I be honest, I only know of Lupin the third, I have never watch an episode. But still you manage to make me love this game so much! Especially with that unique game mechanics you did. I honestly love it so much. Thank you for making it!!!
this was actually... peak. I did not expect it to use game mechanics in such an interesting way but it did! and boy was it a treat!! 10/10. the art was also truly beautiful.
Thank you so much! I had a lot of fun painting the backgrounds and studying the different seasons of Lupin III for each of the chapters! And plotting out the way that the conversations changed each time was tricky, but I’d like to tackle more conversation puzzles like that in the future.
Thank you! I’m a big fan of games like Depression Quest, which use un-choosable options in a similar way to showcase frustration at not being able to do certain things. Lupin III is not exactly the type of series where people spend a lot of time talking about their feelings, so I thought that exploring the things that couldn’t be said would be really good for a guy like Lupin.
I love this VN, not only does it have good mechanics for navigating through the conversation that fit with the characters but also has great writing for those characters which is really hard to do when writing dialog for preexisting characters.
And funnily enough I had never heard of Lupan III when I first played this, and I loved it, and after watching part 1, 2, 4, and half of part 5, I love this even more now!
Heck yeah, I'm so glad that we got you into the series! I really like to make fanworks that can stand on their own, especially when it's something like Lupin, where it can be hard to figure out a good place to start watching it.
One of the best pieces of fan media I've ever experienced, no fooling. It made me laugh out loud multiple times. It warmed my heart. The level of detail packed into this thing, all the small references to random bits of obscure canon lore, blew me away. The character voices are all spot-on. Fantastic work. Wishing everyone involved in this project the best with everything they're up to now. Thanks for making my day.
Thank you! Neither Tsushi nor I really care about having a single canon timeline for Lupin and Jigen, but it was fun thinking about putting the different seasons into a rough timeline and thinking about how it would have affected them, as a shared history. ^u^
Well shit, good job on making me cry the writing was great, and a biiiig good goddamn job on the art, as a fellow artist I cannot imagine all the work that was
I mistakenly thought this was going to be something light and fun like 'Is Lupin Still Flirting' but boy was I wrong
love the writing, love the art, love the conversation mechanic and what it becomes in the final chapter, love the artstyle, love how their relationship is portrayed, last but not least I love this game
and I'm not even a Lupin fan, just someone that has been mildly interested for years but never found a way to watch it
Ah. Well then, I was completely blindsided by the depth of this. Brilliant work. There’s something so real and raw about your storytelling, I aspire to write something as wonderful as this and Is Lupin Still Flirting one day.
My saga of reviewing begins 2.0 [ehehe, I have no idea if this will spam your inbox, Royce]
THIS GAME. I had already played all your other games to date when I first played [and playtested] this game but the entire game and the buildup it has to the final scenes are absolutely heartbreaking. I went in expecting silly thieves but this wrecked me on a level unimaginable. In a good way of course. I actually played this game in full for the first time with my platonic partner so it was 2x as heartbreaking near the end. Of course, this game as a whole was just pure fun, the dialogue, the game’s mechanics, the artwork ESPECIALLY made the game pure perfection. The fact that you were able to replicate a certain somebody’s artstyle is also highly impressive, for a second I thought it was just clean manga rips! I have and will continue to replay this game as well, the message from it only becomes clear as everything comes together at the end, which I greatly enjoy as well.
[And maybe, just slightly, very slightly maybe this inspired me to start working on a Lupin III VN of my own]
Loved this! I laughed, I got a bit teary eyed, I got my heart warmed - the whole package. The art is great, and I really like the game play mechanic. Thanks for making and sharing!
I finally put some time aside to play this, and I gotta say I ended up loving this even more than Is Lupin Still Flirting! I did not expect to have my heart torn out like that going into the fourth chapter. Also, that little fourth-wall-breaking moment near the end was very cathartic while also in keeping with the original manga’s aesthetic. You guys really knocked it out of the park with this one!
I'd definitely like to post a demo sometime! The camera acts up a little with earlier versions of Ren'Py, so it won't be until Ren'Py 8 can export web versions. Also, the game is too big to post the whole thing, so no matter what, you'll have to download it to play the whole thing. But it would be cool to get a one-chapter demo up!
