For centuries the Wood Elves and Moon Elves have had their differences, and sharing love between them could be considered taboo. That however doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. In the VR experience Elven Love from Red Vide Studios you are tasked with performing the rituals necessary to help two smitten elves unite so they can share their forbidden love.
Although Elven Love has been labeled as an “adults only” game, what you’ll encounter while playing it, is pretty minimal. Meaning the game ranks relatively low on our gauges. For the level of adult content we landed on a Level 1 since you never engage in any kind of sexual acts, and the relationship between you and the characters you come across is neither romanticized nor sexualized. While there is full nudity in the game, and it could be considered erotic, it doesn’t go beyond that so we ended up rounding out our gauges with a 5% for the type of adult content. Mostly because you experience the game in VR, making it a much more immersive experience. Though by default the game does come censored (mosaics over the chest and groin), with the ability to optionally uncensor it by deleting a file from the install directory.
As a short and sweet VR experience Elven Love definitely has its merits. Its ethereal atmosphere and setting were pleasant, and its music reflected that. Even if it didn’t stand out. Although the puzzles were simply one iteration or another of picking up and placing objects, I did enjoy them for their simplicity and appreciated the use of in-world clues like illustrated scrolls to help you figure out how to solve them. One of my favorite parts was being able to use a set of wands that had various effects. In particular the wand that had you drawing symbols in order to reposition or pose the elves in the environment.
Unfortunately, it wasn’t all good because moving around the environments was a bit of a pain. Instead of being able to use one of the analog sticks to walk from one location to the next, you instead had to use the game’s teleport system. A common feature in VR games, I know, but it just ended up feeling awkward and never really worked the way you wanted it to. Especially when trying to travel up stairs or over raised areas. This was only made more tedious when a cutscene or event triggered, which played out at a snail’s pace, leaving you with nothing to do for a solid few minutes but twiddle your thumbs. Pair that with a game that didn’t have much substance to begin with and all of a sudden it feels like you’re waiting more than you’re playing. Something some additional puzzles or environments could help alleviate.
Going into Elven Love I was expecting a bit more, but came out the other end slightly disappointed. Especially considering its asking price of $14.99. Making it a difficult game to recommend. That said, if you can find it for a deep discount (like we did), it was a fun enough time that it would at least be worth a try. However, if you’re on the lookout for a much more lewd experience then you may want to avoid the Steam version all together and instead head on over to Nutaku and check out Elven Love Naughty Rituals. Which has everything in the OG Elven Love release, plus some extra sex stuff.
If you’d like to check out Elven Love for yourself you can find it right now on Steam. Or you can check out Elven Love Naughty Rituals on Nutaku.
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