Tasteful European Maid Love: Blackberry Honey Review

Player(s): 1
Platforms: PC (Steam for Windows and Apple)
 
When we see the words “18+ visual novel”, we often think of overly-lewd girls doing overly-lewd and sexually suggestive acts on top of extreme nude graphics. The story ends up being more of a fan service dedicated to the player more than overall story and character development. As a fan of 18+ visual novels, I can say that Blackberry Honey was a refreshing yet tasteful adult visual novels with a dash of European culture and maid style elements not often represented. So serve yourself some sablés á poche and tea, relax, and fall in love in a world where you can fall into a unexpected taboo love with the most mysterious people.

WARNING: The 18+ version of this visual novel shows nudity. There will be one picture hidden that shows in-game nudity and will be used for my discussion. This is not advised for readers under 18 years old. You have been warned.

Blackberry Honey takes place in a mid-19th century England where wealth controlled how society ranks you. After her sudden dismissed from her previous position from the Hartwell home, Lorina Waugh, our heroine, was sent to her new employment in the Bly home owned by the Lennard family. Upon arriving, Lorina loathed it immediately. On top of long, restless shifts, she is bullied by her senior maids and the twelve-year old daughter of the Lennard’s, Lady Constance. However, the parlor maid, Taohua, presence bothered Lorina the most. Taohua has an aloof, cat-like personality with the most atypical physical traits and name. Some people in town even rumored her to be a witch. Lorina attempts to keep her distance but, finds herself under the old woman’s spell.

GAMEPLAY/STORY

What I loved most about the story was how refined the sexual content was presented. It flowed with the overall story, Lorina and Taohua’s relationship, never extreme and the graphics to accompany it added a more graceful and aesthetically pleasing touch. The choice of words used for Lorina and Taohua’s sexual encounters were classy and made it an innovative experience compared to most visual novels that focus more on the physical sex than the love and connections that grow within the sex. 

This is how “bad” the nudity gets.

NSFW CONTENT

Another positive aspect was the 19th century European references to current time culture, arts, and heroic tales. For example, Taohua has a long history of musical arts and mentions operas and symphonic music contemporary to the era the story takes place. Little references to Gilgamesh and Jeanne De’ Arc were fun for a European history nerd like me.
 
Finally, while we think of maids as being loyal and performing whatever task is given without a complaint, Blackberry Honey took the often typical loyal maids and put a dark and realistic twist to the maid image. Lorina was subjected to constant bullying by Paulina and often other maids would not defend her in fear of being bullying as well. Paulina and other senior maids would wander off and leave tasks unaccomplished. Lorina is often was manipulated by Paulina into doing these tasks. On Top of the bullying by fellow maids, Lady Constance would give any maid a hard time just because she could. This lead to all the maids and workers in Bly to talk negatively about Lady Constance’s behavior and many leaving because of her. I am overall joyed that they proceeded with the route of representing the dark and often unspoken abuse maids suffered from their fellow employees and the people they served.

**WARNING: STORY SPOILER AHEAD. READ WITH CAUTION.**

One thing I disliked out of the whole story was how Lady Constance kissed Lorina. I did not feel comfortable that a 12 year old kissed (please correct me if I’m wrong) an 18 year old, especially considering Lady Constance forcefully kissed Lorina. They also never fully explained the reasoning behind why she kissed Lorina. Why did she do it? Did she love Lorina as well? It confused me too much and I wish they went more deep into Lady Constance’s side.

**END OF SPOILER*

Overall, the story of Blackberry Honey is invigorating. For anyone looking for a good, wholesome lesbian story or wanting to find an easy story to read without worrying about extremely graphic stories, this visual novel is perfect for you. Bonus points if you enjoy 19th century European culture references.

GRAPHICS

What can I say? The artwork used for this visual novel is spectacular. The artstyle used in both the character designs and scene backgrounds add to the tastefulness of Blackberry Honey.
 
Despite that, I was pretty dulled out by the lack of full body designs and the opportunities they could have used to illustrate more of the story. It's rather nice to at least see a profile view of the other maids and governesses, I would have liked to have seen them represented as full body art. Lorina’s co-maids play an important and active role in how the story progresses and the emotional challenges she faced during their interactions. Also, one of the maids, Liselotte, was mentioned to have long, flowing golden hair much like Rapunzel. I think they deserve full body art to express their roles importance in the story and give a better visual aspect of their character.
 
There was also a lack of art representation of background characters that had interaction with the main characters. I would have adored to see how the post office man Lorina would see every Sunday looked and the other workers, like the cook, who resided at Bly. Even if it was a small profile view, little touches like that bring a whole new eye to the story.

Finally, there were some moments where it would have been best to create a full illustration to bring out the importance. One event I can mention (without spoiling) is when Pauline slapped Lorine for not accepting to take on her uncompleted task of locking up the windows and closing the curtains. Just like the initial interaction between Lorina and Taohua was highlighted in the beginning, I feel impactful events like this deserve a full illustration.
 
Overall, while the art style used is perfect for a visual novel like this, the lack of artistic representation of characters makes the graphics lacking. 

SOUND/AUDIO

​This is merely a personal preference but, I was disappointed that there was no voice audio for the characters of Blackberry Honey. Despite that, it did not affect my overall gameplay experience. I had fun imagining a mature sounding Taohua and shy but hot-headed Lorina but it would have been cool to hear the creators preferred voices.
 
The music used for the game gave me the 19th century European vibes the game wanted to portray. It's the typical fancy music you hear when you see a European woman sitting outside
 
I can notice that there was some shortcuts made with sound effects. The quality of sound effects like footsteps, weather elements like rain and thunder, birds chirping, and creaking noises were not consistent. Some sound effects sounded better quality than others. While sound effects is taken in as a minor issue, the inconsistency in quality made it a poor experience. It was quite awkward to hear nice quality sounding background music then suddenly hearing a footstep that seemed to be recorded with an average quality microphone.

VALUE

Blackberry Honey is priced at $12.99 in the Steam Shop with a downloadable content consisting of a $4.99 OST. It took me about 7-8 hours to complete the game. Factoring in lacking graphics (an important staple of visual novels), I would only look into purchasing for the story and music itself. Of course, everyone has a different cup of tea when looking at value but, that would be my main points into purchasing for that price. I would even look into the $4.99 OST because the music is worth it. 

Blackberry Honey is a great visual novel that makes a great nod to European aesthetics and shows that 18+ visual novels doesn’t have to be too graphic or extremely sexual to be good. I recommend it for people looking to get into visual novels but are too overwhelmed by fanservice. Anyone that's looking for great 19th century European aesthetics, references, and style of music should also play. I enjoyed Blackberry Honey so much and hope you can enjoy it in your own way soon!

Blackberry Honey Is Available Now on Steam!
http://store.steampowered.com/app/716340/agecheck

​-Konaru

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Graphics: GOOD
Sound/Audio: AMAZING
Gameplay/Story: AMAZING
Value: GREAT
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OVERALL: GREAT

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Disclaimer: This game was provided to us by the publisher for the purpose of this review.