The premise of the series is that 5 rich high school girls, Ichika, Nino, Mika, Yotsuba, and Itsuki, are failing all their classes and require a tutor whether they want one or not. However, they can’t stand their tutor, a poor student at their school named Futaro Uesugki, and actively try to sabotage him until they slowly come to realize they all like him. Unlike other harem stories in manga/anime, The Quintessential Quintuplets is surprisingly wholesome, even though the premise sounds absolutely awful. There’s nothing happening between Futaro and the sisters and he frequently insists on a high level of propriety, even as they slowly come to develop feelings for him. The manga and anime both have a clear ending with Futaro eventually ending up with one of the sisters as well, making for a satisfying conclusion to a slice-of-life meets harem comedy story.
That’s a lot of exposition and if you’re already a fan, apologies. With two seasons of the show, two specials, a movie, and no less than four video games in addition to one of the best-selling mangas of all time, it’s important to give some perspective on the series before we start talking about the games. With such a popular series, you’d expect nothing but the best from the games and there’s no company better suited to delivering top tier visual novels that developer Mages, makers of the famed Science Adventure series. Published by Spike Chunsoft in North America, The Quintessential Quintuplets Double Pack is now here, providing Western audiences with their first taste of two of the games, The Quintessential Quintuplets – Memories of a Quintessential Summer and The Quintessential Quintuplets – Five Memories Spent With You. The two games are quite different however so it’s worthwhile to take a dive into each to see what you’re getting into. We’ll start with The Quintessential Quintuplets – Memories of a Quintessential Summer as it takes place first.
To make this easier, let’s just shorten the title of The Quintessential Quintuplets – Memories of a Quintessential Summer to Memories of a Summer because it’s a lot to write out. The game starts out with the quintuplets inviting Futaro to their family’s private island for a few days to thank him for tutoring them. Futaro brings along his adorable little sister Raiha and the seven of them are left to their own devices on the family island with no adult supervision. Shockingly, disaster strikes in the form of a furious storm which prevents the group’s pickup by boat from the island and their three day vacation is turned into two weeks of survival! It’s a good thing that the Nakano family has a lot of money however. Their house is quite well provided for and has individual bedrooms for all seven occupants plus electricity and power. They’ll have to ration everything though and retrieve additional supplies to survive for two full weeks, and that means that there’s plenty of time to do the one thing every high schooler longs to do….study!
Naturally, the primary focus of gameplay in Memories of a Summer is to get the quintuplets grades up. They’re spectacularly atrocious and while none of the girls are dumb, they definitely aren’t great at applying themselves when it comes to schoolwork, much like many teens. The girls decide that Furato should be in charge of everyone and as Futaro, it’s your job to create study schedules and foraging assignments for everyone in order to ensure that classes are passed, no one starves, and everyone has at least a smidge of fun. It definitely won’t be more than a smidge though as every girl is failing all six courses that she needs to pass in order to graduate from school. Studying drops the mood of each girl as well and their hit points slowly drain as you force them to study. If both drop low enough, that unfortunate girl will collapse, draining her study skills as well and making her less likely to pass Futaro’s end-of-vacation test. IF any girl gets below a 60/100 on their test, it’s game over.
There’s more going on than just studying though. You’ll also have to decide what foods to forage for and when. Running out of food is a sure-fire way to kill the girls’ study habits and moods pretty quick so you’ll have to learn how to balance both issues deftly. The quintuplets also do all the cooking (come on, Futaro!) , assisted by Futaro’s little sister. You’ll have to choose what dishes to cook based on the available supplies you’ve harvested and their individual cooking skills. At first, most of the sisters are terrible cooks but they slowly learn to prepare food more effectively as they practice. Failures in food prep don’t raise mood or HP as effectively as dishes which are only ‘alright’ or successful, but they still have an impact so don’t panic if you fail at a few dishes.
While Memories of Summer isn’t initially more than a time management sim, it slowly transforms into a clever slice-of-life character study with the quintuplets’ individual personalities carrying both the story and your choices and even scheduling study time turns out to be remarkably fun. Focusing on a specific girl to study with, gather food with, or have cook raises their intimacy with Futaro and if intimacy levels are high enough, she’ll fall in love. With only 14 days, there’s only really time to choose a single sister to focus on though, which is probably for the best. If intimacy hits five stars, the endgame will focus on that sister, otherwise, you get a more generic ending.
Throughout the course of the game, you’ll occasionally be thrown into events where you have to make choices. Those choices also affect intimacy so if you’re focusing on a single sister with your choices during these story sequences, you’ll raise it significantly. The story sequences are all very slightly provocative but wholesome, fitting with the general vibe of The Quintessential Quintuplets. There’s never anything overtly questionable or outrageous going on but at the same time, it’s clear that there’s at least a bit of romantic tension throughout the game, even if Futaro is fighting it tooth and nail.
Once you’ve managed to get every sister to pass, the end sequence of the game starts. Screenshots are locked out during this portion of the game, but if you have managed to woo a particular sister, it’s now time to raise Futaro’s intimacy towards her by making decisions in the story sequences as the group’s island ordeal comes to a close. Doing so leads to a final sequence and a game ending, after which you can restart the game and focus on a different sister. Mages thoughtfully put in an option to skip all previously read dialogue, allowing you to speedily move through the remainder of the chapters if you wish. Each sister has a good ending and a normal ending based on your choices and there are also two other routes with normal and good endings for a total of fourteen endings in all, a lot of reading if you couldn’t skip previous text!
