Love and Deepspace has been dominating the mobile otome market since it launched in 2024. Few otome games have had the community in a chokehold the way LADS has, and I don’t really see it being dethroned anytime soon (especially after the hype around the newest love interest, Valko).
But, for folks looking for another mobile otome to sink their teeth into, the popular Chinese gacha game, Light and Night has an official English localization (granted it’s only available via the SEA server)! I recently had the chance to check out the game and let’s say I have some thoughts! So, let’s see if Light and Night is worth the hype!
About Light and Night
In the world of light, you are a rising designer chasing your dreams. In the dreams of night, you catch a glimpse of another hidden truth. Light and night exist side by side. Every choice you make shapes the final outcome. Will you remain in the light, or step forward into the night? In the end, it all comes down to a single choice. The wheel of fate turns with your decision.
Synopsis
Light and Night Review
Chinese Mobile Otome is coming to the West
Light and Night is a hugely popular game in China, dominating the otome space since it was released back in 2021. While I had heard whispers of the game in the fandom in the West, it largely flew under the radar compared to the otome juggernaut that is Love and Deepspace. But, now that the game has an official English language localization, maybe more international fans will have the opportunity to give the story a try. While I don’t think it’s going to loosen the chokehold LADS has on our collective pockets, it does offer a new contender in the mobile otome space for Western fans looking for something new.
After launching its closed beta in May, Light and Night is officially available in English, albeit via the SEA server. While not impossible to play now, it will take a bit more effort for folks not living within the SEA region. But, that is easily fixed with the use of a VPN to access the game.
But, even with the extra effort it took to play, Light and Night is one of the most beautiful games I have ever played! The main page can feel a bit busy with all the banners and notifications, but the details are stunning, from the UI design to the character sprites Light and Night is a visual feast for the eyes. In addition, the game utilized 2D Live animation for the character sprites that really breathes life into the characters whenever they are on screen.
An Immersive Urban Fantasy Adventure
Light and Night is an urban fantasy set against the backdrop of Guangqi City, a modern metropolis at the center of conflicts that threaten the balance of the human world. The game follows an aspiring fashion designer whose dream is to start her own fashion brand. In hopes of kickstarting her career, she enters a national fashion competition hosted by the prestigious fashion company, Warson. Unfortunately, she doesn’t win, but the company recognizes her potential and offers her a job as a junior designer with one of their elite teams. Undeterred, the heroine sees this as a chance to hone her skills and make a name for herself in the industry.
A lot of the focus of the early game revolves around the fashion industry. First following the MC as she comes up with inspiration for clothing designs for the Warson competition. Later shifting her work as a junior designer at Warson, as she navigates complex office politics to make a name for herself in the industry. Along the way, she finds herself thrown into strange situations that have her crossing paths with five mysterious (and handsome) men.
Little does she know that these chance encounters will put her at the center of strange goings on in the city from shady organizations to supernatural conflicts and more. Each new encounter unveils new truths that will either pull her further into the light or the night. Meeting the boys can seem a bit random at first. Like why would Xiao Yi, a world renowned racer, be hanging out at a fashion competition? Or after being chased by strange men, the MC just happens to run into her hot boss at a coffee shop, okay, sure. The only character introduction that felt natural was Qi Sili, because he’s a famous fashion designer, so of course their paths would cross. The story does eventually give context for these encounters, but early on it does make the guys a bit suspicious.
Mysterious Hot Men In Your Area
Light and Night is an otome, so of course hot men are on the menu! There are five love interests in the game, though you really only spend quality time with three of them in the first few chapters. Since the game is pretty grounded in reality, the LIs have pretty normal character designs; there are no crazy hair colors or unusual costumes. Just regular guys you would expect to meet on the street.
First, we meet the flirty racer, Xiao Yi skulking around rooftops and being hella suspicious. He is such a tease and I live for the witty banter and teasing whenever he and the MC cross paths. Then there’s Qi Sili, a famous fashion designer with the temperament of Gordon Ramsey, man does not miss an opportunity to insult the MC in some way. So, if you like a challenge, this is the man for you, because the man does not pull his punches. My fave though, is Lu Chen, a sweet gentlemanly megane we meet at a local coffee shop! He is husband material, he knows how to treat a lady right.
Of course there is more to these men than meets the eye and while the specifics are not fully confirmed in the early chapters each of the LIs have unique abilities. As you progress through the story you learn more about each of the LIs, their abilities, and their connection to the MC.
