Nurse Love Addiction is a visual novel for the PlayStation Vita and PC. It has since ported to the Switch after its initial English release. It is of the yuri genre, which means that the relationships are female with female. The story follows Asuka, a ditzy girl who didn’t really put in much effort during higher school and is proud of it. In her final year, she has to decide what she wants to do and she had a childhood dream of becoming a nurse. She somehow manages to get into nursing prep school, along with her younger sister Nao. Nao is a lot more mature and ends up looking after Asuka, who is also an airhead. Despite this, if Asuka puts in an effort, she can achieve a lot given that was how she managed to get into nursing school in the first place.
The game then follows Asuka’s journey into nursing and in the beginning it is equal part seeing the types of training that nurses has to go through as well as the romance. In addition to Nao, there are three other romance options: they are the teacher Kaede, and fellow students Itsuki and Sakura. As far as fan service goes, it’s fairly tame but there will be a few kissing scenes between the characters.
Perhaps more surprising is it actually puts in a bit of effort in showing off some of the things that nurses in training go through. Asuka will struggle through memorizing all the bones in a human being, learn to make hospitals beds as well as clean bedpans. There are some nice touches such as Kaede telling her students when making beds to watch out for creases, as patients with sensitive skin may be uncomfortable and end up developing rashes or other symptoms. It can get quite serious with some of this stuff, like Asuka getting reprimanded for doing something she shouldn’t have and being lectured about the consequences of what might have happened.
There are still plenty of non-nursing related events; it is really more of a slice-of-life romance story with a nursing skin on top. It gently pokes fun at otaku culture since Asuka is a newbie in that area and is slowly being exposed to it. The second half of the visual novel mostly forgoes the nursing aspect and completely focuses upon the romance. Some endings try to wrap up the nursing prep course while others completely drop that plot thread.
This is a slow paced visual novel, especially during the first half. There are a few sections where decisions come into play to help determine which route you’ll end up landing in. Maybe it is because of this slow pacing but the characters that were really shallow at first due to their vague backgrounds and character archetypes, end up becoming a lot more interesting than expected. In particular, Asuka’s thoughts are funny due to her being simple, and her reactions, no matter how often she does it or how exaggerated, never gets old.
Towards the end, it loves to tease several big mysteries or revelations but then coincidentally, something would happen to delay this big reveal. Needless to say, this can get quite annoying. At times, it also feels like it might start to stray towards the supernatural but then it tries to ground it more against reality. Sure, the things that happen might not happen in real life but it’s nothing as fancy as fantasy. Unfortunately, by the time you get to the endings, it starts to throw in things that are out there. The tone does a complete 180 and doesn’t feel like it gels well with what came before.
The story is different to a lot of other visual novels on consoles, in that the content is a little bit more mature. The main character actually explores a few different fetishes. While there are supposed to be good endings, the relationships that Asuka ends up paring with aren’t always the healthiest of relationships and several can even feel twisted. While the story doesn’t have anything too special, it’s the characters that keep you interested in the game. The artwork is really good, although it goes for the overly cute angle of things. The characters are exclusively female, and it only comes with Japanese voice-overs.
The length of your first playthrough is around six to ten hours, with four routes in total. Most of the routes have the same first part with only the endings being significantly different. Each route has a good and bad ending (as well as a more generic normal ending overall not tied to a romantic interest). The good endings are exactly what you’d expect of a romance story. However, some of the bad endings don’t outright state some things but leaves more to your imagination after heavily hinting at something twisted, so it can be unnerving and surprising at times.
Overall, Nurse Love Addiction is a unique visual novel. It’s not amazing but there is enough here to tide you over and make it enjoyable. The concept of the characters training to become a nurse is novel, especially when it provides some interesting insights to the process. The romantic aspect takes center stage from the middle onwards and takes the story in a different duration for each route where it can feel that it tonally clashes with the first half. The game never outstays its welcome though and the art style is beautiful.
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