Nurse Love Addiction (Nintendo Switch) Review

As a Yuri themed story Nurse Love Syndrome involves female-female relationships. The age 16 rating is probably for the kissing scenes; the ones where there is some nudity, but the eShop image doesn't show the context of that scene, and in the route explored a shocking scene with a large amount of blood. There are moments where it is insinuated that the protagonist's younger sister, Nao, loves her big sister Asuka in a romantic way, something the other characters pick up on, but overall the attention given to that incest is minimal. In the playthrough for this review the romance route was for Asuka and Sakuya, and no other routes were explored.

Asuka is a likeable protagonist despite being immature in some of the ways she lived her life, needing her younger sister's help for getting up in the morning, or by solving a patient's embarrassment by doing the same embarrassing act herself. She has a big heart, wants to do her best even though she isn't entirely sure why she is training to be a nurse, and learns so much in her training. Romance is a big part of the story, but often the story focused on the smaller details of life as a trainee nurse.

Asuka's interactions with her classmates and teacher sometimes were cringe-worthy, but were soon forgotten with heart-warming scenes that may require a tissue. Yes, Sayuri is rather prickly towards Asuka from the start, but the true reasons behind her behaviour were a complete surprise at the end, although hers was the romance route that played out, so may not be made clear in other routes. Watching the Asuka-Sayuri relationship unfold despite the obvious complication with Itsuki heralded many surprises, and the particular ending appeared good despite it apparently being a bad one.

For the most part Nurse Love Addiction focuses on how tough training to be a nurse is, with a level of realism that was surprising. There is a phenomenal amount of knowledge to be learnt, as making a bed is not as simple as it looks, and exams aren't the only pressure that Asuka gets put under. There was also a surprising amount of mystery and suspense in the Asuka-Sayuri route, with instances of Asuka being in real danger. Having to put the game down to partake in real life activities at those points was frustrating.

Like many visual novels the same backgrounds are repeatedly used, but this is not a negative point. It shows where the characters are, and reading the story makes it possible to not mind seeing the same scene repeatedly. The translation quality is extremely high compared to some other visual novels on Nintendo Switch, where words have to be guessed if the reader can't understand Japanese. There is only a Japanese voice over, with none for the extra features where the actresses speak about their characters which may detract from enjoying the extra parts for those who don't speak Japanese. Players have to be prepared to suspend the realistic side of the story when the more fantasy based elements come into play, which will affect how the game is viewed as a whole; those who successfully immerse themselves in the mystical parts will get swept up in Asuka's adventure which never has a dull moment.