At the end of each chapter depending on your choices you will unlock either a Light or Night ending which explores a different aspect of the corresponding LI. While the endings don’t really change the overall story, they do provide a nice sort of resolution for each chapter. In addition, you can text and video call the LIs once each day, the video calls in particular are a lot of fun blending Live2D animation and voice acting to make it feel like you’re actually having a conversation with the guys. One of my favorite ones is Qi Sili reading “The Secret Garden” to the MC as a bedtime story. Getting a man as proud as him to read to me was surprisingly cute.
Gacha Gameplay is Both Immersive and Tedious
Light and Night has the standard mobile gacha gameplay balancing its time between its narrative-driven story, card battles, and various mini-games. While it isn’t reinventing the wheel in terms of gacha gameplay, there are plenty of unique features to keep players invested.
Full disclosure, I am not gacha girlie. I find a lot of the mini-games and grinding pretty tedious and constantly having to break up the story to fulfill checkpoint requirements frustrating. Not to mention repetitive card battles and often predatory microtransactions and you have a recipe for a bloated gameplay experience. I prefer to just pay upfront and enjoy the story at my leisure, so I tend to avoid gacha games on principle.
Now, I won’t lie and say that Light and Night is revolutionizing the gacha space, it has the same tried and true gameplay mechanics you’d expect from the genre. Outside of the story players will need to pull for cards featuring images of the love interests that are used to complete card-based battles. If you’ve played a gacha game you are already familiar with the various card rankings and success (or failure) of pulling for cards, so I won’t bore you with those details here, though each card has one of five attributes (think Pokemon elemental matchups) so, you’ll need to use strategy to complete the obligatory battle checkpoints. The card battles are pretty quick, especially when you spam the autoplay feature, so they don’t take up too much time.
While the standard gacha mechanics aren’t much to write home about, I did really enjoy the fashion-centric mini games and features. If you’re a dress-up girlie, the game lets you unlock outfits and accessories for the MC to wear. It’s purely aesthetic but I did like that the MC’s sprite in the main story changes to match whatever outfits you put her in. Also, there is a design mini-game where you can craft new clothing pieces by completing a short rhythm game segment. I am not the best at rhythm games, but they are simple enough and I appreciate the effort to tie in the mini-games with the fashion premise.
The Localization Needs Some Serious Work
Okay, so I have to address the localization and the voice acting in Light and Night, because oh boy was it a mixed bag. I played the game with the English voiceover and text and it needs work. Let’s start with the voice acting!
So, the positives: I appreciate that almost every character, including the side characters, have voiced lines, there are some mainstream Switch releases that don’t even do that. Also, while I liked the voices of the characters overall, there were a few that were a bit at odds with what I was expecting based on the character designs. Like I expected Lu Chen to have a deeper voice, and Xiao Yi sounds a smidge younger than I was hoping for. But, it’s not a deal breaker, just something I had to get used to.
Now, the negatives: The voice acting is extremely flat and the delivery is so at odds with the emotions meant to be conveyed in some scenes that it was bordering on comedy. It very much feels like someone just blindly reading a script rather than really trying to sell the scenes. It is very clear there was very little in the way of voice direction for the actors, and the quality as it stands makes me suspect AI was used at least partially with the voice over. The worst offender is Cody, one of the more prominent side characters! He has a lot of lines and it was painful to listen to, to the point that I considered turning the voice acting off during his scenes. The main cast is slightly better, but the delivery still sounded a bit mechanical which really kills the mood during some of the more intimate scenes.
The actual text and dialogue in Light and Night isn’t the worst localization I have ever seen, but it certainly isn’t the best either. I was able to follow the flow of the story with very little issue, but there were quite a few grammatical and spelling errors throughout the script. In addition there is a stilted and awkward cadence to the dialogue that feels oddly unnatural, that seems to indicate that there was very little oversight from actual native English speakers. It really starts to take away from your enjoyment of the game as you progress and because I played the game live on stream a lot of the issues were much more noticeable. The team is really going to need to overhaul this localization before the global server launch, because this is disappointing.
Is Light and Night Worth Playing?
Light and Night is a visually beautiful game that has the bones of a great experience. It really takes its time building up the mystery, gradually easing players into some of the darker elements of the story and the characters. The love interests are fun and I enjoyed getting to know them in the early chapters of the game, though Lu Chen has my whole heart!
The gacha gameplay is standard and as someone who isn’t a huge mobile gamer, I found the gameplay a bit tedious but inoffensive. But, the story is interesting enough that I am willing to overlook my frustrations if it means unlocking new chapters. But, the localization really needs a lot of work, it’s not great and it really detracts from what promises to be an interesting story. While not unplayable, it is rough.
Overall, Light and Night is a stunning game full of beautiful boys to ogle, so if you’re looking for a new mobile game to dive into, this is worth checking out. But, if you do decide to give Light and Night a try, be mindful of the localization issues.
