Unmoor

It only took about 5-6 hours to go through all 4 routes (and the general endings). But the story is decent and the art is beautiful. Jean and Vay definitely have the best routes, and they're fairly solid. Viardo's struggles early on as it takes time for him to become likable, but his ending is good. The Wolf's route is very short and not well developed. He could be way more interesting but the game doesn't really vary its plot.
The translation is good. There's a couple errors, and one line in Viardo's route isn't translated, but otherwise it's solid. It's short and entertaining enough, but I'd wait for a sale.

I absolutely would not recommend this game. I barely made it 30 minutes into the game and almost quit numerous times before I actually did it. The casual and repeated sexism towards the doormat main character is unbearable and unnecessary. I found two of the main leads (I didn't really get to meet the third) to be despicable, creepy, and misogynistic. The game relies on boring descriptive language and forced dialogue to help the contrived plot along. Also, the focus on genitalia = gender is uncomfortable and disgusting. Don't play this game, it wasn't even worth the 3$ I got it on sale for.

Tentatively recommending - it was ok. After going through one route they were all very similar. I didn't really find the story that appealing especially after going through it once but I did finish all the achievements. I got it on sale so for the price it was definitely worth playing but it just felt a little lacking.

Uhm oh yeah....... I wasn't sure about this game, but decided to give it a shot. Perhaps it's all those times spent wanting to sail as a pirate or at sea... Especially when you were a kid. Okay fine, it had a female character and guys, of course I am here!

The game actually has an intro... Sung in Russian, but with English subtitles. Music is fun for the travel and reading.

Is it perfect? Nope... But come on! What is? I like the artwork and CGs... Especially with the island escape with Vay and... Marten's sprite... I played Marten's/Jean's route first... He is AMAZING! Like... YEAH! Holy! I was so happy! The story flew to the end, but I was happy! He even gets a lusty scene with a CG! (No you can't see much of anything, sorry :p).

Then... Um "Viardo"... I didn't like the dude when I saw him and then he also doesn't have much going for him. Or is just me? Not to mention... He doesn't get a lewd scene because of... (Can't spoil it). His... emotions are all over the place and I really couldn't feel any attraction between MC and him! I don't think she is sure of this one either.

Vay... OH you... What a precious guy. Love it. BUT! When he told her about his past -> There was a good opportunity to ask the MC this question: "Now that you know, do you dislike me?" -> Bam! Extra connection and love points! He is still awesome.

Bran/Bram... He could be my grandpa. Not a real one.

As for MC: She wasn't annoying and sure, stuff happens, but she NEVER ticked me off or even said something so ungodly stupid that I wanted to smack her. It was all pretty good and I could sympathize with her.

The important part of all of this: I didn't fall asleep.

I didn't read the game in Russian, so I will have to do that later and I only get good endings... As a promise to someone I made some time ago, hence this is all that it's based off!

Alright, now you have read this and went off on your merry way. I shall thank the Developer(s) and everyone who worked on the game! THANKS!! :D :) =)

P.S. I am going to go play a certain someone's route again.... :'D

P. P. S. Then I did... >:3

It's a simple charming game that's a pretty fun time if you need to kill a couple of hours. The music is beautiful and I am in love with the art. The story is also pretty cute too. Although it's such a quick play that I did all routes and got all achievements in 2.5 hours. Because of this, if you get it I recommend only buy it on sale. 8 dollars isn't much for a game but I have gotten more for less.

With it being so simple, the writing feels a bit juvenile and lacking at times. However, part of that might be because the game was not originally developed in English and it's a very small publisher. They definitely have talent and I would look forward to more of their games!

Some things I didn't like that I don't think were necessary:

At this point, there are going to be spoilers ahead so please don't read on if you don't want spoilers.
SPOILERS:
.
.
.
.
This game could have done with some content warnings. Nothing is explicit and I would say it's pretty mild, but there is a character in particular who attempts to s*xually assault your character. R*pe is also mentioned about something that happened to someone in the past. Considering the nature of this character and his implications, it does seem like a character who has done this to many women. As far as your character goes it doesn't happen, so if that's a worry of yous, you don't need to worry about it. I think the part that bothers me the most about it is that this scene can happen and then you can choose to romance that character or not. Now, there are other characters you can romance who don't do this so he is the only one but I do wonder why it was necessary to have this character do something despicable and then you have the option to love him immediately. It just doesn't feel necessary.

I also didn't appreciate some of the gay jabs. I wouldn't say they're explicit or even necessarily saying anything about being gay, but in the course of the game there are comments from other sailors like "Oh, so that's how it is!" When they make an assumption someone is gay and they laugh about it. This happens rarely, doesn't last long, and I don't even think it was intended to be mean spirited but that's not how it comes across. Once again, I don't think this was necessary to have in the game and for some reason it was felt it was necessary, add a content warning (I don't think it was necessary though it added nothing to context).

