Review: Steam Prison: Beyond the Steam Feels Like the Original Otome

Fan disks for otome games are tricky things. The audience is both more limited and more picky. There are expectations that you’ll perhaps learn more things about characters you already love. You hope for opportunities to romance ones who didn’t get routes in the original. Basically, it’s building on a foundation. Which, in turn, limits who may be interested in the title. Steam Prison: Beyond the Steam is a really well-done follow up in some ways, with a fascinating story, but I also can’t help but feel that it isn’t good at delivering when building on existing romances or finally romancing Sachsen. 

To begin with, Steam Prison: Beyond the Steam isn’t like fan disks for otome games like Virche Evermore -EpiC: Lycoris- or Radiant Tale: Fanfare. In both of those examples, you get additional epilogue stories set after the best endings of different character routes. There are also extra love interests, which in Radiant Tale: Fanfare’s case involved two pretty meaty stories for supporting cast members. With this Steam Prison follow-up, you basically get two paths, and there aren’t really individual, lengthy storylines for any love interest. 

Cainabel Story builds off of the Grand Ending from the first game. If you’re coming to Steam Prison: Beyond the Steam without having the original otome game, then good news! There’s an option to go through a summary to find out what happened. Which I did, because I never actually went for that ending in the first game. I went for Adage and Eltcreed, then decided I was done. Because of that decision, our heroine Cyrus didn’t form the ties you’d expect with the love interests from the original game. (You can change her name, of course.) Since the events of the Grand Ending mean many of the issues present in society previously are absent, there’s no divide between people from the Heights like her or ones in the Depths. The new legislature also means people are working together and aren’t limited to who they can or can’t associate with. But since we didn’t get to meet (and romance) people then, we now get new chances to build relationships with characters like Adage, Eltcreed, Fin, Ulrik, Yune, Jevite, and Jereme. 

It’s a very well written and executed story! We’re getting to see people interact in different ways, which I appreciated. There’s also a focus on the investigation around Cainabel, the new area discovered after going through the Depths. I still enjoy Cyrus as a heroine, and the bachelors are interesting candidates for love. The art is also still quite fantastic, and I love the design direction for characters and how this really feels like a steampunk type of period piece. 

The downside is, Steam Prison: Beyond the Steam doesn’t feel as much like an otome game as the original. This isn’t completely unexpected. I had an idea this would happen going in, as Steam Prison was more about the story about the divide between the Heights and Depths, dealing with government and authority figures I don’t agree with, and getting to see different sides of the world’s society depending on who you had Cyrus pursue. In this fan disk, this is basically a single storyline with events for the love interest you like occasionally coming up at certain points. Said moments might not feel completely romantic. So it’s an expected sort of progression and approach, but I will admit being a bit disappointed that there wasn’t the same weight and variety with separate routes and branching storylines based on who you choose to love.

The other main draw for Steam Prison: Beyond the Steam is the new Sachsen route in A New Theory. I loved Sachsen in the original otome game. I wanted to date him. Unlike the other mode, this one follows the story from the first entry, but adjusts it so Sachsen is an option after Cyrus finds herself living in the depths. In some ways, it is exactly what I wanted! I appreciated the art and the characterization still remains great. However, it is shorter than those routes for love interests in that installment, while also feeling a bit rushed. The pacing is off, which affected my enjoyment of it and made me feel like I wasn’t getting to know him as well as I did other characters like Eltcreed. 

Oh, there’s also Petit Prison. It’s a minigame with the characters. You basically look at scenes and need to find what is different. It is fine, but I didn’t feel an urge to play it more than once.

The thing about Steam Prison: Beyond the Steam is that going into it, you probably know this otome fan disk is going to be a lot like the original game. That means the romance won’t be a major focus, and a narrative getting into world building and perhaps making a difference in some ways will. The characterizations are on point, and it is fun to see familiar faces again. I just wish there had been more romance to it, with more fleshed out routes for characters, especially Sachsen since this is his moment.

Steam Prison: Beyond the Steam is available for the Nintendo Switch and PC.