I've known of Lupin III, but have never seen any of it. Never have particularly high expectations of fan games either. Therefore my rather modest expectations for this game were exceeded by far!
I truly got teary-eyed at the end! I could only repeat what was said before. This is all around just an excellent VN. Great presentation, writing and gameplay idea!
Great great stuff, can't wait for your "professional game"! 😊
You never quite know what you're gonna get with a fan game! XD But thank you so much for giving it a try, especially since you weren't already a Lupin fan. We're proud of how this came together, and always looking forward to making new games in the future!
it genuinely truly startled me how well made this was. the writing especially, the final act was so. god how do i even get into it. spoilers hereon in i NEED to get all my thoughts off my chest.
major spoilers, dont read this until you've played it, trust me!
this is suprising MASTERCLASS in using mechanics as symbolism, and breaking those mechanics to get a point across. trust being a major component, especially for jigen, gets completely turned on its head in the final act. "you cant weasel your way into me trusting you, its not something you can earn, its something im choosing to give you" SHITT. and how ultimately the person incapable of trust was lupin the entire time, going as far to make his own fucking bar for his emotional openness because he couldnt trust anyone - or himself - to share his emotions freely. lupin is a closed book stuck under mask after mask, a thousand perfect systems hes made to LITERALLY PLAY CONVERSATIONS LIKE A VIDEO GAME, WITH STATS. The end completely BREAKING that system and turning it entirely on its head was beautiful and amazing. thats shit you can't get in other fanfic, thats fucking amazing. it just shows how Neurotic and closed off lupin is about other people. everything about the final act threw me up so hard, the sudden artstyle change (i LOVE the monkey punch manga style artwork, it was executed amazingly - actually all of the art in this was shockingly stunning.) the warping of mechanics, the sheer openness from jigen contrasting lupin who had his openness bar completely taken away - but nonetheless taunting the player, and lupin, with this is what you could say if you weren't such a coward. gods its. this game was beautiful. this game understood Lupin III better than most media i've seen of him. it reaches straight into his mind and goes "this guys fucked up as hell" and makes you look at it too. i love it. im obsessed. this was amazing.
also the "i dont give up on something that takes care of me when it becomes an inconvience" fucking punched me in the face it was such a good line. THE WRITINGGG IN THISSS. fuck you this is too good for a lupin III dating sim i want to scream. this is just objectively good art and a good video game. god.
Thank you for this really in-depth comment and for the kind praise! It feels really great knowing people "got it" on what we were going for in terms of a harmony of mechanics and mentality. I'm so happy to hear you had a good time with it! Thanks again for checking it out and letting it give you some emotions! That's never something we take for granted, we appreciate it :D
My partner and I tested this game extensively in its first few legs of development, and the final results of all of Royce and Tsushi's effort shine with twice the brilliance in the finished result. A polished UI and snappy dialogue contribute to a dating sim game that ends up being anything but genre-typical, playing cards from all over a franchise with over 50 years of history (and gay subtext.)
I can't say enough how much we deeply appreciated your and your partner's help in the dev process! Having both of your in-depth feedback was a huge boost to making the game and catching a lot of errors that gave it the polish it has. Thank you so much!
i created an account just to tell you how much i adore this game, the way characters and dialog are written is just so good, thank you sm for this novel!!
Thank you so much for putting in that extra energy for us, these comments always help my day improve and drive me forward to keep working hard. Thank you!
Never had I seen a piece of Lupin fan media that felt like it spoke to the specific type of fan that I am, down to every single detail and nitpick I had about the franchise.
First things first, the art and music are gorgeous. I'm someone who just puts on Yuji Ohno music to vibe and I can 100% see myself putting on this game's remixes, they're just that good. The art is very pretty as well, there are a few iffy expressions, but the presentation is spot-on, ESPECIALLY with how the designs change as the chapters go by and we see the characters in different stages of their lives. I'm split on that decision, though: one part of my brain would have loved a consistent design, especially when it comes to the shape of their faces, but I feel like the change in designs ends up working out very well in the end.
