Imagine you are reborn into a world as an adventurer and end up forming a party with a dumb goddess who drinks too much, an explosion-happy wizard who complains about being flat-chested, and a noble warrior who gets turned on by the idea of being eaten by monsters. What sort of hijinks would you think you’d end up stumbling into while adventuring with an eccentric party like that? Konosuba: Love for These Clothes of Desire answers that question by giving Konosuba fans a wacky dress-up visual novel filled with sexy, salacious outfits to dress the Konosuba women in, producing some interesting storylines that range from humorous to straight up raunchy.
Konosuba: Love for These Clothes of Desire is technically a loose sequel to the Japan-only game titled Konosuba: Judgment on this Greedy Game released in 2017, but works just fine as a standalone game that can be enjoyed by fans. While on the road, Kazuma, Megumin, Aqua, and Darkness—the main characters of Konosuba—happen to stumble across a strange black slab that has some sort of illegible text on it. The party discovers that the black slab can create clothing by using ingredients and materials. They also, unfortunately, discover it is cursed to awaken the opposite desire within a person, and the curse can only be lifted by fulfilling the physical and mental components of their new desire. The longer the curse remains on its unassuming target, the more permanent the change becomes until their original desire is replaced with the new one. To add fuel to the fire, the party also discovers that the slab was stolen from a nobleman who accuses them of its theft, leaving Kazuma, Megumin, Aqua, and Darkness to be forced to fulfill the nobleman’s demands for strange outfits as they try to prove their innocence and save each party members from the curse of the black slab.
People who have engaged with the anime, manga, or light novels within the Konosuba series will be familiar with the cast present in the game and their personality types. The first person to be affected by the curse is Darkness who goes from being a masochist seeking humiliation from others around her to a sadist who thrives on the humiliation of others. The second person affected is Megumin, who goes from being envious of women with large boobs to embracing her existence as a flat-chested lolita. Aqua finds herself the third victim of the black slab’s curse, making her go from being selfish and hedonistic to selfless like a proper goddess, although she still loves her bubbly.
In order to cure the party from their curse and save them from death by order of the nobleman, they all must go out on quests to collect items in order to craft a variety of sexy and suggestive outfits. There are also bonus outfits that can be made which unlocks additional storylines and increases the relationships between Kazuma and the three woman in his party as well and familiar supporting characters from the Konosuba series including Sena, Chris, Wiz, and Yunyun.
The game combines visual novel storytelling and task management in order to create clothing so players can progress through the wacky story of Konosuba: Love for These Clothes of Desire. Players are given a certain amount of days to go on quests or complete part-time jobs in order to fulfill the nobleman’s outfit request. Every five days operates a bit like this: three days are blocked off for players to select tasks in order to collect materials. Sometimes certain tasks will trigger story scenes that range from being extremely humorous to just plain uncomfortable depending on your tolerance for sexual innuendos and content.
After the schedule is run for this three days, players will get the chance to watch a scene in different locations that gives them the chance to increase Kazuma’s relationship with one of the seven women. The fifth day is when players can shop for additional materials to use in outfit crafting and actually craft the outfits. The cycle continues until the player creates the main story outfits or runs out of days to create the outfits.
It requires some good time management to make sure the necessary materials are being collected from part-time jobs and quests, not to mention the fact there are so many additional outfits that can be crafted that aren’t a part of the main storyline but can influence which ending the player gets for Kazuma. Thankfully, Konosuba: Love for These Clothes of Desire is pretty fast so players can play through many different endings without feeling pressured to complete them on their first playthrough. Somehow I managed to make outfits for mainly Yunyun, which gave me her ending when I completed my first playthrough, although I had been mainly aiming for an ending with Aqua.
I found the time management aspect of this game to be rather creative and a nice way to make the game more interactive since players will need to actively manage their items and prioritize certain outfits before running out of time in each chapter to complete the main story outfits. Also, the game actively rewards mediocrity by showing unique events if you have Megumin, Aqua, and Darkness complete part-time jobs they dislike.
