"If My Heart Had Wings" is a romantic drama visual novel for the PC.  This game starts off with a teenage boy named Aoi (I know that's typically a female name) whom is on his way to his new job that's at his old home town to which he hasn't been to in five years.  Seeing as he turned up early he decides to take the scenic route and stops by at a beautiful park full of windmills.  While at the park he runs into a girl in a wheelchair named Kotori.  Kotori is very upset and frustraed due to her being stuck there because of a flat tire (yikes).  Aoi wastes no time to help her out and after that he spends some time with her and walks her to the nearest convenience store.  Aoi had a good time and is hoping for some more good times when he turns up for his job.  Aoi's job is that he is a caretaker for a school dorm but he is in shock when he finds out that the dorm he is care taking is an all-girl dorm.  Aoi also happens to run into Kotori and is surprised that her personality is much more different there compared to the time he spent with her before.  After calming down and getting some rest he goes to school and is reunited with some old friends but that's not all as after searching around the school he wanders into a huge shed and finds a very beautiful girl.  Aoi becomes very interested as the beautiful girl is in a club called "The Soaring Club", in this club she is working on building a huge glider so she can fly through the sky.  Sadly there's a chance that the club may being forced to close down due to lack of members thus /Aoi decides to help her find new members.  Can they achieve their goal?  What else will happen in this story of love and flight?  What I mentioned was no more than a smidgen of what goes on in this story as a lot more happened in this story.  Is this visual novel worth getting past that point and enjoying the full story?  (Click "Read More" to read the full review).


Seeing as this is a visual novel game you won't have any gameplay at all as this game is all about reading a story with fancy pictures.  That's not a bad thing at all with this game as the story was very good with some very nice heartfelt drama that will keep you interested.  The characters were very nice and helped kept the story interesting as they all had unique personalities.  The writing isn't perfect though as there were a few scenes/chapters that were not interesting at all and just dragged out for way too long.  The dull and boring scenes didn't add much to the story and just felt like I was reading filler.

This visual novel is also very easy to read and makes for a good introduction to this genre.  While an easy read you'll find that this is something that you can't read in one sitting as it takes fifteen plus hours to get through on the first go.  This visual novel also has alternative paths and endings and that adds some replay value to this visual novel.  If you are worried about re-reading those scenes to get to the scenes you haven't scene yet, you shouldn't fear as there's a fast-forward option that will let you zoom through the scenes you have read.  While that's a good option to have, I dunno why there wasn't also an option to just choose the chapter you want to go to.


If you are experienced with this genre then you should know that games like this typically come with scenes that show off ho-hahs and flip-flaps in a sex scene.  The basic Steam version of this game cuts out all of those scenes to appeal to a much broader audience.  Some people might dislike that but I didn't mind the "PG" version of this game being released on Steam as I want visual novels to be exposed to a much broader audience, a good chunk of that audience might not like seeing a guy stick his "wing-wang" into a female's "wang-wing" in full detail.  For those that are in an outrage by this being censored then don't as you can get the "18+" version of this just by adding a simple patch so everyone can get the version they want.

There are some weird moments during the game like how some lines were translated a bit awkwardly to where I laughed.  One problem I did have was this one inconsistency with the game as early on in the game they were talking about currency using the "Japanese Yen" but then suddenly towards the end of the game the currency suddenly changes to the "US Dollar".  I found that to be a bit lazy and I don't know how that was missed during the final spell-checking of the script.  The artwork did look a little weird during the night scenes as the characters faces had a green tint that didn't blend in well during those scenes.


Other than the problem I mentioned about the art, you'll see that the art looks very good.  I'm a fan of the character designs as while basic I found them all to look very pretty, cute, and well designed.  The art also matches with the personalities of the characters and that is a good thing.  Backgrounds also look pretty good and much more detailed than the characters.  This game mostly uses still pictures but there is some animation during cut-scenes and it looked good, I really enjoyed how the animation was made to look like an intro found in anime as it added some charm and excitement.

There is a section in the game where you can look at certain pieces of art that was shown during the main game.  In this section you can also listen the soundtrack and you will find yourself re-listening to the soundtrack as it was a very good soundtrack and if I could I'd buy the soundtrack on CD and vinyl record (I just love vinyl).  My only wish is that the bonus section included the animated cut-scenes as I loved watching them in the game.


Overall this is a very good visual novel and a very good one for people who want to get into visual novels.  I recommend checking this one out but just don't expect this to have any gameplay as this is to be read like a book and that's sure to turn off more than a few gamers these days but if you do check this out you will enjoy it.  Very good visual novel.

Game: If My Heart Had Wings
System: PC
Developer/Publisher: Moenovel
Genre: Drama, Romance, Visual Novel
Price: $14.99 (Steam)
Recommended: Yes