Secondly, every character feels very in-character. The main barrier between me and ship fanfic content is that a lot of them don't seem to get the characters. But this one does, and VERY well. The progression of Lupin's inner monologue and the kinds of things he either says or thinks about saying for most of the game are very true to Lupin. Every time a character talks about what they're like or what they think I sat there thinking "YEAH, THEY GET IT." The only two exceptions, where I felt like the characters where a bit off (though not that much) are moments in Chapter 2, one where Jigen delivers a long monologue and another where something pivotal to the plot happens, not gonna say what it is in case somebody who hasn't played it is reading this, but I think it felt a little bit more like stereotypical fanfiction when contrasted with the extraordinary attention to every detail of the characters' personalities that is present in every other moment. As for the other part, I get it, the Lupin Gang is full of characters who say more with what they do than with what words come out of their mouths, so there was bound to be some awkwardness due to the medium, even if just a little bit...
---Spoilers for the game, Part 4 and Part 5, in case you haven't finished any of them---
HOWEVER I just fucking adore the twist at the end, where the game mechanics don't seem to work as usual and Lupin just breaks the entire interface. Not only do I love meta fuckery with the UI, NOT ONLY does it beautifully express Lupin's way of acting in a way that only a visual novel can, BUT it also critiques the somewhat shitty and manipulative nature inherent to dating sims of that type while staying within the bounds of Lupin's character. Just incredible. Especially considering that I, the player, by engaging with the mechanics of the VN, got to think like that, to see how my conversation choices affected all the numbers and the like. The whole time I thought "it is a little shitty that I'm going to get the best ending by just saying what will get me the most optimal trust and openness points" but NO, THEY KNEW, THEY FUCKING KNEW, AND I LOVE THAT.
One small gripe that I have before going into one of my favourite parts of this beautiful story is: Chapter 3 takes place after Part 4 of the anime, and I thought that, since Lupin and Fujiko getting married was an important plot point, that the whole wedding with Rebbecca would be brought up. However, it's not bad that it wasn't, and I only really noticed because the rest of the VN is extremely good at using all the little details and bits of Lupin lore.
And finally (but not really, I keep thinking of things to say as I'm writing this), what really made me feel like this VN was made specifically for me, by distilling all of my thoughts and complains about the Lupin franchise, was in Chapter 3 and 4. They took all of the missed potential that Part 5 utterly annihilated and MADE IT WORK. The pirate job, Lupin's failed relationship with Fujiko, how and what he really thinks about his gang, and the question of why Lupin continues to put himself in danger in thefts and heists every time. While Part 5 kinda answers all of those VERY interesting questions with references and a few hand-waves, this fan-made gay ship visual novel actually runs with all of those concepts and makes them into exactly the kind of exploration I wanted to see out of Part 5.
An observation that came into my mind as I was writing this excessively long comment: the issue of Lupin being a manipulator by nature and having to work through his issue of taking his teammates for granted kinda reminds me of the bad Part 2 episodes and the more mediocre TV Specials like Operation: Return The Treasure, where Lupin's worst traits get amplified to the point where his entire deal is manipulating others and pissing off his friends for no reason.
Absolutely stellar work, I never thought I'd enjoy a piece of fanfiction this much, I love every single bit, and I feel like this could stand alone as just good character-driven Lupin.
Thank you so much for this big comment and all this kind praise, we're so glad you had fun and got to see some of the things the show didn't go in depth on and that it felt in-character at the same time, that was definitely the goal!
I've always been on the outskirts of the Lupin series. I know of the characters, read some smatterings of plot, seen some out-of-context scenes - I know a vague approximation of Lupin, at best. Enough to make me love the charm, and enough to draw me to Jigen in particular, with his character archetype being a long-lasting fave of mine. The grumpy stoic trying to hide his gooey center? Handmade for me every time. I loved the hints of his and Lupin's relationship I saw in Is Lupin Still Flirting, so naturally I was super excited to see it expanded upon when I noticed this game.
BOY WAS I NOT FUCKING PREPARED FOR IT.
