Bustafellows Season 2 Continues to Combine Mystery With Otome Elements 

First, I want to start with a pet peeve. Bustafellows Season 2 is a great otome game and follow-up to the first game, but it expects exact knowledge of the original to enjoy. If you had a favorite love interest, you should be fine. However, if it’s been four years since you played, then you might not remember things. Specifically, you may not remember the name of your cat that would lead you down a route in this installment where you continue your relationship with the man you picked. To make things easier on you, since I definitely had to stumble through it, here are the answers to get to each route.

• Helvetica: Teuta
• Limbo: Max
• Mozu: Ana
• Scarecrow: Ginger
• Shu: Cat

Once you do make a selection, you’re locked into a route with that man. Which is freeing! Since you are committed after the first game, the choices are more about making natural selections that suit the kind of story you want to tell. There are good and bad endings for everyone, as well as an epilogue to unlock. Fortunately, there’s also a flowchart function so if you do think you made a choice that is leading you to a conclusion you don’t want, you can pop back and make different selections in the visual novel.

What I appreciated is that there is more romance here this time around. Our heroine is already committed to someone. We see how they balance each other out, what their lives are like now that they are in a relationship, and how their lives and the seedy situations they get into affect them as a couple. I really enjoyed most of the routes, even though Mozu, Scarecrow, and Shu were my favorites. All the voice actors are fantastic, and the character portraits and CGs do a great job of bringing situations to life. 

However, this doesn’t mean Bustafellows Season 2 shies away from the dark situations and crime drama elements of the original game. Things can sometimes be as gritty as before. Bad endings? They can be really sad. If you’re negatively affected or triggered by things like murder, drug abuse, talk about human trafficking, or even abuse in general, you are going to have a bad time. (Helvetica’s route is especially graphic about what’s going in related to illegal substances.) 

I do think there are some ways in which Bustafellows Season 2 could have been an even better and stronger otome game. There are some routes where the pacing doesn’t feel as strong as others. I especially felt this way about Limbo, which is a shame since he was one of my favorites the first time around. In some stories, it seems like characters who would normally make smart decisions maybe don’t do so for the sake of making a dramatic and exciting thing happen. (Specifically, this is a Mozu situation.) Each of the routes are a bit shorter than I expected, which isn’t bad, but after the original Bustafellows being so strong and meaty, I hoped a bit for more.

Bustafellows Season 2 is truly a game for anyone who loved the original otome adventure, and it still doesn’t shy away from pairing romance with the kinds of thrilling stories we’d find in crime dramas. The execution is gorgeous, so the character design is wonderful, portraits look great, and CGs are striking. Teuta is still generally a great heroine, and the continuing romances can feel really fulfilling now that everyone is established. In general, it’s a good way to spend some evenings if you already adore these dudes.

Bustafellows Season 2 debuts on the Switch and PC on July 17, 2025, and a demo is available on both platforms.