Red Bell’s Lament Is Another Strong Voltage Otome Game

Like other AmuLit otome, The Red Bell’s Lament prioritizes the narrative and tells a dark story with plenty of potential for bad ends. There is some romance, but it really prioritizes action, drama, and even thriller elements. I’d say if you appreciate the Bustafellows and Even if Tempest approaches to prioritizing the story and including an occasional romantic moment, this is the type of Voltage otome game you’d enjoy. However, since romance isn’t prioritized as heavily, those story beats fall on the backburner in favor of character development, worldbuilding, and setting up genuinely surprising twists. 

The approach to romance means the “route” system is executed in a different sort of way in this Voltage otome game. The Red Bell’s Lament instead integrates everything into one storyline, which makes the included flowchart especially invaluable. As you’re going through the Nyx rescue mission, the decisions you make when going through Missions and choices you select affect possible endings. Given the number of unfortunate endings and range of better ones, as well as the need to collect Elgan Crowns to unlock things like a Special Story, it’s a genuinely invaluable asset. That, paired with a quality of life feature that brings you to branching points if you do make a selection that sends you to an early bad ending, keeps things from getting frustrating. For those more familiar with traditional visual novels with assigned routes it might be a bit tricky get accustomed to prioritizing certain choices and actions that might not even seem tied to people, but I genuinely appreciate this approach to storytelling in otome games more.

While The Red Bell’s Lament is primarily a visual novel, there are segments that can be a bit more active. During these Mission moments, you’ll find yourself in a space in which you move a piece around a board to trigger certain events, get Elgan Crowns, and reach the “finish.” This always involves performing actions within a set number of moves. It’s never especially challenging, but some situations might involve some thought to reach everything you should see. Again, I enjoyed the inclusion, as it does fit with the theme of things and adds a little more interaction.

There are some times when the script might feel a bit uneven. The voice acting and casting is absolutely sublime. The general story is wonderful once you get into Nyx, with really solid character development for every cast member. Even people who aren’t romance options feel pretty well developed. However, there are times when the localization might read a little awkwardly. It isn’t a situation which reads like a AI translation programs ended up being used. Rather, some phrasing felt weird when I went through the story. An easy example with absolutely no spoilers is Juliet telling Asher at one point, “I guess this means we’re free to do as we please for the next while.” It sticks out when there are moments handled well, especially when considering different manners of speaking that might be more formal, like Rhodes’, or relaxed, like Jack’s.

Some awkward wording aside, the only real issues I noticed in The Red Bell’s Lament involves some bugs and instances when untranslated text didn’t make it into the game. I happened upon one choice in a cafe that didn’t involve actual responses, so I needed to… guess? There are times when labels or options will feature the original Japanese instead of localized text. I did run into one instance in which the game crashed when going through a Game 3 mission on the original Switch. However, after loading the virtual game card on the Switch 2 I noticed I didn’t experience that issue (or any other bugs). I’m going to give Voltage the benefit of the doubt here, as the company already noted it is aware of the issues and did patch Even if Tempest when it experienced problems at launch. Just know that at the moment, there will be rare instances where everything isn’t at its best until a patch or two appear.

The Red Bell’s Lament is another example of Voltage offering a great otome game that feels different than what we’d expect due to its execution and story. It can be a little light on the romance, but there’s a strong narrative with genuine surprises and fantastic character development. It does feature some flaws at launch, both in terms of some missing translations and actual bugs that might cause issues with progression. However, I’m pretty confident the will be fixed, especially since Voltage made a statement, and result in this being one of the more interesting otome games on the Switch. Once a patch does appear, I think I’d consider it a must-buy for fans of the genre.

The Red Bell’s Lament is available on the Nintendo Switch.