Nurse Love Addiction

Developer: KOGADO STUDIO | Publisher: Degica | Release Date: 2016 | Genre: Adventure / Simulation | Website: N/A | Purchase: Steam

Nurse Love Addiction is the latest yuri visual novel to reach Steam and stars Asuka Osachi, a young student who enrolls at the Teito Nursing School with her sister Nao. All her life Asuka has been content just floating from one thing to another without any real purpose, earning the nickname “Leader of the Jellyfish Club” in the process. However, when her fellow club members start to take their future more seriously Asuka is left wonder what to do. Eventually she discovers her answer scrawled in the back of her favorite childhood book in which her younger self expressed a desire to become a nurse.

Asuka is a bit of an airhead, and spoiled rotten by Nao, it is no surprise when her sibling enrolls along with her to keep her in line. There the two also runs into Sakuya and Itsuki, a dating couple, as well as the beautiful Kaede, their homeroom teacher. All of these girls end up playing an important role in Asuka’s life, depending on which of the routes players take through the game. In all there are nine different endings to uncover, four good, four bad and one where she doesn’t end up with any girl.

Initially Nurse Love Addiction feels like a typical slice of life visual novel with plenty of drama and a bit of romance, especially when playing through the Kaede story arch. This is because most of the story takes place at the nursing school and dorms as well as a few surrounding spots. There are school events like festivals, summer vacation breaks and of course, lots of nursing related scenarios.

However, playing through the other story paths reveals a lot more surprising twists and turns. In fact, some of the bad endings, left us with our mouths hanging open due to how dark things can get. There’s not much more that can be said without spoiling any surprises, but suffice to say that Nurse Love Addiction is not your usual fluffy yuri love story. This might disappoint some people as the game features no nudity and the actual yuri scenes are mostly just kissing. The story is genuinely engaging, though, but we recommend playing through all the routes to understanding everything that is going on. Trust us, the neutral ending doesn’t even begin to delve into the really weird that can happen.

Visually Nurse Love Addiction looks really good with some nicely drawn artwork. The game favors a soft, pastel coloring style for the art, which is quite pleasant. Although the cast isn’t very big, they are all well drawn and unique. We would have liked to see a few more locations as apart from a few unique scenes, such as the beach and a convention, most of the story takes place at school or in dorm rooms. In total the game features 54 CGs, and those already seen by players can be viewed again from the main menu after completing the game at least once.

The audio also impresses with about fifteen music tracks in total. From the bouncy and cheerful “Even nurses are just girls” to the eerie and sinister “The Growing Black and Red World” these tracks are a great match for the game. The two vocal tracks “Sunny Place” and “A Future With You” also stand out as really good. The voice acting doesn’t disappoint either as all of the major characters are fully voiced in Japanese. The background music, voices and sound effect volume can all be adjusted independently and you can toggle individual voices on or off. You can even choose any of the girls to do the system sounds, which is a very cute touch.

In typical visual novel fashion you can left-click or press a button to advance through all the text. The interface is straightforward and every easy to use, with the “Skip to next choice” button in particular something we wish more visual novels included. Initially there were some language issues, but this was quickly addressed in a patch.

Nurse Love Addiction is definitely a game that surprised us and we recommend going into it knowing as little as possible about the full story. The characters you encounter all have their own charm and unique backstories that make them interesting. Those expecting a straightforward and feel-good yuri visual novel are probably in for a shock, but overall we recommend that anyone who enjoys a good story check out this game. It features plenty of choices and enough story branches that it kept us busy for more than 20 hours to see everything.