Developers: Otomate & Rejet Release Date: 16th Feburary 2017 Length: ~24 Hours Links: Official Site, VNDB
This is the sixth game in the Diabolik Lovers series, following on from the ending of Dark Fate where Karlheinz bequeaths his power to his successor and has disappeared, causing uproar in the demon world. The once grand castle of Eden, Karheinz’s former home, has fallen into disrepair so the Mukami brothers go to the demon world to try and stop it disappearing completely. However, this turmoil is not limited to the demon realm and is passing over into the human world where a number of vampires have been killed in suspicious circumstances. To add to this chaos, a mysterious young man named Kino makes an appearance…
My Thoughts
I’m sorry for the half-hearted summary but honestly it’s about all this game deserves, haha.
Given that Dark Fate is (in my opinion) the best Diabolik Lovers game then it would make sense that its direct sequel would also be a good/great game, right? Wrong. I have no idea what the writers of this were thinking but the game just comes across as boring, dull and totally unnecessary which is unfortunate since the series was finally hitting its stride.
I guess we should start with new boy Kino, who has a fairly interesting backstory – he believes himself to be Karlheinz’s long lost son whom was abandoned by his father in the territory of the Ghouls (beings that were born/live in the demon realm but have no magical abilities). Kino was powerless for many years before suddenly becoming super OP & ending up as the leader of the “Ravens”, which is a group of Ghoul resistance fighters whom want better rights & treatment for all ghouls. Anyways, Kino believes that Karlheinz put him through all this to prove his worth so once Karlheinz disappears, Kino wants to get his revenge on the Sakamaki family by stealing their father’s power from whichever one inherited it.
So that all sounds pretty interesting & I was pretty excited to see the demon realm from a different perspective since the other residents of that world are woefully under-represented in the series. However, Kino starts off like 90% of all the other characters in this game – an asshole. Forgive my poor language but I literally can’t think of anything more fitting than that. He’s generally just horrible to Yui and the romantic progression in his route literally came down to the line “I really want to kill you but I can’t bring myself to so I think I must love you”. Aww how cute? No! That was just terrible character progression! That being said, I will give him benefit of the doubt since he had some funny scenes & most of the characters have improved in subsequent games.
I think the main problem that this game has is that both the Sakamaki & Mukami families had fairly predictable routes & followed two distinct patterns. The Sakamaki brothers’ routes follow them struggling to deal with the enormous powers bequeathed to them. None stood out as particularly enjoyable & there’s definitely one or two VERY CONVENIENT endings .
Unfortunately, the Mukami boys all had similar problems with their routes basically being them going to protect their childhood home ( Castle of Eden ) and trying to talk some sense into whichever Sakamaki brother was Karlheinz’s heir. Kou’s ending in particular was also very *convenient* and doesn’t really make much sense in context to the other games?
Last up are the Tsukinami duo who did have slightly better routes due to not being quite so predictable. That being said, I wasn’t particularly impressed with Carla’s ending since it felt really out of character. Actually Shin’s route was probably one of my favourites from the game, which was kinda surprising to me.
One thing that I really hated about this game in particular is the way that some side-characters (Richter & Yui’s dad) are brought back periodically just for “cheap shots” and drama during some of the routes. They’ve both been used as plot devices since the first two games so is there really any need to keep bringing them up?
Literally the only thing that saved this game from being utterly mediocre is the character interactions between the Sakamaki, Mukami & Tsukinami guys (probably because they were all uniting against one enemy – Kino).
Final Thoughts
My Score: 5/10
I know this is a short “review” but I honestly don’t have a lot to say – this game was fairly dull, had endings that made no sense, gave the new boy a horrendous route & simply didn’t add anything to the series that made playing the game worth the effort. As I mentioned, the cute group interactions & my adoration for my biases stop me giving this game an even lower score. You know this game is bad when they literally overwrite it with the follow-up, haha.
Now I’m finally almost caught-up with the Dialovers series – I will have a review of Chaos Lineage out “soon” (within the next 2 weeks) since I finished it a while ago. I’m just debating whether to post my Chaos Lineage or BWS review first! Sorry for the lack of updates – I was working & also distracted playing Pokemon Let’s Go Eevee ^_^;
Thanks for reading!
