Piofiore: Fated Memories is, as we mentioned before, a darker sort of otome game. The protagonist, Liliana, can end up in horrible, abusive situations. Her love interests can end up imprisoned and in deadly situations. To add to that, it can be a bit demanding of the player, as you aren’t just trying to get them to like you, but also build up another trait she possesses with the right sorts of responses. Fortunately, the way its Chapters work can help a lot with earning Piofiore endings, and people not as familiar with what otome games have to offer might appreciate it.
Here’s what happens with Piofiore’s Chapter system. Let’s use Nicola as an example, since I ended up getting all three of his endings. I earned the best ending first. Once the credits rolled, I had unlocked his chapters in the menu. When you go there, you can select exactly which chapter in a character’s story you might pick up from, in order to then go ahead and move forward to get the best ending. But then you might wonder, “How do I know about traits and my status? What about any past decisions?”
Well, the Chapter system helps and at least takes some guesswork out of things. Once I had Nicola’s best ending, I could go to chapters and select his route and the chapter I wanted. From there, the game gives you a hand. You first can set the affinity as high or low. Then, it moves on to the specific trait that love interest favors and again lets you choose high or low. This means you can experiment with answers and levels to trigger the two romantic and one unfortunate ending for each relationship.
Which is, frankly, extraordinarily helpful in this situation. There’s a lot going on here. You’re unlocking Piofiore endings and storylines as you play, with characters like Gilbert, Orlok, and Yang tucked away until you spend time with other dangerous men. While some of the bad routes are worthy of trigger warnings and can be brutal, people might still want to try and earn everything for the sake of unlocking a full gallery. It might be tempting with a visual novel like this, especially if you’re new to Otomate dating sims, to immediately go from one finished route back into a whole new storyline or to just reload one of the earlier saves you might have earned and work off of that.
It’s a sense of convenience, which is helpful in any visual novel like Piofiore. Things like being able to quickly jump ahead or to certain points is as much of a godsend is being able to look at recently spoken lines, check an in-game glossary, make and load quick saves, or look back at a gallery. While there are elements that make the game frustrating, at least earning additional Piofiore endings for a specific character might be made a little less stressful.
Piofiore: Fated Memories is available for the Nintendo Switch.