Both of these are brief and not explicit as I said, I just am mildly perturbed they were in the game. Wild Wolf is the romance that is really problematic and I would say Viardo and Marten still have some mild things that kinda make me cringe but they're still pretty good romances.

For a very sweet and unproblematic romance, I recommend Vay. He's my favorite :3

I still recommend this and would definitely play another game by this publisher, just some things to keep in mind!

Isn't the best, isn't the worst either imma be honest. But it wasn't great, or fun, or compelling, or interesting, or worth 3 hours... it's just there. I was staring at the negative reviews for so long but ended up saying "screw it I'll see for myself" which is definitely something you should do too... or not... no pressure lol.

An extremely simple VN with a simple story, simple dialogue, and simple music. The artwork is simultaneously pretty good and pretty bad.

Overall a middling VN but I never discourage people from buying something that someone put passion into.

I really enjoyed this game despite how short it is and the sometimes awkward translation. I would pay for a DLC where you play through the events described in Wild Wolf's ending.

There are a lot of things to like about Unmoor. I love cross-dressing, seafaring stories, and otome games, so this premise was right up my alley. Louisa's struggle is sympathetic and I wanted her to succeed in getting her ship back. The art is overall gorgeous, though I have a few gripes- the main one being Vay's eyes, which really needed better-developed pupils. Especially in his smiling expression, he looked possessed, so I felt unsettled every time he was happy. The music is good, but there are only maybe four songs, so you get a lot of repetition. The characters are overall likable.

The main problem, though, is that the game is underdeveloped. Short visual novels don't have to be any more shallow than their epic counterparts, but it means that the writing has to be tight and thoughtful. Unmoor only succeeds this in Andreas Viardo's route, which was clearly the focus in development. His dynamic with Louisa is well-developed and natural, and there are unique scenes and costumes for Louisa. It was even able to evoke emotions in me, which is what otome games should do, but isn't as easy as it sounds. If the whole game was like Viardo, I'd have no trouble recommending it.

Unfortunately, the rest is sloppy. Jean Marten and Vay have a lot of overlapping scenes, and neither of them fall in love with Louisa in a believable way. The game doesn't explore what makes Louisa special enough for Jean to give up womanizing, nor Vay to be interested in her as more than a friend. (Really, Vay had a more engaging dynamic with Beatrice in the few scenes they share!) And both routes suffer from a diversion to a side-character that was so weakly written that the whole game suffered for it. He goes from a scary villain to a bleeding heart in the course of days in-game, or minutes of reading. I quite like "secret" characters when done right. The ending of his route could've been awesome, too, if executed properly. But he was so underdeveloped and unrealistic that I wished they spent that time improving Jean and Vay's stories instead.

Each route has a few identical scenes interspersed with the character-specific ones. A minor gripe about this is that Ren'Py sees them as new each time, so they cannot be easily skipped. The bigger problem, though, is that they SHOULD be unique. They should affect each love interest differently, causing the story to diverge. Let Jean continue to be stubborn after the storm, refusing to correct course and putting the ship's timely delivery at risk (and causing conflict with Louisa). Let Andreas refuse to believe in magic, maybe because he wasn't there to witness it, so Louisa takes him to the island to prove it to him. Instead, the characters say a few lines and then it's back to the same route, much like a ship correcting course. But a ship correcting course isn't fun to watch or read.

I intended on giving Unmoor a tentative recommendation, but after writing this review, I found there to be more negatives than positives. My overarching feeling after finishing was disappointment. I bought the game on sale, which makes the sting a little better. But honestly, the only thing that elevates Unmoor above free otome games is the professional quality art. There are other otome games that provide more value for your time and money. I advise you to search out those instead.

I wish I could give this a neutral review. For an otome, it's... okay. It has a really great premise, but it's executed poorly: Louisa is the daughter of a former ship captain, who had to sell his vessel to cover debts. She cuts her hair and crossdresses to get aboard the ship and steal back the title to the vessel and reclaim what's rightfully her father's. Of course, there's three handsome (ish) guys aboard (and one elsewhere), one of whom you will interact with and become close to.

The thing is, it all happens very fast. The story is VERY short. And the excitement that the story of a girl dressed as a boy aboard a large ship could have had, simply isn't there. There are no stakes. They built up a story that didn't follow through. Even in Jean Marten's route, which involved some tensions at the end, was predictable and easy to resolve with the choices.