**SPOILERS**
Having never officially SEEN Lupin, I actually had no idea about Lupin and Fujiko's marriage and the following divorce. But I loved that you never tried to downplay Lupin's behavior about Fujiko in ILSF, so I didn't think much about his constant talk of her here either, which made for an extremely effective punch to my gut when Part 3 of the game came around. I spent Parts 3 and 4 mired in an odd little disbelief about what was happening, how abruptly things had spiraled down. I saw it through because of the care for characters and story I saw throughout both ILSF and this game, and I'm glad I did!!
The ending really ties everything together in a way that's so incredibly satisfying. I genuinely got a bit teary when I realized Lupin's little act wasn't working the way the stats told me they would; Jigen refusing to look away after a whole game centered around trying to get him to raise his hat, alongside the failure of Lupin's mental math when it worked to pinpoint perfection every time, got me right in the heart. I LOVE those big moments of reversed expectations so much, and it worked so well here. Lupin's a man of casual manipulation swept under his goofy charm, but Jigen never misses his mark, and Lupin's no exception!! All of it made me feel extra gleeful about the fourth wall break at the end. After everything, it made me SO happy to have a little personal hand in helping Lupin get what he wanted.
To say all of that and then talk about how much I liked the stats and the building of the relationship between Jigen and Lupin is a bit of putting the cart before the horse, but I was very emotional about the ending and I will not apologize. But I did love those aspects very much!! I still have to play around with options and outcomes and see how much is possible without it, but it really ties the bow on the game when you use Lupin's openness to 'influence' Jigen; how Lupin sees it as a necessary evil in order to get what he wants when it's really just him participating in what makes a relationship work by making it a two-way street. We love when a manipulator plays himself!! And every tidbit Jigen shared about himself broke my heart and made me adore the character all the more. Watching him wrestle with his own issues and insecurities in regard to Lupin really made him feel like his own person, someone I cared for and wanted to see happy.
I don't know if I'll ever get around to actually properly experiencing the Lupin series (I'm one of those 'when the stars are aligned' people when it comes to sitting down to these things) but I had a blast with these games regardless because I could tell just how much care and love was poured into each one. If I got this much enjoyment as someone hovering at the fringes, I can only imagine how lucky true Lupin fans must feel to have these works to enjoy! Thank you so much for making and sharing them.
Thank you so much for playing the game, and it was especially kind of you to give it a try, even without being a Lupin fan! Outside of Lupin himself, Jigen is my favorite, and I agree with your taste. He’s very cool, but he has a heart that you just ache to keep safe. And he’s such a smartass; he has some of the all-time funniest lines in the show.
I wanted very much to make a game where the stats communicated the same way the words did. I think that visual novels that show the outcome of choices while playing are a genre that need to be expanded upon. It seems a little like sacrilege but I thought that the mindset that seeing those stats could put the player in was worth expecting. And the friction between choosing the stat options you need to advance, versus what a player might actually want to say interested me! Chapter three was an especially good place for that; I wouldn’t go so far as to call that chapter an “anti-dating sim,” but I did want to make the player do pretty much the opposite thing that any romance game would expect, mechanically.
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Comments
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I be honest, I only know of Lupin the third, I have never watch an episode. But still you manage to make me love this game so much! Especially with that unique game mechanics you did. I honestly love it so much. Thank you for making it!!!
Thank you! We’re always so glad to get to share Lupin with plenty of people, even if they’re not already fans!
this was actually... peak. I did not expect it to use game mechanics in such an interesting way but it did! and boy was it a treat!! 10/10. the art was also truly beautiful.
Thank you so much! I had a lot of fun painting the backgrounds and studying the different seasons of Lupin III for each of the chapters! And plotting out the way that the conversations changed each time was tricky, but I’d like to tackle more conversation puzzles like that in the future.
Didn't expect the feels to be this angsty T^T. Especially that last section, all those unsaid words hit hard!
Thank you! I’m a big fan of games like Depression Quest, which use un-choosable options in a similar way to showcase frustration at not being able to do certain things. Lupin III is not exactly the type of series where people spend a lot of time talking about their feelings, so I thought that exploring the things that couldn’t be said would be really good for a guy like Lupin.
