tl;dr: 8/10 - Game is great but ridiculously overpriced (more than 2x as much as the original) and the Sekai Project translation is horrible. Don't buy it.


The dialogue was also full of typos and mistakes, many of which I've screenshotted and uploaded to Steam mainly out of OCD. You can have a look, but they're not the kind of funny typos you can laugh at, they're just wrong. Actually, this one was kind of funny, but charging $40 for a translation that is barely passable and clearly hasn't even been proofread is a little steep, don't you think?

This brings me to my next two points. Firstly, screenshots.

Sekai Project knew from the get-go that this was going to be a Steam release. The game was obviously reverse-engineered to translate the dialogue, and they even went through the trouble of adding their splash to the welcome screen and their name in the credits - there was even a typo in the credits, by the way - yet no effort was made to change the game shortcuts so that they don't overlap with the default Steam shortcuts. The screenshot key is the same as the minimize button, which would normally only amount a mild annoyance, but the problems don't end there. After taking a screenshot and maximizing your game again (only at this point will the screenshot be taken), every successive keypress of any key will take another screenshot. Even the media keys and every notch of my K70's volume wheel. Also, the Steam overlay is laggy, unresponsive, bugged and overall, simply unusable. I haven't heard complaints about this elsewhere, so I'm not counting out the fact that it may just be me, but it's true of both games. Again, at a $40 price point, I was really hoping for a functional game.

The other thing I wanted to elaborate on was the price tag, which I really haven't mentioned enough.

This download copy of the game costs $40 in total, and you're paying for a bugged and badly translated visual novel, and a couple of dollars worth of trading cards, if you really want to go there. On the other hand, I've seen physical copies of the game on sale in stores for as little as ¥1700 - $14. This is, of course, likely to be above the actual production cost and Frontwing's profit margin because the retailer needs some pocket money too. When presented with this information, you really have to ask yourself if you're happy to pay what could easily be three times the original price, of which only a fraction would go to the actual producer, for this abomination of a translation? I really want to know Sekai Project's justification for marketing this title at such a ridiculous price, and why they think they're entitled to so much.

Of course, if you don't speak Japanese and would like to play the game, this is probably your only option, unfortunately. However, there is a silver lining. Koestl, the man behind the impeccable once-fan-translation of The Fruit of Grisaia for TLWiki (now officially licensed to Sekai Project), has admitted that "there are issues" and said "the hope is that [he] will be able to go back and fix it up for them later", quoting his words directly. In my mind, he's honestly Sekai Project's saving grace, and the only reason I hesitate to dump their releases altogether and read the novels in glorious nihongo. That being said, he's currently working on translating the other two installments of the Grisaia trilogy, and I doubt TLCing this game is very high up on his list of priorities.

If he ever gets around to it, I'd gladly recommend this game to anyone who's looking for another great VN starring the Grisaia cast we all know and love. As it stands, however, I urge you to hold off for now. Sekai Project has shown with their World End Economica release that they are willing to receive feedback and actually take action - something which cannot be said about most publishers nowadays. The original release was of poor quality, which I discussed in-depth in its own review, but the game has allegedly been TLCed and edited, though I've yet to confirm. Hopefully something similar will happen with Idol Magical Girl Chiruchiru ☆ Michiru. Until then, though, I really don't recommend purchasing this title.