That title’s a bit of a mouthful, isn’t it? ‘Welcome To… Chichester OVN 3 : The Mysterious Affair At The Violet Hotel’ is my first experience of the Welcome To…Chichester series of visual novels – all of which feature a protagonist/antagonist named Grendel Jinx.

Jinx is the nemesis of the main character – the player – and seems spoilt, entitled and almost constantly annoyed at something or someone. Adding to her annoyance is the fact that she ends up swapping bodies with the player, which is played for comedic value.

Having not had much in the way of experience with visual novels, I wasn’t sure what to expect. I am familiar with the animé-esque aesthetic and often ribald humour, but wasn’t expecting there to be so little in the way of interactivity in the narrative; that is, however, something that visual novel fans are likely used to. I suspect it didn’t help that I’ve entered the series so late; though the Steam store page does say that playing the previous episodes isn’t essential.

If you’re a fan of this kind of title, I’m sure you’ll enjoy this one; taking in as it does the aforementioned body swapping, a microwave accident and even a murder mystery in its relatively short play time. It’s very cheap, too – and with other episodes in the series similarly reasonable price-wise (with some being free to play), it isn’t prohibitive to acquire the series. The art style is pretty appealing, the music is excellent and the writing is of a high standard; I’m just not sure that this type of experience is for me.

Many thanks to Triority Interactive Novels for providing me with the Steam key for review purposes.