Oh wow... That was beautiful, both visually and narratively. The characters and their dynamics were engrossing. I'm glad I came across the game!
Thank you so much. Jigen and Lupin are a joy, and Tsushi and I are suckers for their good-natured bickering. ^u^
I love this VN, not only does it have good mechanics for navigating through the conversation that fit with the characters but also has great writing for those characters which is really hard to do when writing dialog for preexisting characters.
And funnily enough I had never heard of Lupan III when I first played this, and I loved it, and after watching part 1, 2, 4, and half of part 5, I love this even more now!
Keep up the good work.
"My Misogyny Is Legendary" - Daisuke Jigen (1971)
Heck yeah, I'm so glad that we got you into the series! I really like to make fanworks that can stand on their own, especially when it's something like Lupin, where it can be hard to figure out a good place to start watching it.
Really glad I got into this series, thanks!
One of the best pieces of fan media I've ever experienced, no fooling. It made me laugh out loud multiple times. It warmed my heart. The level of detail packed into this thing, all the small references to random bits of obscure canon lore, blew me away. The character voices are all spot-on. Fantastic work. Wishing everyone involved in this project the best with everything they're up to now. Thanks for making my day.
Thank you! Neither Tsushi nor I really care about having a single canon timeline for Lupin and Jigen, but it was fun thinking about putting the different seasons into a rough timeline and thinking about how it would have affected them, as a shared history. ^u^
Lupin: I'll shoot you if you move. Also Lupin: hEhEhE, I stole your stuff >:3
Well shit, good job on making me cry the writing was great, and a biiiig good goddamn job on the art, as a fellow artist I cannot imagine all the work that was
I mistakenly thought this was going to be something light and fun like 'Is Lupin Still Flirting' but boy was I wrong
love the writing, love the art, love the conversation mechanic and what it becomes in the final chapter, love the artstyle, love how their relationship is portrayed, last but not least I love this game
and I'm not even a Lupin fan, just someone that has been mildly interested for years but never found a way to watch it
hats off to you and the team, ya'll deserve it
Ah. Well then, I was completely blindsided by the depth of this. Brilliant work. There’s something so real and raw about your storytelling, I aspire to write something as wonderful as this and Is Lupin Still Flirting one day.
YESSS ANOTHER BANGER OMGOMGOMG i'm so happy the lupin fandom is alive and kicking
Thank you! And there’s always plenty of Lupin, just like the great thief we can never die
My saga of reviewing begins 2.0 [ehehe, I have no idea if this will spam your inbox, Royce]
THIS GAME. I had already played all your other games to date when I first played [and playtested] this game but the entire game and the buildup it has to the final scenes are absolutely heartbreaking. I went in expecting silly thieves but this wrecked me on a level unimaginable. In a good way of course. I actually played this game in full for the first time with my platonic partner so it was 2x as heartbreaking near the end. Of course, this game as a whole was just pure fun, the dialogue, the game’s mechanics, the artwork ESPECIALLY made the game pure perfection. The fact that you were able to replicate a certain somebody’s artstyle is also highly impressive, for a second I thought it was just clean manga rips! I have and will continue to replay this game as well, the message from it only becomes clear as everything comes together at the end, which I greatly enjoy as well.
[And maybe, just slightly, very slightly maybe this inspired me to start working on a Lupin III VN of my own]
Loved this! I laughed, I got a bit teary eyed, I got my heart warmed - the whole package. The art is great, and I really like the game play mechanic. Thanks for making and sharing!
I finally put some time aside to play this, and I gotta say I ended up loving this even more than Is Lupin Still Flirting! I did not expect to have my heart torn out like that going into the fourth chapter. Also, that little fourth-wall-breaking moment near the end was very cathartic while also in keeping with the original manga’s aesthetic. You guys really knocked it out of the park with this one!
I'd definitely like to post a demo sometime! The camera acts up a little with earlier versions of Ren'Py, so it won't be until Ren'Py 8 can export web versions. Also, the game is too big to post the whole thing, so no matter what, you'll have to download it to play the whole thing. But it would be cool to get a one-chapter demo up!
