I can’t remember whether I mentioned that I was playing this otome game or not, but I’ve been struggling to get into it for at least two months, maybe more. I finally gave up. It’s not worth the hassle, not when I have at least 100 other otome games in my backlog with more coming out every month.

Kamisama to Koigokoro is the story of an apprentice nun who lives in an orphanage/boarding school. Her name is not important, she’s just a generic otome heroine, so we’ll just call her Nun. One day her Mother Superior tells her that they’re getting three exchange students, three priests-in-training who are causing so much trouble at their original school that they’ve been sent over to Nun’s school for 3 months in the hopes that they will magically reform themselves somehow. Ha. What a forlorn hope. But transferring trouble-making “priests” instead of disciplining them seems to be a longstanding tradition, so we’ll just roll with it.

Anyway, their names aren’t important either, so let’s call them Jerk A, Jerk B and Jerk C. You can see them on the cover along with Nun’s childhood friend Jerk D and the childhood friend’s playboy pal Jerk E. It doens’t matter which is which, they’re all jerks. The childhood friend is the only slightly non-jerky one, and right from the start you can tell he has massive daddy issues, not sure I want to go there. In fact I definitely don’t want to go there, which is why Kamisama to Koigokoro was dead in the water for me pretty quickly.

Btw, if you’re a fan of the “forbidden love” kind of game and think you would get a kick out of seducing “priests” or whatever, you’re outta luck. Kamisama to Koigokoro is very vague on what denomination or even what religion the characters follow, but whichever one it is, it is one that allows the clergy to marry so there’s no problem there. One of your love interests is even the son of the vicar or whatever. Really, it’s just your typical high school otome game with the ‘religion’ gimmick added just for kicks. Anyone looking for a serious treatment of Western/pseudo-Western religion in Japan is advised to keep looking.

I had a bit of hope for this one because it supposedly has stat-raising gameplay. I say supposedly because while you do get to pick a stat to raise every week, you pick once and then so many skits and talking events take place that you forget what you even picked in the first place. Even worse, it’s not like the skits are that interesting or exciting either, they all follow a predictable pattern.

Up to the point where I quit, a typical event went like this: Jerks A, B and C are being jerks. Do you
a) Scold them,
b) Ignore them or
c) Join them?

“Join them” seems to be the correct answer most of the time. It will get them to like you more, but it won’t make them any less jerkish. I started ignoring them after a while, which also doesn’t make them any better but rather seems to be hastening my slide towards the bad end. Why is it MY job to reform these losers instead of the Mother Superior’s or the Priest in charge’s? They’re always leaving Nun to take care of the jerks and then blaming her when things go wrong, it’s just not fair. No wonder I quit.Furthermore it’s not really clear what the stats you pick have to do with anything. How is watering plants going to get me any closer to the man of my dreams, who doesn’t event exist in this game? Are there any alternative life paths for Nun since she clearly isn’t going to find any good man here, or is she stuck with a bad end if she doesn’t date anyone, even though in theory her goal is supposed to be becoming a full-fledged nun? I didn’t stick around long enough to find out so you’ll just have to guess. I hope you can get some other endings, like maybe you’ll become a botanist if you stick with the gardening long enough, or a professor if you study hard enough. I mean, if you thought you needed a man to succeed in life, you wouldn’t have become a nun in the first place, right? But as I said, the guys were too unpleasant and the stat-raising was too sporadic and inconsequential to make it worth my while to finish the game so… yeah. On to better games!