Welcome to your senior year of college at a university in Busan. Life sucks… You are in a major that you don’t want, you still want mom to like you and accept you, and life in general is crap. Until one morning you wake up to see five animals in a basket in your room. This is Dandelion – Wishes Brought To You.
I reviewed this game about a year ago but I felt dissatisfied about how I tackled the review. I just half-assed it in layman’s term with only doing one of the five routes and that is not how I should do a review. I went back to Dandelion in the beginning of this year and decided that I need to finish it completely.
The story of Dandelion – Wishes Brought To You follows a college senior Heejung as she still struggles with completing a degree that she has no passion in and still trying to have her mom accept her. Basically, Heejung lives a pretty normal, boring life like the rest of us. Until one night, someone decides to spice up her life by bringing five animal/guys into the mix. Now it is time to choose the animal of your choice and get frustrated with upping your stats.
Dandelion plays a little differently than most visual novels I have played up to this point. Most visual novels are a lot of text with little to no player input. Dandelion is quite the opposite. The game has the player multitask between wooing the guy of their choice, leveling up three different stats, and lowering stress and pressure.
You have five guys to choose from for your wooing pleasure. That always seems to be the case of visual novels. It always comes in fives. Each guy has their own level of how much you need to interact with them to max out their hearts (they are not really levels. I just don’t know what to call them). You will need to max out their hearts/levels both as animals and humans as once they turn into humans, the hearts/levels gets reset. Just a note, some of the animals/humans have certain methods of wooing to get their good endings and some of them have higher levels than others.
Let’s talk about stats. Throughout the game you will need to worry about five things: Femininity, Beauty, Art Skill, Stress, and Pressure. For each guy you woo, you will need to meet their requirement for Femininity, Beauty, and Art Skill. For example, Jiwoo wants you to have a very high art skill by the end of the game but you will also need to worry about leveling up the other stats as well for him. Leveling up these stats can be done around the house, going on dates, and just doing daily things as a new day starts. You can level up your Beauty by putting on makeup, Femininity can go up by doing laundry (crazy I know), and Art Skill goes up by going on a date to the Park, Art Gallery, or the University. Those are only a few of the things to level up your stats. Stress and Pressure are the only two stats that needs to be lower before it’s too late. If you do not lower them, say hi to Heejae and the bad ending. Stress can be lower by napping on the couch and Pressure can be lower by studying. They also can be lowered by items such as a Pick Me Up and a Reference Book in the status menu.
As a note, ALWAYS CHECK THE STATUS MENU!! This was my first mistake when I first played the game. I never checked it which led me to bad end over and over again. You can check your stats as well as the man you are wooing. To bring up the menu, you will need to right click with the mouse. Easy peasy but some people don’t know this. Best to know this now as it is the only way to hard save the game.
During the weekdays, you can spend time wooing the animal/guy of your choice and upping your stats, going shopping, or working (you only earn $10 on the weekdays but $40 on weekends). Shopping is a great way to help woo a guy and spend some hard earned money. When you buy an item, you can give it as a gift to the man you are pursuing as a way to max out their level points. You can also buy things for yourself to max out your stats too.
While on dates on the weekend, you can collect stamps! Stamps are used to get bonus CGs in the Special option on the title screen. Stamps are collected when you given the option to ‘Look Around’ as the second group of choices. In the beginning, your vision will be bad. To increase your vision, you will need to buy some vision medicine for $200 at the Store. Here is a note to remember, in order to keep the stamps you collect, you will need to actually start a New Game every time you start a new route. I didn’t know this. I kept a save that begins right after the animals first showed up and my stamps never transferred over to the Bonus menu. I researched this matter and was disappointed in myself. Remember to start a New Route for a new route if you want those stamps.
One thing that somewhat irritated me but made me laugh was the constant spelling errors and wrong names for the wrong characters. I kind of gave the game the benefit of the doubt since it comes from South Korea but every game should be proof read multiple times before being released to the public. In depended instead of independent? How? As for the names, I would see Jisoo instead of Jiwoo when the characters are definitely talking about Jiwoo. Names are misspelled too. Jhae instead of Jihae. It may be the fact that I am an English Major but constant spelling errors and incorrect names disrupts the flow of reading especially in a visual novel.
Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed the game. I did the first time and I am glad that I came back to it to see the end. The game’s price is too much for a VN. $29.99 is asking for too much. I was fortunate to have some money in Paypal when I bought it but I would wait for it to be on sale (but it doesn’t happen often…).
Dandelion – Wishes Brought To You
4/5
Oh yes, the game is voiced in Korean. So anyone learning Korean, don’t take this as a learning source since some of the jokes had to be translated differently for a foreign audience. But I do know what apples are. Sagwa.