Now. This right here? Holy shit I love this
Hehehe, thanks! Glad you enjoyed it!
I've known of Lupin III, but have never seen any of it. Never have particularly high expectations of fan games either. Therefore my rather modest expectations for this game were exceeded by far!
I truly got teary-eyed at the end! I could only repeat what was said before. This is all around just an excellent VN. Great presentation, writing and gameplay idea!
Great great stuff, can't wait for your "professional game"! 😊
You never quite know what you're gonna get with a fan game! XD But thank you so much for giving it a try, especially since you weren't already a Lupin fan. We're proud of how this came together, and always looking forward to making new games in the future!
A complete video has appeared
Oooh, excellent! Always a pleasure to watch. ^u^
It was a pleasure to play and now to wait for your next big original project.
No puede ser :v yo me vi la pelicula ¿esto es real?
¡Sí, es real!
The video with an ending
The video before the ending
I was looking forward to this for awhile and totally had my expectations blown away! Cannot believe how good y'all made this!
Thank you so much for checking it out and we're so glad you had fun!
it genuinely truly startled me how well made this was. the writing especially, the final act was so. god how do i even get into it. spoilers hereon in i NEED to get all my thoughts off my chest.
major spoilers, dont read this until you've played it, trust me!
this is suprising MASTERCLASS in using mechanics as symbolism, and breaking those mechanics to get a point across. trust being a major component, especially for jigen, gets completely turned on its head in the final act. "you cant weasel your way into me trusting you, its not something you can earn, its something im choosing to give you" SHITT. and how ultimately the person incapable of trust was lupin the entire time, going as far to make his own fucking bar for his emotional openness because he couldnt trust anyone - or himself - to share his emotions freely. lupin is a closed book stuck under mask after mask, a thousand perfect systems hes made to LITERALLY PLAY CONVERSATIONS LIKE A VIDEO GAME, WITH STATS. The end completely BREAKING that system and turning it entirely on its head was beautiful and amazing. thats shit you can't get in other fanfic, thats fucking amazing. it just shows how Neurotic and closed off lupin is about other people. everything about the final act threw me up so hard, the sudden artstyle change (i LOVE the monkey punch manga style artwork, it was executed amazingly - actually all of the art in this was shockingly stunning.) the warping of mechanics, the sheer openness from jigen contrasting lupin who had his openness bar completely taken away - but nonetheless taunting the player, and lupin, with this is what you could say if you weren't such a coward. gods its. this game was beautiful. this game understood Lupin III better than most media i've seen of him. it reaches straight into his mind and goes "this guys fucked up as hell" and makes you look at it too. i love it. im obsessed. this was amazing.
also the "i dont give up on something that takes care of me when it becomes an inconvience" fucking punched me in the face it was such a good line. THE WRITINGGG IN THISSS. fuck you this is too good for a lupin III dating sim i want to scream. this is just objectively good art and a good video game. god.
Thank you for this really in-depth comment and for the kind praise! It feels really great knowing people "got it" on what we were going for in terms of a harmony of mechanics and mentality. I'm so happy to hear you had a good time with it! Thanks again for checking it out and letting it give you some emotions! That's never something we take for granted, we appreciate it :D
A video with a kiss and Goemon
Another video has appeared
The next video
Made a video
YOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO THIS WAS AWESOME
THE WRITING ON BOTH CHARACTERS A KISS TO YOU,WRITERS! YOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO THANK YOUUUUUUU IT'S EVERYTHING i WANTED
Thank you so much! We're extremely happy to hear you felt it was so fulfilling!
My partner and I tested this game extensively in its first few legs of development, and the final results of all of Royce and Tsushi's effort shine with twice the brilliance in the finished result. A polished UI and snappy dialogue contribute to a dating sim game that ends up being anything but genre-typical, playing cards from all over a franchise with over 50 years of history (and gay subtext.)
I can't say enough how much we deeply appreciated your and your partner's help in the dev process! Having both of your in-depth feedback was a huge boost to making the game and catching a lot of errors that gave it the polish it has. Thank you so much!
i created an account just to tell you how much i adore this game, the way characters and dialog are written is just so good, thank you sm for this novel!!
