Highlights
- Love Too Easily offers a refreshing twist on typical Korean dramas.
- It features multiple main endings and the ability to shape the narrative through player choices.
- While the gameplay may not be highly engaging, the interactive aspect enhances the overall experience.
I sometimes find it difficult to passionately discuss Korean dramas—a large part of my personal pastime—when I'm working for a gaming website. However, that hasn't stopped me from gushing about "The Glory" to our editor Matthew Schomer every time we bump into each other. Fortunately, today I finally have the opportunity to indulge in my side hobby with "Love Too Easily," an interactive visual novel that embodies the essence of a Korean drama, complete with real-life actors, branching choices, and even hidden endings.
Only the demo is available on Steam at the moment, but it's marked as Coming Soon, indicating that the full version is on the horizon. The story revolves around Yeonwoo, a stunning 23-year-old young woman who wakes up after a fun night of drinking, only to find that she kissed someone the night before and has no memory of what she did, who she kissed, or the night itself. Alongside Yeonwoo, players will embark on a detective-style adventure to piece together all the clues and help her recover her lost memories while uncovering the identity of the mysterious kisser.
The concept is expectedly straightforward but still refreshing. Unlike many dramas, in which the eventual couples are obvious from the early episodes, Love Too Easily deviates from this pattern. The Steam description hints at eleven different main endings, and the character whom Yeonwoo kisses changes with each playthrough, depending on your choices and the clues you collect. No other drama currently offers such an intriguing level of freedom or allows you to decide how the narrative will go.
Collecting hints and clues is an intriguing process, even if the demo doesn't show its full potential. Once Yeonwoo wakes up, players can interact with items in her room in a way that's reminiscent of old Flash games. There's the big bear in her room from her ex, her birthday on the calendar, and a mirror where you can see a video of Yeonwoo literally cursing herself out over what she did the previous night. It's pretty straightforward clicking, but somehow, getting to know Yeonwoo's life through the scattered items and fragments makes you feel like there's more to her character than just clumsiness adorned with a beautiful face.
Interestingly, the Steam description suggests that the information you collect will be used as evidence in Danganronpa-style sessions later in the game (even displaying similar words on the screen in the same way that Danganronpa displays its debate interjections), but the demo was over before I got to see how this evidence-pulling mechanic would unfold. The choices you make during cutscenes and scenarios are not that in-your-face either, and it's never immediately clear whether your decisions will favor Boy A or Boy B, which makes it more intriguing and sparks more curiosity than your regular drama.
There's a full-blown Flash-like mini-game where you have to do Yeonwoo's makeup from scratch. You have to click on everything and apply all the mascara and contour and eye shadow, but it's also really straightforward to a fault. The clothes you have to wear are obvious (they're not the ones with flies buzzing all over them; why does she even keep that in her room?), and even if you try to go for wild makeup, the game will revert to the appropriate dress for the next cutscene.
It's not that engaging from a gameplay perspective, but it does feel somewhat impactful to see Yeonwoo wearing the clothes you chose in the real-life cutscene, and the acting in general is what sells the choices and the whole interactive aspect of the experience.
Love Too Easily is a game that I'm really looking forward to seeing reach its full potential. I'm not expecting a contemplative feast like My Liberation Notes or something really serious like The World Of The Married, but it's still fun to experience Korean Dramas in a way I couldn't before and even have a say in how the drama is going to unfold.