And the guys falling for her so quickly after realizing she's a girl is very unrealistic. These games are never meant to be wholly realistic, and require some suspension of disbelief, but this is just absurd.

The artwork is great, and probably its best quality. However, the artist seems to have difficulties drawing characters kissing, and that is quite awkward in some of the CGs. Most of which, however,are beautiful, the backgrounds are very detailed and colorful, and even the sprites are very nice. The writing is okay, but there is a lot of expo-speak that could have easily been achieved through other writing tactics or just be removed altogether.

If you are desperate for an otome game, get this on super sale. But it's just not that fun.

Unmoor is a game I bought during a sale but is still worth it at full price.

One of the things I look for in a VN is the main character. Is the MC naive? Is the MC annoying? Is MC badly written? None of these are ticked in this game. Just from reading the synopsis, Louisa isn't an MC that stays in the background while the others do the job for her (although this would be a good idea for a VN if written well), and she isn't someone that's afraid to speak her mind. She's an active character, taking her fate in her own hands, while she dives into an adventure that she's both aware yet unaware of.

The writing is great. I love how the English translation doesn't have any awkwardness in it. We really get a sense of who Louisa is and how she is as a person. With the other characters, it's interesting to see her interactions and how they react to her. What I would have loved to see is her powers being more fleshed out than it is here. While I know that the story doesn't really revolve around it, it does give us a more in depth knowledge of the lore concerning the sea and how it will affect her, if it will.

Concerning the routes, we immediately find how it branches off as soon as she steps onto the ship. Depending on your tastes, you may go for the cute one, flirty one, or the secretly caring one. At some points, the routes have this lull in them that aren't really lulls. It's like the scenes jump from one to the other without really much of care with the dialogue in between or there's too much dialogue. I can't really explain it much but it's an awkward transition for me as I feel like there is a much better way to move to the next scene or there are additional scenes that could be added to explain more about who is Louisa outside of her being "a woman of the sea".

The art, for most of the time, is gorgeous. I sometime find myself pausing just to admire some scenes. My only problem is that the happy ending cg for Viardo looks a bit awkward for me . At times, the cg may look weird but otherwise nice.

Edited to add: The soundtrack is nice but it's obvious where it ends and when it starts to loop.

Tl;dr: Buy this game.

"A swashbuckling romantic adventure with a unique premise and gorgeous artwork. If only more otome broke away from the standard tropes and tried something as fun as this." - Otome Rakuen

Well this isn't right. Or did I just play a different game?

I bought this VN because of the good reviews (including curators) praising it and I feel... deceived. This game reminded me exactly why I am wary of stuff made by Russian developers, especially in the otome realm of things.
Most people probably won't know what I'm talking about, but the whole thing gives off that feeling of distinctly Russian self-published romantic fiction. The ancient kind, stuff you could find on samizdat before ficbook became a thing. With all the characteristic tropes and cliches and amateurish writing.
There is no engaging story here, no complex well-developed characters, no exciting romance (which spells doom for a romance centered game). In terms of writing, this VN is a colossal flop. The visuals you can judge for yourself.

I don't recommend buying it unless you're curious and it's on sale. You can find free to play otome games that are much, much better than this.

This game is as generic and uninteresting as humanly possible. It has nothing to offer. The MC is flawless, beautiful, multi-talented and she never really struggles throughout the story (as little as there is), the other characters are as one-dimentional as she is, the romances are incredibly rushed and don't have a strong foundation to begin with, they're as underdeveloped as charaters themselves. MC and one of the bachelors just fall for each other in a short time without much reason to it. Maybe it's their looks? Yes, it is as shallow as it sounds.
The sad thing is, the premise is actually promising, a little spin could've added depth and struggle to this. What if the main heroine is not a marvellous beauty? What if her disguise as a boy actually works? What if she falls for a bachelor's personality (which should be a lot more than a sob story)? What if the bachelor falls for her personality after she proved herself (yep, she should have a personality to begin with)? What if he doesn't reciprocate her feelings because she's a good actor? What if she comes up with clever plans? What if one of the bachelors falls for her character and they have a fall-off when one day he realises the persona he liked was fake? What if she realises that the boy persona is actually truer to her self than she thought? That would be struggle and tension! The possibilities are endless and yet the writer doesn't explore them at all.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1666777291
It's clear that the authors hadn't given their work much thought. It is as low-effort as it can be, featuring the easiest to read choices and even non-skippable identical texts in different routes, a large chunk (I don't even mention the broken anatomy, weird faces and lazy backgrounds. The game certainly tries to look better on the surface than it does). It would be kinda okay if it was a free game, but it is not and it's a shame to charge money for this sketch of a sketch of a game.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1666776825
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1666777089
P.S. Oh, and the English translation is much, much better than the original Russian text, which looks as if it was written by a schoolgirl for schoolgirls (with the occasional raep references to spice things up, I guess, but no real threat).