Thank you so much for putting in that extra energy for us, these comments always help my day improve and drive me forward to keep working hard. Thank you!
Never had I seen a piece of Lupin fan media that felt like it spoke to the specific type of fan that I am, down to every single detail and nitpick I had about the franchise.
First things first, the art and music are gorgeous. I'm someone who just puts on Yuji Ohno music to vibe and I can 100% see myself putting on this game's remixes, they're just that good. The art is very pretty as well, there are a few iffy expressions, but the presentation is spot-on, ESPECIALLY with how the designs change as the chapters go by and we see the characters in different stages of their lives. I'm split on that decision, though: one part of my brain would have loved a consistent design, especially when it comes to the shape of their faces, but I feel like the change in designs ends up working out very well in the end.
Secondly, every character feels very in-character. The main barrier between me and ship fanfic content is that a lot of them don't seem to get the characters. But this one does, and VERY well. The progression of Lupin's inner monologue and the kinds of things he either says or thinks about saying for most of the game are very true to Lupin. Every time a character talks about what they're like or what they think I sat there thinking "YEAH, THEY GET IT." The only two exceptions, where I felt like the characters where a bit off (though not that much) are moments in Chapter 2, one where Jigen delivers a long monologue and another where something pivotal to the plot happens, not gonna say what it is in case somebody who hasn't played it is reading this, but I think it felt a little bit more like stereotypical fanfiction when contrasted with the extraordinary attention to every detail of the characters' personalities that is present in every other moment. As for the other part, I get it, the Lupin Gang is full of characters who say more with what they do than with what words come out of their mouths, so there was bound to be some awkwardness due to the medium, even if just a little bit...
---Spoilers for the game, Part 4 and Part 5, in case you haven't finished any of them---
HOWEVER I just fucking adore the twist at the end, where the game mechanics don't seem to work as usual and Lupin just breaks the entire interface. Not only do I love meta fuckery with the UI, NOT ONLY does it beautifully express Lupin's way of acting in a way that only a visual novel can, BUT it also critiques the somewhat shitty and manipulative nature inherent to dating sims of that type while staying within the bounds of Lupin's character. Just incredible. Especially considering that I, the player, by engaging with the mechanics of the VN, got to think like that, to see how my conversation choices affected all the numbers and the like. The whole time I thought "it is a little shitty that I'm going to get the best ending by just saying what will get me the most optimal trust and openness points" but NO, THEY KNEW, THEY FUCKING KNEW, AND I LOVE THAT.
One small gripe that I have before going into one of my favourite parts of this beautiful story is: Chapter 3 takes place after Part 4 of the anime, and I thought that, since Lupin and Fujiko getting married was an important plot point, that the whole wedding with Rebbecca would be brought up. However, it's not bad that it wasn't, and I only really noticed because the rest of the VN is extremely good at using all the little details and bits of Lupin lore.
And finally (but not really, I keep thinking of things to say as I'm writing this), what really made me feel like this VN was made specifically for me, by distilling all of my thoughts and complains about the Lupin franchise, was in Chapter 3 and 4. They took all of the missed potential that Part 5 utterly annihilated and MADE IT WORK. The pirate job, Lupin's failed relationship with Fujiko, how and what he really thinks about his gang, and the question of why Lupin continues to put himself in danger in thefts and heists every time. While Part 5 kinda answers all of those VERY interesting questions with references and a few hand-waves, this fan-made gay ship visual novel actually runs with all of those concepts and makes them into exactly the kind of exploration I wanted to see out of Part 5.
An observation that came into my mind as I was writing this excessively long comment: the issue of Lupin being a manipulator by nature and having to work through his issue of taking his teammates for granted kinda reminds me of the bad Part 2 episodes and the more mediocre TV Specials like Operation: Return The Treasure, where Lupin's worst traits get amplified to the point where his entire deal is manipulating others and pissing off his friends for no reason.
Absolutely stellar work, I never thought I'd enjoy a piece of fanfiction this much, I love every single bit, and I feel like this could stand alone as just good character-driven Lupin.
