Nurse Love Syndrome review for PS Vita, PC

It?s been two years since I last played a game in the Nurse Love series, but I?m still kind of shocked that Nurse Love Addiction was nowhere near as terrible as it could have been. I mean, when you hear the phrase “a Japanese visual novel about lesbian nurses,” I think it?s inevitable that your mind immediately goes to some pretty dark places, and you expect the worst. Instead, it was a fairly light-hearted slice-of-life story about a bunch of nursing students. There were the occasional eyebrow-raising moments, to be sure, but compared to how bad it could have been, it all seemed relatively tame.

I?m pleased, then, to report that Nurse Love Syndrome continues on in this tradition. The innuendo may be a little more common this time out, and there are a couple of moments where the main character?s friend, Nagisa, clearly crosses the line into actions that would be deemed sexual harassment in any other context outside a visual novel, but, on the whole, the game comes off as pretty tame, much like its predecessor.

This also means that, much like its predecessor, Nurse Love Syndrome is painfully boring. It?s no longer a slice-of-life story about a nursing student, but rather a slice-of-life story about a nurse, and it takes that topic very seriously. This game spends a shocking amount of time on the daily minutiae of being a nurse. I?m by no means an expert on the genre, but I?m willing to bet that no other game devotes as much time to kidney stones, urine levels, or vomit, not to mention sleep schedules and administering blood work.

Of course, anything can be made interesting in the right hands. It?s just that these aren?t those hands, largely because the woman at the centre of the story, Kaori, is so terrible. She?s not very good at her job, and she?s constantly being reprimanded and mocked for her ineptitude. It makes it difficult to really get attached to any of the characters, and it drags the game?s story down as a result.

To be fair, the game occasionally tries to make itself more interesting with vague hints and nods of something more supernatural. The problem is, you have to play through multiple storylines just to notice many of these hints, which makes it difficult to get invested in what it?s going on, since the rest of the story is so incredibly dull.

I fully acknowledge — as I acknowledge when I played Nurse Love Addiction — that Nurse Love Syndrome isn?t really meant for me, and that I?m not the target audience. The thing is, I can?t imagine who would be interested in what?s going on here. With a lousy main character and an interminable story that doesn?t go anywhere, even fans of the genre deserve better than this. It won?t offend anyone in its badness, but that hardly makes it worth checking out.

Degica provided us with a Nurse Love Syndrome PS Vita code for review purposes.