Game Review: Syrup and the Ultimate Sweet (Xbox Series X)

From developer, NomnomNima and publisher, Ratalaika Games comes the game, Syrup and the Ultimate Sweet. A visual novel so packed with sugar, that it starts to make you feel a little sick.

Created and submitted for the game jam ‘Yuri Jam’ in 2015, the game is super-simple, short, and uneventful. Its story, characters, and visuals are charming, but there’s so little to the experience, it’s not going to have any lasting impact.

The main character of the game is Syrup, a cranky candy alchemist, focused on making the best candy possible without resorting to magic, unlike her rival Butterscotch, who happens to be a witch.

One morning, Syrup and her friend/employee, Pastille, make a startling discovery in their shop. The discovery of a full-sized candy-golem, in female form, that is insistent that Syrup eat her. Highly suspicious of this candy-golem, Syrup initially refuses to engage with it, but eventually relents under pressure from Pastille, and the candy-golem’s desire to befriend her.

Taking the name of Gumdrop, across the game’s runtime, the candy-golem will create branching paths that take the story in new directions. Deciding not only its own fate, but the fate of Syrup, Pastille, Butterscotch, and more, based on the player’s decision. There’s nothing heavy here, but there are some story paths that at least deal with relatable subjects.

In total, Syrup and the Ultimate Sweet has nine endings and players will have to replay the game many times to get them all. Though it really is a short experience, and it won’t take longer than two hours to unlock them all. Thankfully, like most visual novels, the text becomes skippable at speed, as after playthrough number four, most will be sick of the candy-based story.

Talking its visual props from the world of anime, Syrup and the Ultimate Sweet looks like it has been on a candy bender and has music that fits the vomiting session that follows. That’s not to say either are bad, because they’re not, but rather to explicitly point out that everything about this visual novel is sickly sweet.

It’s wholly unremarkable. Neither good or bad, and finding out that it was made for a game jam makes a lot of sense. It’s light, it’s fluffy, it’s very sticky, but it’s not the worst of these sort of games. If you have a couple of hours free and want some easy achievements, this is one hit of sugar that anyone can play.