Title	Butterfly’s Poison; Blood Chains (17+)
Credit	Aromarie, PROTOTYPE
Media	Otome Game
Platform	PC, Nintendo Switch
Genre	Romance, Historical, Tragedy
Year	2022
Character Type	1 Yandere and 2 Obsessive Characters

Yuriko Nomiya is a young aristocratic lady. Despite her family’s less than ideal financial situation, her parents decided to throw a lavish party for her birthday. Little did she know that the fateful day will be the start of her misfortunes.

SPOILERS AND PERSONAL OPINION

*Note: This story features mature themes, and depictions including rape, prostitution, violence, drugs, and love between siblings.

*Note: This game is a remake of the original game “Chou no Doku, Hana no Kusari” released in 2011. As the original version contained adult content, the remake was edited to be suitable for a wider audience.

When I first heard of the game, I was really interested to try it out given the interesting set of characters that aren’t usually featured in otome games. However, my non-existent Japanese language skills would not allow me to try it out. I could only read reviews about it, and this made me even more eager to play it after I realized that there are plenty of yando characters in the game. So when Butterfly’s Poison; Blood Chains was finally out in English after over a decade, I was beyond ecstatic that I can finally play it for myself.

Butterfly’s Poison; Blood Chains feature a story set in a historical period in the Taisho Era. It contains many mature themes that may be disturbing to its viewers, so do check out its warnings before proceeding lest you get a shock of your life. Told in third person perspective, the story follows Yuriko Nomiya as the sudden tragedies that befell her forces her to make important decisions that decides her fate.

The whole visual novel can be completed within 25 hours. 5 main routes are available, with a short little route with a female character available. Each main routes have a good ending and multiple alternate ends. The true route only opens up when you have gone through all the prior routes. Afterwards, you can also unlock some light-hearted bonus scenes at the end after the dark and heavy main story, which I appreciated. Really liked the breaking of fourth wall in the bonus, the scenes were HILARIOUS and I thoroughly enjoyed them.

If you can stomach the themes aforementioned and treat this story as a purely fictional story that it is (but I totally understand if you can’t), then I think you will enjoy it. The plot and themes are unconventional and unique as compared to many other otome games out there. The storytelling was good, and the plot progresses in a pace just right to keep you engaged. Even though the visual novel is told in third person perspective, the narrative was really well done that I can empathize with Yuriko and understand her thought processes behind her actions and words. She can make stupid mistakes or be immature at some point, but the game depicts her intentions and feelings very well, so I was never really frustrated at her (which I do for many heroines in otome games).

There are a decent amount of choices in the story that you can make, so it doesn’t feel like you are forced to go down a certain path no matter what. Depending on your choices, you can of course end up with the love interests. But you can also explore a minor route with a bisexual female character if the guys are not to your taste or you feel adventurous. Better still, you can even be an independent smart woman working and looking after yourself if you want. These options already made the game more diverse and distinctive than many other otome games out there.

Although not entirely, I do feel that most endings or events that occur due to the choices you made made sense. This is a huge plus for me. For example, choosing to be honest and declare your love for Hideo in his route made his fiancé back off, while lying about your relationship with him made her disparage you and strengthened her resolve to marry Hideo. This is a breath of fresh air compared to some low effort games which give choices like saying hello vs saying hi, and the endings may even be based off on something as insignificant as that. So the story flow and in-game choices are something that I find the game did well.

Not to mention there are also some funny choices that came out of nowhere, which just adds even more entertainment to the game. Really had me ROFL.

The music and voice-acting was also really good. The game is fully voiced, and the voices of each character suited them really well. The music played complemented the scenes and enhanced the emotions felt throughout the story. I was vibing to the music the whole time. So this was done really well too.

The game user interface is excellent. Never have I encounter a game that allows you to customize the display so much. It allows you to choose the font, the color of words that have and have not been read (so you can quickly skip or pause after repeated playthroughs), textbox transparency, etc. Just wow! I don’t know what you think, but I am seriously impressed by this.

Hands down, my favorite character in the game is Shiba. He is the kind of character that you either love or hate. No one is perfect, and this is especially true for all of the characters in this game. Shiba is full of flaws as well. He is rash, hot-tempered, and haughty. As a result, there are several instances where he kissed or touched Yuriko without her consent during the heat of the moment. This was made worse by his poor attempt at communicating with Yuriko, which made it seemed like he was just after her for her aristocratic title, and not for love.

It later became very clear though, that Shiba loved Yuriko more than anything in this world. He would give up everything for her, even his own life. The happy end where he became a director of an orphanage warmed my heart, while the bad end where he knowingly ingested the poison that Yuriko fed him made me bawl my eyes out. Sure, Shiba could have done better to control his rash nature, but I am sure he is THE one character that loved Yuriko wholeheartedly in this series.

The game was remade from an originally R18+ game. All the explicit scenes were taken out to cater to a wider market. While this does not impact the majority of the story-telling, I do think omitting them raise some questions on the plot. For example, when Shiba groped Yuriko rashly, how bad was the extent? I have read some reviews of Fujita having weird sexual tendencies, just how strange was it? And I do know that Majima and Yuriko shared an intimate relationship in certain routes, but did they really went all the way? To me, all these instances reveal a part of the characters and their personality as well. Because all of the explicit scenes were taken out, I could not really judge the events and characters involved very well. So I do feel that my judgement of these characters were a little clouded.

Nevertheless, I really enjoyed Butterfly’s Poison; Blood Chains. It had been awhile since I felt compelled to play a full length otome game. But when I saw this game out in the market, I just had to get a copy for myself. It has one of the steepest price within my otome game catalogue, but it is worth every penny I had paid given how engaged I was throughout the whole series. This is a beautiful visual novel centered around a dark and tragic tale. If you are not triggered by its content and can accept that it is 100% fictional, I will definitely recommend you to check it out.

CHARACTER SPOILERS