Not only is the city made out of glass, but so are the LIs, who are fragile, like glass shoes
This game is pretty but the embodiment of wasted potential
Setting
- Fairy tale setting
In a cursed city Tokyou, made out of glass, since 200 years, everyone, who leaves the city without wearing glass themselves turns into glass, or if they don’t return before 12 midnight. Likewise outsiders who enter the city will turn into glass and die.
One day the MC Hairi is visited by an ominous wizard, who tells her how to break the curse and apparently it is only her who will be able to do this. But she will need to seek the help of one of six boys Kashika made her meet.
The name Cendrillon palikA means something like The Cinderella of Glass, because Hairi owns a pair of glass shoes, that play a tiny role in each route.. And that is practically where the Cinderella reference ends.
LIs
In the order the developers recommend them to be played. Era and Rindo only unlock after you’ve finished one route and Kashika unlocks after you cleared three route (each of them has a spoiler warning).
Klone
He’s a tsun boy, glass manufacturer and good in baking cake, who doesn’t want to have anything to do with the glass people. That is why Hairi has to fight quite a lot in order to convince him to help her. That leads to their love developing slowly and naturally, while they also solve a mysterious occurrence of people suddenly turning into glass in bright daylight. It felt like work to crack Kurone’s tsundere shell And he felt shallow afterwards Just an empty trope Thought the murder mystery was quite interesting, still somehow far fetched
It felt like work to crack Klone’s tsundere shell and sadly he felt shallow afterwards – just an empty trope. Thought the murder mystery was quite interesting, it still was somehow far fetched.
Voice actor Namikawa Daisuke浪川 大輔 (Silva in My next Life as a Villainess)
Shien
He lives at an old church together with Yuren and loves to pour tea for him. He’ s nice. That’s his one and only character trait. His story was about him having amnesia and nightmares, an trying to bribe Rindo to let you into the clock tower by catching bugs for him.
He’s nice. I paused his route and lay the game down, so boring was it.
Voice actor Hino Satoshi日野 聡 (Toma in Amnesia)
Yuren
He’s a researcher, who only loves books, but lets Shien stay so he can make him tea. Most of the time he just ignores the MC, as he’s only interested in research So he’s also a bit of work to get to know and his challenge is to understand the feeling of love, while researching about the curse
This was my favourite route, as I enjoyed his character and voice actor (Uchida Yuuma内田 雄馬: Vilio in Radiant Tale, Yosuga in Olympia Soirée) the most! I just love a slightly angry scientist.
Natora
He’s the younger brother of Rindo and a gate keeper at the city entrance. He loves gummy bears, cola, but adores his brother even more and Hairi needs to convince him to betray his brother.
In spite of his looks he is a total puppy dog, very childish, though he appeared scary in the prologue. But his biggest problem are his huge brother issues!
Voice actor Toriumi Kousuke鳥海 浩輔 (Ichiya in Variable Barricade, Madoka in Clock Zero, Shuu in Diabolik Lovers, YUkikage in Shinobi Koi)
Rindo
He’s guard at the entrance to the clock tower, where Hairi needs to enter in order to break the curse. He seems extremely friendly, gentleman-like, loved by women and loves catching, insects, especially butterflies…
I couldn’t relate to his love story. He was a character that was supposed to have many secrets, but again he felt superficial.
Voice actor Okitsu Kazuyuki興津 和幸 (Ankou in Shuuen no Virche, Tsukuyomi in Olympia Soirée, Korei in Jakou ny Lyla, Mashiko in Nil Admirari no Tenbin)
Era
He’s a friendly book worm, who works at the library. Sweetly enough he falls for Hair from the start and pursues her eagerly. It later turns out he’s actually the younger brother of the noble family, that is in charge of the clock tower, Hairi’s is starting to work as a maid for.
His proactiveness was a nice breath of fresh air, as he speaks out his feelings and his story had some very surprising twists.
Voice actor Hanae Natsuki花江 夏樹 (Noin in Koroshiya to Strawberry, Kakuto in JackJeanne)
Kashika
A weird wizard, not very self aware, suddenly appears, disappears, trespasses and crashes at Hairi’s home for free.
He has the most funny dialogues and big revelations about the curse, you could have seen coming though, after playing the other routes. Similar to Rindo he was supposed to be a tragic and deep character, but his twistedness was too shallow for me, thus I failed to connect with his personal background.
Voice actor Sugiyama Noriaki杉山 紀彰 (Tyril in Even if Tempest, Tora in Clock Zero, Akito in Norn9, Naomasa in Yunohana Spring=
Tone
Even watching the trailer after I’ve played the game makes me kind of want to buy the game, because it is so pretty and sounds so interesting and full of potential. Sadly it didn’t live up to my expectations.
- fairy tale like
- self-contained story driven routes
- soft magic
- “love can do anything” – like
Though the characters could have been interesting, almost all of them turned out to be superficial and shallow, hence I didn’t feel attached to any of them.
Concerning the characters and their endings, it’s important that EVERY character can turn into a yandere!
So there are good and yandere endings, as well as sudden death endings
Art
Pink + glass
Music: Good, glassy, fairy taily, calm, mysterious, but no action track (to build up tension)
CGs: Pretty, interesting scenes, perspectives but sometimes stiff, for each boy a crying CG (at least one)
Learn Japanese?
I can’t recommend this game, not even to learn Japanese. It has a lo of fantasy and unusual words, that took quite some time to get used to, but I actually stopped making a vocabulary list for this game, because the words felt too unusual and useless.
Overall
This is a game of bright colours and relaxing music, that should be tragic, but that feeling is not conveyed at all. The romance not swoon worthy to me, what also might be due to the shallow characters and slow writing. Not much really happened in each route.
As reluctant as I am to say this, but I can’t recommend his game. As pretty as the art is, as shallow is the story and its characters. Though the writers must actually be talented, because they wrote 10 additional little conversations with the characters, that are totally hilarious, charming and witty. The characters seemed to be more flashed out in this 10 short stories, than in the whole game. So the potential was definitely there. The art is perfect, the story interesting, the character design promising. But for some reason it was executed poorly.
With its seven routes you will still get your money’s worth, just speaking in numbers. But if you either look for a deep story or multidimensional characters or some swoonworthy romance, you will sadly be disappointed from Cendrillon palikA.
As pretty as the art is, as shallow is the story and its characters.
“That was a helpful review!
To show my appreciation I’m gonna purchase it via Lin’s amazon link to support her!”