Steam Prison

Steam Prison is an extremely enjoyable visual novel in several respects, especially if you don’t mind romantic undertones in well-crafted fantasy stories. The Switch port includes the Fin Route DLC that was sold separately on PC and some general upgrades to music and art. This probably makes it the “ultimate” version of the title. If you haven’t yet played the game and are an otome fan, it is easy enough to recommend even at its hefty price for the sheer amount of content and replayability you get. However, I’d be hard-pressed to say if it is a sure-fire purchase if you’ve already played another version of the title since you’ve probably seen most of the content before. That said, as far as VNs go, Steam Prison is another solid addition to the Nintendo Switch lineup.

There's a lot in Steam Prison's favor from the onset.

Steam Prison has a great plot, with its characters and their routes revealing details and plot twists that left me curious to know how it would all end. Although Cyrus may be a protagonist that divides opinions, I honestly don't think she's that bad. Of course, the pace of the story leaves a bit to be desired, with some plot points that end up not developing fully (or at least not as well as the characters) and the translation also suffers from some small typos.

I suspect the regular price for Steam Prison was calculated by converting it from yen directly without the normal rounding down-it's too odd for me to think of any other reason. Was it worth the price? I had a good weekend with it, and it's technically solid but not as fulfilling as some of the other visual novels on the platform.

While I have some minor issues with Steam Prison, this is a glorious, thrilling adventure, told with expertise and panache. It goes to some very dark places, but never comes across as exploitative or "cheap" in how it does it. Backed up with gorgeous aesthetics and a distinct setting, Steam Prison blends some complex ideas together while ultimately keeping the focus on what people come to otome for - a great harem of men that are all so interesting that it makes choosing between them a real challenge.