Pride Month: Visual Novel Review: Perfect Gold

Title: Perfect Gold: Alchemy of Happiness

Genre: Visual Novel, Yuri, LGBTQ+, Fantasy

Release Date: April 19, 2021

Rating: 13+

Synopsis: “Perfect Gold: The Alchemy of Happiness is a short, coming-of-age yuri visual novel about two former friends who escape detention in order to celebrate the Sunflower Festival. Set in the magical city of Castlecoast, readers get to know Audrey Clary, an alchemy student and heiress who secretly dreams of a different life, and Marion LaRue, a rebellious elemental magic student in search of someone she once loved” (From: Steam).

I simply found this game by chance. I was already captivated by the aesthetics the game has. However, when I found out that Yangyang Mobile—the creators of The Letter—made this, I was a bit…apprehensive about playing it without thinking that something gory and absolutely terrifying was going to happen within this game. However, it was the complete opposite. This entire story is absolutely adorable and I enjoyed every single second of it.

It starts off with giving us a good, adorable scene of how the romance between our two characters—Marion and Audrey— starts. Of course, since this is a visual novel that revolves around their relationship…something bad had to happen…and it did. We see in the first chapter (or technically second since I don’t remember if the first chapter was a prologue or chapter one) that they’re already fighting and you can tell that they would rather not be in each other’s presence. As you progress in this visual novel, you start to understand why and hope that their relationship is rekindled in the end.

Yangyang said the visual novel would take 2–4 hours to complete. I barely made the four hour mark with one ending. Then again, I did fangirl a lot and I also cried a bit since I felt connected with what the characters were going through. Unless you’re a fast reader and don’t care about the voice acting, you could finish it within 2–3 hours, but me being the major fangirl I am, it took me a while to finish just one ending.

I love the voice acting within the game. It is absolutely amazing. The overall art and animation is incredibly stunning as well. Whenever Yangyang mobile creates their games, they make sure that it is pure quality. It makes the $8 (when I got it, it was on sale for $7.19—it still is at the moment that I am writing it) worth it and understandable.

The visual novel even made me want to have a girlfriend so bad because their relationship is absolutely adorable. The struggles both of our characters go through is also so realistic. Of course, there is a hint of cliché since we have the “perfect” student council president and the “heavily looked down upon” new kid trope, but it makes the visual novel so much more endearing. I did need to take some breaks when I was playing because I just couldn’t stop crying. If you’re a major crier like me, have your tissues prepared. It gets really emotional the more you play it. I also love how open the major characters you see in the game are with identity and love (the minor characters are the ones that made my blood boil, but I guess you can’t have everyone be on the good side or else there wouldn’t be much of a plot now, would there?).

With that being said, I give Perfect Gold a 5 paws out of 5! 🐾🐾🐾🐾🐾 I couldn’t really find anything wrong with it. I absolutely loved every second of it. The creators did say that it’s short, but I wanted more, to be honest with you. I highly recommend this visual novel if you want to read something adorable and short. You’ll most likely fall in love with the art and animation as well like I did! Anyway, that’s all for today. Thank you so much for reading! I hope you enjoyed it. Until next time, keep your paws and bowls of ramen up, everyone! Nya! 🐾