Nintendo Switch Critic Reviews

By giving us a rare – albeit fantastic – look into an almost completely ignored period of Japanese history Otomate has given us a gift. Winter’s Wish is beautiful and written with a deft touch. We’ve got a great cast of characters, a meaty narrative to work through, and some notes to start learning more about a fascinating chapter of history. It’s a win all around.

Winter’s Wish: Spirits of Edo is another enjoyable alternate Japanese history otome VN. Those still yearning for that particular subgenre will undoubtedly appreciate the plot and characters! I enjoyed my time with the game and was surprised to find something to like about every character route I saw since that isn’t usually the case when I play otome titles. Suzuno’s entertaining tale of romance and finding herself is rather satisfying. A winter trip to Edo might do the heart wonders!

I ended up enjoying Winter’s Wish: Spirits of Edo more than I expected. It is a more traditional otome game, but one that never overstayed its welcome. I remain impressed with how creative the developers and designers get with bringing aspects of the setting into the game’s interface as well. If you’ve been wanting more like Hakuoki on Switch, Winter’s Wish: Spirits of Edo is worth your time and money.

Winter’s Wish: Spirit of Edo is one of those Switch otome games that covers a lot of different topics well. Do you like period pieces? It’s got that. Enjoy stories with supernatural elements? Each route features blightfall hazards to overcome. There for the romance? I really recommend going through Yoichi’s route! Due to playing so many routes one after another, the sense of progression felt a bit similar to me, but I think someone playing it in a more measured way as intended would have a good time.

Winter’s Wish: Spirits of Edo has its ups and downs with the story, but it uses its fictional elements well. However, its systems are lacking quality-of-life features that would improve the user experience. Regardless, the translation does a terrific job of relaying the more complex terms into an understandable format for the English audience, making it an enjoyable starting point for those wishing to get into more historical fiction with the help of some handsome men.

It doesn’t do anything special, but it is a solid story that will keep you intrigued with some tense decision-making. I captured my imagination enough that I wanted to see all six routes, with not only the good but the bad endings too. It’s a cliche, but Otome fans will enjoy this one, though it doesn’t have enough of a mystery to attract those outside the genre.

The editing was mostly good, but it seemed like every other route was clean while the other ones had the odd duplicated word or typo. It wasn’t bad enough to be notable, though. The biggest graphical complaint I had was more of a sin of omission; I never actually got a chance to see the threads that represent the emotions of the characters, only the black ones that signaled impending blightfall. It was called out in the text, but it’d be better if it was shown instead of told. The soundtrack is standard background music that I really had to turn up to get it noticeable.

Otomate's "Winter's Wish" is the typical historical fantasy otome experience packed with silly, sweet, and charming bachelors.