Like many others, I quite like KonoSuba. I’ve watched the anime, the movie, the prequel, and I’ve even picked up some of the light novels. So when I heard PQube was going to publish the KONOSUBA – God’s Blessing on this Wonderful World! Love For These Clothes Of Desire! visual novel, I knew I had to try it out. Luckily, I had that chance.
PQube was exhibiting at EGX 2023, a gaming expo held in London, UK. Along with several other upcoming titles, they were showing a demo of KONOSUBA – Love For These Clothes Of Desire! for the first time. I thought I’d share some brief impressions and what I could glean from playing.
Tablets and Enchanted Clothes
Playing KONOSUBA – God’s Blessing on this Wonderful World! Love For These Clothes Of Desire! felt very similar to watching an episode of the anime. Some of it was design choices such as having an eye-catch with the logo between scenes, and the fact that the same Japanese voice actors are involved, but it was mostly just the format and story.
The basic premise is that Kazuma and his party come across a cursed stone tablet that can create amazing clothes when fed materials. But the tablet can curse one of them at a time, inverting their personality. It turns out that the cursed tablet was originally stolen from a noble, who will put them all to death if they don’t use it to make some very specific clothes.
This isn’t exactly a new idea for KonoSuba as a series, with cursed items appearing in the previous (unlocalized) visual novel and the anime; It’s not the first time they’ve been accused of a crime either. This just helps it fit in with the rest of the series though.
It creates a chance for some fun moments which we’d normally not see. I saw Darkness change from her normal masochistic self to a sadist, which was certainly a huge gap and the other characters played off the situation as they always do. The fun interactions between Kazuma’s party are one of the major things that make KonoSuba so fun and it seems to be retained here, at least from the small glimpse I’ve seen. Their dynamic is exaggerated, but very much like a group of close friends poking fun at each other.
Are They Even Adventurers?
In terms of gameplay, keep in mind that I only saw the start of KONOSUBA – God’s Blessing on this Wonderful World! Love For These Clothes Of Desire!, but it seemed to mostly be visual novel gameplay with task scheduling and an affection point system.
All four main characters could be assigned jobs for three days of the week. Much like the first days of the anime, this was more odd jobs rather than quests.
Each part-time job earns them some money and components. Interestingly, it seems like characters have preferences for different jobs. I assigned a certain useless goddess to a job she dislikes and it seemed to unlock an extra scene because of it. According to a tip in the game, the number of times a certain job is assigned can also affect story progression. Some jobs are unlocked based on hidden requirements too and there seem to be quite a lot of them, at least 25. It seems like the job assignment system has a decent amount of gameplay involved, some depth, and isn’t just there to earn money. I look forward to figuring out how it all works.
While I didn’t see any, it appears there are dialogue choices that impact an affection point system. This leads the player to one of several endings. Aqua, Megumin, and Darkness have two endings each. A pleasant surprise was that the side characters Yunyun, Wiz, Sena, and Chris all have a single ending each too.
In terms of crafting clothes, the components are used to make clothes, but that was where the demo ended, so I don’t have any real observations about it. The money earned could be spent in Wiz’s store to buy components, along with those earned via part-time jobs.
Final Thoughts
I imagine that any fan of the anime will enjoy KONOSUBA – God’s Blessing on this Wonderful World! Love For These Clothes Of Desire! It’s just another adventure with the same crew of misfits. It’s coming out at an unannounced date in 2024 so there might be a while to wait, but I’ll certainly be picking it up.
KONOSUBA – GOD’S BLESSING ON THIS WONDERFUL WORLD! LOVE FOR THESE CLOTHES OF DESIRE! IS PROMISING
Want to check out more visual novels? Why not check out our review of KamiYaba: Destiny On A Dicey Deadline?
A gamer since the days of Amstrad and DOS and someone who has dabbled in a variety of professions. He enjoys a wide variety of genres, but has been focusing on visual novels and virtual reality in recent years. Head Editor of NookGaming. Follow him and the website on @NookSite.
