Developer: Butter Cat (Published by 072 Project)
Genre: Simulation
Store: Steam
Reviewed version: Final
Censored: No
Patch Needed: No
OS: Windows
Language: English, Japanese, and Chinese
One of my favorite current trends in NSFW gaming is mixing working out with spicy situations, so there was no way I'd pass the chance to review Love x Crotch x Gym, a game you may or may not have seen me talk about when I covered the latest Steam Next Fest.
Pros
Its plot is enjoyable and features a lovely cast
Solid and fun minigames
The game’s visuals are gorgeous
Neutral
Most sex scenes aren’t animated
Cons
The mini-games become somewhat irrelevant in the second half of the game.
Story
It puts you in the shoes of Seigi, Masterpiece's gym trainer and childhood friend of the Gym's owner, who has to manage the whole gym and take care of the needs of its loyal customers during the two months she'll be away on a business trip to expand the brand overseas. Of course, he'll get a very juicy "reward" if he manages to accomplish his task. The game doesn't have an overarching plot per se. Instead, it focuses on the relationship between the protagonist and the trio of lovely regulars: Misuzu, a hard-ass lawyer who works out to vent her frustrations; Kurea, a doting married woman who is always lonely due to her husband's constant business trips; and Yuiki, the campus idol.
Moreover, the characters get a good chunk of development in the different events featured throughout the game, explaining the characters' motivations, showing their backstory, and giving players a peek at their personalities. The plot may not be groundbreaking, as it's not the game's main focus, but it's enjoyable enough to complement the gameplay nicely.
Gameplay
It's a solid management sim game in which you have 60 days to put the three women you're assigned to in top shape. How? By triggering specific events tied to how much they like you and meeting them at specific locations in the gym. Each day is split into four phases: Morning, Afternoon, Night, and Bedtime. The first three phases consist of doing different activities, such as interacting with the girls, training to increase your max stamina, cleaning the gym to get extra money, and resting to recover your stamina. As for your interactions with the girls, you choose between training them to increase their performance and their affection towards you at the expense of their exhaustion, giving them massages to reduce their tiredness so they are at peak performance, and gifting them food and drinks that affect their stats a bit.
The best part is that training segments incorporate some fun minigames in which you have to fill a progress bar within a time limit, and how much their stats increase depends on how well you did. Moreover, there's a specific minigame for each type of workout. For example, the one in the aerobics section consists of pressing left and right within a few seconds, the dance sessions require you to repeat sequences, the weightlifting workout consists of pressing space when a rotating arrow covers a specific area, and similarly, the yoga sessions require you to hit space when a growing circle is about to hit a designated limit. Moreover, their difficulty increases as you progress, with some getting gradually harder and others getting twice as hard once the progress bar is halfway filled.
Last but not least, the bedtime phase allows you to buy up to 2 different items, whether they are food and drinks you use to replenish your energy or gift them to the girls, a special juice that increases your max stamina, and manuals that allow you to skip the minigames and get a perfect score from them. It pushes you to strategize how to spend your money and plan what to use the next day, but at the same time, it makes it possible for you to be able to skip all the minigames by the time you reach the second half of the game if you manage your money well.
Visuals and Sexual Content
You can tell the devs put a lot of effort into the game's art because it's gorgeous. It features eye-catching backgrounds, gorgeous character designs, lovely animated sprites, and a polished UI. All the sex scenes are vanilla and made of still shots, with those short transition segments made with pixel art that play when picking the Sex option when interacting with the girls being the only animated scenes. Each girl has four scenes available that take quite a bit to unlock, though the game includes a gallery where you can replay those events if you're in the mood.
Verdict: Enjoyable
Love x Crotch x Gym may not be perfect, but it's a fun game with a decent story, gorgeous visuals, and entertaining gameplay that anyone who likes management games and skill-based minigames may enjoy.