Piofiore: Fated Memories Review (Nintendo Switch)

Game: Piofiore: Fated Memories
Genre: Visual Novel
System: Nintendo Switch (also on PS Vita)
Developers | Publishers:  Design Factory| Otomate| Aksys Games
Age Rating: EU 16+ | USA M
Price: EU €49,99 | USD $49.99 | UK £44.49
Release Date: October 8th, 2020

Review code used, with many thanks to Aksys Games

Warning: Piofiore: Fated Memories does contain a violence as well as bloodshed. It touches on a few sensitive topics like drug abuse and women trafficking in some of the storylines. If you are not comfortable with this, I would not  recommend playing this game.

Three Mafia Families

Piofiore: Fated Memories is a visual romance novel, that follows Liliana Adornato in the 1920’s. Liliana was raised in the church of an Italian town in Burlone, Italy. Burlone is a city where different parts are ruled by three mafia families. Her life is turned upside down when she encounters the leaders of these mafia organizations and can’t help but step into a dangerous life.

The first Italian mafia family is the Falzone family, they see to the area Falce, the boss of this family is Dante Falzone. The Falzone family are very religious and visit the church every week. Next up is the Visconti family led by Gilbert Redfort, they rule over the area Creta. The third and final organization is the Lao-Shu, a Chinese mafia organisation, who have taken hold of Veleno. Their leader is named Yang.

Liliana is a good girl at heart and tries to see the good in everyone, even if they do bad things. I enjoyed seeing how she could fall in love with five different personality types and how the relationships progressed. I myself even fell in love (virtually, of course) with almost all of the men as they are very attractive and kind, each in their own way. Because the men are so different, the storylines and endings of each character make for a lot of variety. I never got bored with Piofiore: Fated Memories because of that and just couldn’t stop myself from playing.

Six different storylines

When you start Piofiore: Fated Memories, your first playthrough is either going to be Dante or Nicola. Completing your first play-through you unlock Yang and Orlok. And after completing these four playthroughs you ultimately unlock Gilbert. In the end, playing all the stories will get you one bonus storyline.

Let’s take a look at each character:

Nicola

My playthrough started off with Nicola, he is the underboss of the Falzone mafia and Dante Falzone’s older cousin. He is very much a ladies man, a smooth talker and very loyal. He is definitely a part of the mafia and isn’t afraid to act in certain situations.

Nicola’s storyline is a good introduction on how to mafia works and who the main characters are, without having too much mature content.

Yang

The second character I got to experience was Yang. He is a very different character from all the other ones. Yang is the boss of the Lao-Shu, the Chinese mafia. He is mysterious, violent and often bored or uninterested and unlike Nicola, he will easily break your boundaries.

As a mafia leader he is very intelligent and always one step ahead of everyone. Even as a character in the game he is hard to read, you never know what reaction you are going to get from the choices you make.

A side note to this storyline: throughout this playthrough the triggering factors are a lot of drug abuse and human trafficking. So, if you feel uncomfortable with these topics, it is best to skip this one.

Dante

Dante is the Falzone boss. After his father died the boss position automaticly went to Dante. At the start Dante comes across cold, blunt and a little intimidating, but sometimes his kind and caring side peeks through. Although he is the boss he cares immensely for his family and will do anything to protect them. Even though Dante is a mafia boss, he is always a gentleman and treats women and the civilians with the upmost respect.

Orlok

Early on we find out that Orlok is an informant for all the mafia families and some other organizations. Besides that, we know very littles about him and only see him a couple of times in the game. When you come across him in the game, he isn’t much of a talker and is always in a rush. We do know this about him: he is a very skilled fighter and almost no one is a match for him.

Gilbert

The last character you unlock is Gilbert Redford, leader of the Visconti. Upon meeting him you can instantly see that he is very charismatic and friendly to everyone. He is very open and honest about his mafia business, but he isn’t violent or cruel. Unlike the conservative Falzone family, the Visconti welcome people into the mafia based on skill and intellect. The Visconti’s are very progressive in how they handle their mafia business, you would almost say that this is very refreshing to see.

Visuals and Sound

I myself am a graphic designer, so I couldn’t resist looking at the graphics of Piofiore: Fated Memories that way. I think the artwork in the game is stunning and has lots of little details some people may not even notice. You can see that the design team has put lots of time and effort in researching the Italian and even the Eastern clothing and architecture of the 1920s. Their goal, no doubt,  was to make the scenes as believable as possible.

There were a few details I noticed throughout Piofiore that made the detailed scenes stand out to me. The first one is the golden flower pattern on clothing and certain objects that is so characteristic of the 1920’s. This makes mostly the clothing stand out, giving it a luxurious feel.

The second thing I noticed was that the detailed scenes had a lot of movement and flow to them. From the flowing hair of Liliana to the flowing clothing of the guys, the flow is very pleasing to the eye and really made the scenes dynamic.

As far as sound goes it really took me back to my vacations to Italy. The music that sets the scenes while you are reading is fitting for the situations you are in. It makes you believe that you are really in Italy!

Conclusion

This is my very first time playing a visual novel, I never expected to be so engrossed in the game. And to be completely honest, I never expected to get so addicted, which makes Piofiore an amazing game to me.

Piofiore: Fated Memories has a good balance of action and romance, which keeps you on your toes. The quality in graphics and enthralling storytelling have probably spoiled me for future visual novels, but we will see!

Final verdict: I Like it a Lot