Back in the old times when I started playing otoge, Jewelic Nightmare was a title that really excited me: being able to switch between two words, experiencing a different universe when I fall asleep, it’s a concept that intrigues me a lot.

What surprised me the most, is that I don’t meet different characters in the “Jewelry” world: they are basically the same boys I meet every day in the “real side”, but with a completely opposite personality.

Every route feels like you’re playing two characters at the same time, and you end up choosing where you want to stay and who you really love.

The common route is so long, it feels like an eternity: it’s a literal reverse harem because every guy was hitting on the heroine in both words and it was almost awkward.

Unfortunately, this makes the individual routes too short and it’s impossible to develop properly an interesting story, while dealing with two characters at the same time.

I don’t get why, but the writers decided to focus more on the “real”world, despite the other being obviously more mysterious and potentially original.

I played Adamas/Seichiro first, hoping for something great since he’s voiced by my lovely KENN.

Sadly, since I’m not interested in kuudere, it felt like a huge waste of his amazing voice; I admit I didn’t dislike completely the route itself, but it wasn’t memorable as I hoped it would be.

I don’t really get when and why Adamas fell in love with the heroine and despite some cute ending scenes and visually pleasing CGs, there’s nothing left for me.

From the second run, since I could jump directly into the route, my experience was way better.

I’ve never thought I would like Saphy/Aoshi, but he ended up being one of the few shotas I really loved: his route was hands down the best of the game.

The plot in the “real” word wasn’t anything deep or original, but somehow he touched my heart and the CGs managed to give me a bittersweet feeling that made me empathize with his pain a lot.

I appreciated the ending that showed a grown up version of him, he really became a fine looking man!

The yandere route was a piercing pain for my ears: he didn’t stop screaming “do you prefer him instead of me, don’t you?!” and “don’t leave me alone!!”.

I understand that his past was traumatic, but this shouldn’t allow him to be a psycho and yell all the time!

You know I like creepy characters, but this guy just needs a good psychiatrist, I can’t help him.

I thought my favorite character would end up being Ruby, but sadly his route was greatest disappointment of the game: predictable, annoying… something I’ve seen in a million shoujo manga.

Since he’s voiced by Kakihara, every time he said “ba—ka!” I had terrible Shin’s flashbacks and it was a nightmare, since it was my least favorite Amnesia route.

This ruined it all for me, but it was already useless so there was nothing to save anyway.

Takuma/Emeru’s route was the only one that made me enjoy more the Jewelry word, and it also allowed me to have a good ending there too.

He was terribly boring as a character, but the route itself is probably the most interesting since it explains how the other word was born, so I suggest you to play it last.

Well, I made it look like a kusoge, but it wasn’t THAT bad actually.

I admit the characters were not interesting as I expected, not even in the Jewelry world, but I was always curious to understand why they ended up creating their “other personality”, since it was caused by trauma and insecurities.

The long common route contributed to a general sense of boring and useless scenes, so it didn’t help at all to make me grow interested in the characters, it was just confusing.

The only reason why I didn’t drop it back then, is probably that years ago I wasn’t picky and I had more patience. At least it made me surprised with that cute shota’s route, it was worth it for him.

But I obviously can’t recommend Jewelic Nightmare, unless you just want to kill some time while waiting for a better game.