Thank you so much for this big comment and all this kind praise, we're so glad you had fun and got to see some of the things the show didn't go in depth on and that it felt in-character at the same time, that was definitely the goal!
I've always been on the outskirts of the Lupin series. I know of the characters, read some smatterings of plot, seen some out-of-context scenes - I know a vague approximation of Lupin, at best. Enough to make me love the charm, and enough to draw me to Jigen in particular, with his character archetype being a long-lasting fave of mine. The grumpy stoic trying to hide his gooey center? Handmade for me every time. I loved the hints of his and Lupin's relationship I saw in Is Lupin Still Flirting, so naturally I was super excited to see it expanded upon when I noticed this game.
BOY WAS I NOT FUCKING PREPARED FOR IT.
**SPOILERS**
Having never officially SEEN Lupin, I actually had no idea about Lupin and Fujiko's marriage and the following divorce. But I loved that you never tried to downplay Lupin's behavior about Fujiko in ILSF, so I didn't think much about his constant talk of her here either, which made for an extremely effective punch to my gut when Part 3 of the game came around. I spent Parts 3 and 4 mired in an odd little disbelief about what was happening, how abruptly things had spiraled down. I saw it through because of the care for characters and story I saw throughout both ILSF and this game, and I'm glad I did!!
The ending really ties everything together in a way that's so incredibly satisfying. I genuinely got a bit teary when I realized Lupin's little act wasn't working the way the stats told me they would; Jigen refusing to look away after a whole game centered around trying to get him to raise his hat, alongside the failure of Lupin's mental math when it worked to pinpoint perfection every time, got me right in the heart. I LOVE those big moments of reversed expectations so much, and it worked so well here. Lupin's a man of casual manipulation swept under his goofy charm, but Jigen never misses his mark, and Lupin's no exception!! All of it made me feel extra gleeful about the fourth wall break at the end. After everything, it made me SO happy to have a little personal hand in helping Lupin get what he wanted.
To say all of that and then talk about how much I liked the stats and the building of the relationship between Jigen and Lupin is a bit of putting the cart before the horse, but I was very emotional about the ending and I will not apologize. But I did love those aspects very much!! I still have to play around with options and outcomes and see how much is possible without it, but it really ties the bow on the game when you use Lupin's openness to 'influence' Jigen; how Lupin sees it as a necessary evil in order to get what he wants when it's really just him participating in what makes a relationship work by making it a two-way street. We love when a manipulator plays himself!! And every tidbit Jigen shared about himself broke my heart and made me adore the character all the more. Watching him wrestle with his own issues and insecurities in regard to Lupin really made him feel like his own person, someone I cared for and wanted to see happy.
I don't know if I'll ever get around to actually properly experiencing the Lupin series (I'm one of those 'when the stars are aligned' people when it comes to sitting down to these things) but I had a blast with these games regardless because I could tell just how much care and love was poured into each one. If I got this much enjoyment as someone hovering at the fringes, I can only imagine how lucky true Lupin fans must feel to have these works to enjoy! Thank you so much for making and sharing them.
Thank you so much for playing the game, and it was especially kind of you to give it a try, even without being a Lupin fan! Outside of Lupin himself, Jigen is my favorite, and I agree with your taste. He’s very cool, but he has a heart that you just ache to keep safe. And he’s such a smartass; he has some of the all-time funniest lines in the show.
If you ever decide that you’d like to try a little bit of the series, I have two recommendations over here for first timers: https://alexis-royce.tumblr.com/post/688425799721910272/would-you-recommend-lupin-the-iiiwhat-advice
I wanted very much to make a game where the stats communicated the same way the words did. I think that visual novels that show the outcome of choices while playing are a genre that need to be expanded upon. It seems a little like sacrilege but I thought that the mindset that seeing those stats could put the player in was worth expecting. And the friction between choosing the stat options you need to advance, versus what a player might actually want to say interested me! Chapter three was an especially good place for that; I wouldn’t go so far as to call that chapter an “anti-dating sim,” but I did want to make the player do pretty much the opposite thing that any romance game would expect, mechanically.