Unmoor is a casual independent visual novel both developed and published by MariLuzaria. As Louisa you gleefully return home from the Maritime Academy with hopes of taking charge of your fathers ship and setting sail on the open seas for a life of trade and adventure. However, you soon sadly discover that your beloved papa was taken advantage of and the family ship, The Diossa, has been acquired by a Monsieur Viardo. "This will not come to pass!" Louisa thinks to herself as she makes plans to recover the vessel at all costs. Prepare to follow her on this thrilling seafaring adventure filled with action, intrigue and possibly romance as Louisa sets out to take back The Diossa and prove herself as a worthy seacaptain in the process.

PRESENTATION

CONCLUSION

I feel bad giving this game a bad score because I had followed the development of this game before it was even released, so I was really excited to play it.

Sadly, Unmoor was a dissapointment. The characters are as one dimensional as you can get. The MC has less personality than most otome games, which is really upsetting since most indie otome games that I've played tend to actually give their MCs some personality traits. There is little to no chemisty between any of the charactes, so the romance feels forced. The game is also extremely short. If it was a free game I would'nt be upset about the length, but I don't think the game is worth the money considering you could play through the entire game in a few hours.

This game could've been much better if the creators made the game longer, created characters that had some depth, and did some world building. But as it is it's very bland as forgettable.

The game does have some pros. The music fits well and the art is pretty good. But I can't recommend a game just for the music and the art.

Compared to other VNs I've played for this price, I found that it was really short (It took me less than 4 hours to get all routes and achievements). The story was fairly interesting though, and flowed well with the choices I took.

The artwork for the most part was good, BUT some of Vary's character sprites, in particular the one where he's grinning, is ABSOLUTELY TERRIFYING I mean what's going on with his eyes?!

I played the English version, but there was one line of dialogue I came across that was still in Russian- I don't think it was a key piece of information though- just a response to someone's greeting.

If you don't mind it being short, it's worth a try, but it's certainly not in my top list of VNs.

This game was...mediocre, to me. I really don't think that it was worth the price. It took me less than an hour to finish a single route. The characters are not very complex or deep. You get locked into a route very early on without knowing much about the characters at all. The choices are obvious, bland, and easy--there is very little conflict.
Additionally, (SPOILERS)
I felt that the entire business with the pirates was incredibly rushed and not well explored. I feel the same way about the revelation of Louisa being a seawitch.

On a positive note, the art and soundtrack were both beautiful, and I can see why this game would be relaxing to some. To me though it just isn't worth the price.

Amazing VN. It's on the short side, but the art is nice, the otome story (girl p.o.v., male love interests) is good.

It's very refreshing theme.

For those worried about the "nudity" tag, there was only 1 CG that showed more skin but breasts are censored. Sex is sensual, not obvert. This VN is more about story than those kind of scenes.

English translation works well. Only noticed one line still in Russian. It didn't break the story.

What impressed me about this VN is how many CGs it had.

Least favorite: while music was very good, not many tracks.

I REALLY loved Unmoor! I'm a sucker for love stories on the high seas. The writing (and the English translation) is stellar compared to a lot of otome games on Steam, and the art style is lush and attractive. A couple of the endings felt a little rushed towards the end, but it didn't impact my overall enjoyment of the game. Captain Jean Marten was my favorite route hands down, it was just so satisfying and he's soooooo handsome and romantic. I can't recommend Unmoor enough!

This is one of the best VN's I've played in a while. It's obvious that a lot of care went into its creation.
Pro's:
-the visuals are amazing
-the story and characters are really intriguing
-the soundtrack is beautiful
-It's also nice to see that Louisa continued to be self determined and independent throughout the story. Too often, even when an otome protagonist is shown to have skills/abilities they lose their agency once they're around their love interests. Fortunately, this is subverted as Louisa proves her skill time and again. The reader isn't just told that Louisa has the skills to be the captain of "the Diossa" they are shown.
-the replay value is also great. The different routes branch off very quickly. While there are some common events shared between each route each one feels fresh.
-the quick save and quick load functions were a nice addtion. It's great to be able to save at choices so you can quickly go back and see different outcomes.
-Your choices really do have an impact on the story and this is reflected in the positive and negative endings available.
Cons:
-There are a couple of bugs. A couple of lines of text show up in Russian. It only happened twice in my play throughs and when it did happen it was only a line so it didn't detract from the story in a significant way. It's really a minor issue, all things considered, and I'm sure it will be fixed.
Overall, this game is worth every penny and I highly recommend it.