There are times when you have a soft spot for something that doesn’t necessarily deserve your fondness. It’s not terrible, but it’s not outstanding, either. Yet you just like it. When it comes to yuri visual novels, the game that receives my mercy despite its obvious flaws is Lonely Yuri.
Length: Short (2-3 hours)
Lewdness: 2/3 (Suggestive Scenes but No Nudity)
Fusa Konno is a shy student who (as a result of accepting a teacher’s request) checks up on Seri, a fellow student who has been absent from school since the opening ceremony. After being let into Seri’s home, Fusa somehow falls into a deep sleep. When she finally comes to hours later, she finds herself being kissed by a beautiful, pale, and slender girl.
The rest of the story is essentially just Seri being overly affectionate towards Fusa, who struggles to comprehend why she feels this building attraction towards this sexually aggressive girl. We learn a bit about Fusa’s background, which leads to a possible explanation as to why she couldn’t keep her eyes open when she first visited Seri’s house. However, just enough details are outlined while a lot of the juicier bits are left out; as such, it’s up to the player to fill in the resulting blanks.
In any case, the story is simple, short (I’d say players can finish the game within 2-3 hours), and relatively straightforward with a slight twist towards the end. And much like the story, the visual novel itself is rather minimalistic. The backgrounds are actually blurry real life photos. The soundtrack is also rather forgettable (which isn’t helped by the fact that the game itself lacks a music menu).
The same could be said with the character designs, really. In fact, there’s a scene where Fusa somehow changes clothes between CG; I guess the illustrators were pressed for time and just reused art. There’s no overly explicit scenes, but we do get some light, erotic content.
Despite my harsh words, I found myself liking this average visual novel featuring two misfits. A girl who is starved for affection meeting a girl who avoids attending school ends with the two of them wanting to be together. A sappy love story, to be sure, and perhaps a bit unrealistic as the entirety of the visual novel happens within several days, but I appreciated it nonetheless. Despite being nothing special, I ended up playing through Lonely Yuri twice. The short length of the visual novel kind of helps the reader stay interested, in my opinion.
Lonely Yuri is a short visual novel of average quality. In fact, it’s not much better than the work of amateurs. However, there was something rather charming about these two girls falling in love. Give it a shot; I think Fusa and Seri are worth the 2 hours.
The Lily Garden 