2026 Fall in Love Visual Novel Festival by Studio Élan

Tails by the Foxfire’s Complete Rundown of Studio Élan’s 2026 Fall in Love Visual Novel Festival

Visual novels were among my earliest gaming loves, dating right back to my fixation with tracking down the English fan translation of Ever17: the Out of Infinity as an 11-year old on my family pc. Since then, I’ve built up quite a collection of favourites, including Amnesia: Memories by Idea Factory, Dandelion: Wishes Brought to You published by Cheritz, fault – milestone by ALICE IN DISSONANCE, The Letter by YangYang Mobile, The House in Fata Morgana published by MangaGamer, STEINS;GATE published by Spike Chunsoft, 1997 Reloaded by Studio Gaigo, and Highway Blossoms by Studio Élan, who I want to thank for so kindly inviting me to be part of this year’s Fall in Love Visual Novel Festival coverage. Believe me when I say, 25-year old me (10 years ago, for those counting!) who stumbled across Highway Blossoms for the very first time and adored it so much I obsessively trophy-hunted until I got 100% can’t believe her luck to be part of this event!

By the way, dear reader, that list of titles up there isn’t even counting the amazing roster of visual novels I’ve picked out to celebrate this year’s festival. Exciting, right? Let’s jump right into my rundown, with a big thank you as well to the devs who generously donated game keys or who took the time to reach out and let me know about their upcoming releases. I’ll be unveiling a new recommendation I’ve played each day from now until September 9th, so be sure to bookmark this page and remember to shop Studio Élan’s 2026 Fall in Love Visual Novel Festival on Steam to get your hands on even more beautiful visual novels celebrating love!

Day 1. Crimson Waves on the Emerald Sea: Amaranthine Moon by Crystal Game Works

Day 2. Lock & Key: A Magical Girl Mystery by Studio Élan

First up is Crimson Waves on the Emerald Sea: Amaranthine Moon by Crystal Game Works, who very generously provided a game key for the purposes of this review.

Crimson Waves on the Emerald Sea: Amaranthine Moon is a Victorian vampire otome visual novel where you play as Lucie: a young woman attending school while seeking a business partner who can procure high-quality emeralds. She was on the verge of reaching an agreement… and then the next day, her prospective business partner was brutally murdered in the very next room. Murders like this have been happening all over town to high-ranking individuals in the gem business, so there are some really thrilling stakes here, if you’ll pardon the pun. Those emeralds aren’t just a matter of business, you see: Lucie is a vampire, and small, high-quality emeralds have been identified as a cure for vampirism if you take them daily like pills. Lucie has been using this treatment to keep her vampirism at bay, but it’s ultimately up to the player if she continues to do so, meaning (yes, you guessed it!) you can play through Crimson Waves on the Emerald Sea: Amaranthine Moon as a human or as a vampire! Speaking of Lucie, I found her to be a fantastic protagonist with enough bite (ok, you can boo me now) to feel relatable and give her an engagingly complex chemistry with the rest of the cast.

With a premise like that, you’d be forgiven for thinking Crimson Waves Upon the Emerald Sea: Amaranthine Moon is scary, but I actually found it to be more atmospheric than scary, and I’m a big jittery wimp when it comes to horror. It’s a story that feels absolutely perfect for autumn with its rich colour palette and music that sets the mood without feeling jump scare-y or particularly intrusive, much in the same vein (hee hee) as Cabernet by Party For Introverts & Akupara Games, which I covered during my event collaboration with DevCats. In short, Crimson Waves on the Emerald Sea is a visually gorgeous game too, with a textured look that feels hand painted and gives the impression that you’re navigating a gothic fairytale. It falls neatly in the middle of my internal venn diagram that loves Dracula by Bram Stoker, obsessed over Vampire Knight as a teen, and is a sucker (…I’m sorry, I couldn’t resist!) for a deadly romance.

Try it, I insist: if you’re a dark romantic like me, you’re sure to be obsessed within the first hour or so.

I mentioned that Highway Blossoms made me fan of Studio Élan’s work, and Lock & Key: A Magical Girl Mystery is a perfect storm of thrilling action, mystery, and swoony yet supportive romance for the two wolves that exist inside of me: the sugary wifey wolf who loves Sailor Moon and adorable romances, and the broody gothy ‘I am the night’ wolf who enjoys true crime and has fond memories of reading Sherlock Holmes with my dad. Thank you so much to Studio Élan for generously providing a game key for this review!

In Lock & Key: A Magical Girl Mystery, our protagonists (Sherri, Kealey, and Nina) are entering their 30s and looking bittersweetly back at their youths while moving forward, planning unknowably scary futures like creating a family while losing grip on the powers that have defined them for the majority of their lives. If you’re in that age range (like me, *sob*) it’s probably achingly relatable because you’ve likely come face to face with things about your life that have changed: places, people, health, friends, interests, abilities, slang. I went into this kind of disconnect in my You Can’t Go Home Again blog where I visited my hometown and felt how jarringly it had changed, and The Sly Scribe mentions it too in his Palworld vs. Pokemon piece. “Time may change me, but I can’t trace time,” in the immortal words of David Bowie.

Lock & Key: A Magical Girl Mystery centres on Sherri, Kealey, and Nina initially: magical girls whose powers will expire when they turn 30. We see these powers fading and waning while they try to make the best of them; ‘use it or lose it,’ they say, while trying to figure out who they’ll be once the powers are gone. Sherri, for instance, believes the loss of her powers will force her to retire from her crime scene investigation job because she fears she won’t be nearly as effective without them. It’s a question I absolutely love that Lock & Key asks, and thinking about it now, it’s actually among the plots that made the live action Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon hold my interest as much as it did, where the senshi defeat the big bad, lose their powers, and have to return to reality after all they’ve been through. In Lock & Key, the girls are on a much tighter timeline that’s beyond their control, as they’re at the mercy of time. Lock & Key: A Magical Girl Mystery is a coming-of-age story on multiple levels, too, as the young fledgling magical girl Ruby/Nightshade has only had her powers for about two weeks and is still discovering her identity with our seasoned heroes as her mentors, and it’s through her that we see our protagonists relive their glory days as they pass on their wisdom to the next generation.

Listen, I don’t know where Studio Élan found the spare keys to my brain, but they’re welcome to keep it if it means I get to keep enjoying more gorgeous yuri romances with this achingly relatable kind of premise and just the sweetest, most loving couples that make my heart sing. What’s more, the game is just beautiful: the art is soft and ‘shiny’ in a way that feels elegant and, well.. magical. I found Kealey has an especially ‘huggable’ vibe that’s true to the ‘Mom energy’ the rest of the cast talk about, securing her the spot as my current favourite, though it’s a close contest: I ‘stan’ them all, as Nina and Ruby/Nightshade might say (I think, I don’t know, I’m old). The soundtrack feels gentle and Studio Élan have even crafted transformation transitions for the girls when they’re in combat scenes as even more of a love letter to the genre, which is a detail I’m so glad they didn’t overlook, as the transformation hype is one of my top factors of a good magical girl show.

Try Lock & Key: A Magical Girl Mystery , please. Trust me. If you’re a fan of the magical girl genre, or if you’re craving a supernatural mystery with a wholly human heart, you’ll love it I’m sure.