B-Project Ryusei*Fantasia

Genre: Visual Novel

Players: 1

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Review:

B-Project is a cross-media franchise that started in 2015 and extended across manga, anima, music releases, videogames, and even a stage play. It surrounds multiple J-Pop idol boy groups who perform both separately and together as the titular “B-Project”. Ryusei*Fantasia, released in 2024 on PC and Nintendo Switch, is a Visual Novel that primarily follows Tsubasa Sunisora, who works as the Band’s A&R “Artists and Repertoire”, which is a really elaborate way to say that she is the groups’ manager.

The presentation here is pretty good, with some very nicely-designed anime-style 2D characters animated in the “paper doll” style, backed by a fitting anime-style soundtrack with even a few J-Pop tunes included as well, with the Opening Theme being a standout here. In addition, all of the game’s spoken lines are voiced in Japanese, which helps to infuse these characters with personality.

The story in Ryusei*Fantasia is fairly low-stakes overall, with Tsubasa reminiscing with the idol groups’ members about their past together and preparing for upcoming performances. You get a pretty good feel for Tsubasa’s personality, and even though she’s never on-screen, she’s a highlight of the game’s story. And how I wish I could say the same for any other character.

One of the issues here is that this game is so absolutely overloaded with characters from the start, with over a dozen pop idols all jockeying for a moment of screen time, as well as additional management characters. And while fans of this franchise may delight in seeing their favorite character pop up for a brief moment here or there, anyone new to B-project will likely feel like they don’t get a good feel for anyone as these characters barely have time to establish themselves.

Even in back-stories designed to introduce these characters, some of them get more attention than others, leading to only the characters with the most extreme or outlandish personalities, voices, or artistic depictions sticking in your memory. And often even then it’s just “oh, that’s the guy with glasses”, “that’s the guy with seafoam green hair” “that’s the guy who’s always energetic and behaves in a way that only anime characters behave”, it’s rarely anything that will make you feel attached to these characters.

A part of the problem here is that even though all characters have first and last names, only their family name shows up on-screen when they’re speaking. And since characters interchangeably speak to and about each other using first and last names, it can be difficult to follow who’s who.

With a story that’s not particularly engaging, and a cast of characters that are difficult to become emotionally invested in, B-Project Ryusei*Fantasia ends up being a game that I think will ultimately only appeal to players who are already fans of this franchise. Even then, I’m not sure this is going to add much to your experience beyond “I recognize that character that I like from that other thing!”. In my opinion, this just isn’t a very good reason to buy into a game where story and characters are the main draw.

tl;dr – B-Project Ryusei*Fantasia is a Visual Novel that follows the manager of a collective of J-Pop idol groups. While the presentation here is good, the story isn’t especially engaging and the large cast of characters do little to distinguish themselves. Unless you already like the B-Project franchise, I don’t think there’s much for you to latch onto here, and even if you are a fan of the franchise, I don’t see this adding much to your experience.

Grade: C-

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