Visually, this is a solid game as well, and while the backgrounds are static and fairly simple, the characters have excellent expressions and reactions that accentuate the story and draw the player in. The interface is simple and intuitive and the GUI design is excellent, on par for Mages who always manages to stay on top of the design game. Cut scenes are excellent as well and while there’s not a lot of action in them, the backgrounds are well-designed and interesting and the imagery of the sisters is always tasteful, a pleasant surprise in a harem game.
The audio is also extremely well done in Memories of Summer. Every character is fully voiced in Japanese with extremely capable actors. Often, Japanese voicing in games like this can be somewhat over the top but the girls instead come off as realistic, regardless of whether you speak Japanese or not. The music is the only area where things suffer here and not because it’s bad. The music for the game is soft and light throughout, but at the same time is almost a bit too relaxing. None of the themes end up sticking with you and if you’re playing late at night, there’s a chance that the soft, soothing tracks might put you to sleep mid-game, a tragedy if you’ve got the text on Auto mode and the game keeps going!
With save anywhere options, full touch controls, and a plethora of options, it’s hard not to love The Quintessential Quintuplets – Memories of a Quintessential Summer. The best part is that this is only half of the double pack and you’ve already got a solid 30-40 hours of gameplay if you include multiple routes and use fast forward options for completed dialogue. With that in mind, it’s now time to look at the second game in The Quintessential Quintuplets Double Pack, The Quintessential Quintuplets – Five Memories Spent With You (which we’ll call Five Memories for brevity’s sake).
Five Memories is a very different approach to the characters. Instead of a story which all the sisters are participating in, it’s graduation time and the Futaro and the quintuplets have realized that there are romantic feelings between them. They’re also aware that only one of them can be with Futaro and so they give him an ultimatum. Each girl will be waiting in a different homeroom and it’s up to Futaro to choose who he wants to be with and confess his love. All the other sisters will support her, so in theory, you won’t have to worry about animosity or jealousy, which is definitely relieving. Making your choice early in the game is a significant change from Memories of Summer though and it fundamentally changes the feel of the game.
Once you’ve made your selection, the game opens up with a graduation trip which Futaro ends up having to choose since the quintuplets can’t agree. Raiha is back to join them as well and the girls come up with a four day travel plan for the whole group, giving Futaro and his chosen sister plenty of time to get to know each other. Unlike Memories of Summer, the entirety of Five Memories is a kind of wrap-up to the story of Futaro and the quintuplets. This is mostly a kinetic visual novel with dialogue choices giving you the ability to raise Futaro’s connection with his chosen quintuplet. Oddly, all screenshots are disabled for most of this game so there’s really no way to show you the visuals from it, but by and large, the game is very similar in design to Memories of Summer.
This game is more fan service than the first in the Double Pack, but the content is still remarkably wholesome, an on-brand approach for The Quintessential Quintuplets. Depending on your responses during the dialogue choices, you’ll get one of two endings with each sister and there are an additional two endings for the final route which is available after you’ve run through each scenario, giving a total of fourteen endings for the game. Completing all of these (and you’ll definitely use dialogue skip for some of it) will also unlock a variety of video clips about Osaka, showing you the real-life city and the locations that you’ll see throughout the game. It’s a neat inclusion that was entirely unexpected.
With less mechanics and a more straightforward approach, 5 Memories is definitely a more standard visual novel and occasionally you may be frustrated by how awkward some of the characters are but the overall impact is good and the game is light and fun, a breath of fresh air in the dark, violent, and often heavily sexualized world of VNs. It’s nice to give some finality to the story as well, allowing you to pursue your chosen quintuplet’s affections in Memories of Summer and then watch how everything plays out after in Five Memories.
The Quintessential Quintuplets Double Pack is an interesting departure from the standard visual novel in that it takes the slice of life formula seriously, adds some actual gameplay considerations that end up being more fun than they have any right to be, and wraps up the storyline in a nice bow. Providing options for players to diverge from the anime and pursue their favorite characters is great as well, opening up the series in a way that feels organic and like it should be canon without discarding the anime to do so. While the entrance fee to play through both games is a bit steep at $60, fans are going to get an absolute wealth of gameplay for their hard-earned cash and the replayability is sky-high with all the endings available. In fact, the only minor flaw in the entire package is that touch controls don’t allow you to fully control the game. There’s no question that if you’re a fan of The Quintessential Quintuplets and if you’re still on the fence, stream a couple episodes of the anime. Chances are you’ll be hooked before you know it!
This review is based on a digital copy of The Quintessential Quintuplets Double Pack provided by the publisher. It was played on a Nintendo Switch in both docked and undocked modes and played equally well in both. The Quintessential Quintuplets Double Pack is also available on PS4/PS5 and for PC on Steam.
Nate Van Lindt has been a gamer since the days of yore (aka Commodore 64), and has played a bit of virtually everything out there. He's also an avid comic book collector, both vintage and current, and reads a fair amount of sci-fi and fantasy. On top of that, he watches a fair number of movies and TV shows as well. Oh, and he has a family, a full-time job, and lives somewhere in the urban wilds of Southwestern Ontario, Canada, foraging for old video cables and forgotten game soundtracks.