Piofiore is a mixed bag. While I personally enjoyed it overall, many of the routes have issues that make them difficult to go back to. In particular, Orlock's route is a miserable despair-fest that doesn't feel like it's earned; no other route is as relentlessly miserable as his, and his bad end in particular is horrific and doesn't feel tonally appropriate with the other bad ends in the game. On the flip side, Liliana is a fantastic heroine who genuinely surprised me with her strength. She may not be a fighter, but she's incredibly mentally resilient, and despite her inexperience she's not naive. It is slightly frustrating that many mysteries are not answered by the game, made a little bit better by Episodio 1926, but nevertheless if you can accept its flaws, Piofiore is still a fun ride.

I often refer to this as the best and worst otome I have played so far. This should come with a trigger warning for the amount of non con happening. This is not your sweet and innocent otome. The story gets DARK in certain parts, which is not necessarily a bad thing, but it certainly took me by surprise.

I appreciated how distinctly different the love interests were, with both personality and how their story lines progressed, I also liked that the initial chapter was short, so the majority of the events happening in the story changed based on which character was involved.

This game has GORGEOUS artwork, probably the best I have seen in an otome so far and the visuals for the romance scenes are absolute 10/10.

There is a plethora of endings to achieve (not only good and bad), it took me 40 hours to get to all of them.

I am rating it at 5/5 because of how it played, how much it made me feel and because it has been months and I still think about this every now and then.

UGH. GRANDIOSO. GAME-CHANGING. eu adoro a ambientação (sendo concretizada com a arte, bgs, ost e até a cultura mostrada no jogo), e perdão dizer, eu adoro caos e pancadaria e crimes em otoge e claro que piofiore entrega isso e arrasa. pode apostar que seu garoto favorito vai morrer de forma violenta em uns 5 finais diferentes, wow! além dos love interests serem adoráveis de formas diferentes (exceto o henri, acho ele pau mole, e o nicola não é o tipo de namorado que eu iria querer de jeito nenhum MAS ele tem Aquele Final que vale a pena), os coadjuvantes também são ótimos. uma experiência válida coooom toda certeza, só acho meio longo e arrastado em algumas partes, e até hoje fico meio confusa do porquê do gilbert ser a última rota e não o dante. o dante tem a Vibe de posterboy!

Polished As Heck!!!
Art: stunning. Music: perfect. Voice Acting: bravo. in terms of production value, this is everything a visual novel should be.

Routes may be hit or miss depending on personal taste. The bad ends are no joke!!! They’re seriously dark. Personally, I enjoyed the variety of darker turns, especially in a Mafia story that often got too saccharine for its own good. Since I’m an angst fiend I was glad to have my fill, but yeah, some of those ends deserve some hefty content/trigger warnings.

Otome games can sometimes make the heroine clueless and shallow in order to cater to different routes: Piofiore mostly avoids this by having the love interests and villains change their personalities, rather than the protagonist. Mostly this works, sometimes it’s Dante… who I swear I don’t hate, he was just written all over the damn place. Speaking of, the story sometimes stretched itself too thin trying to DaVinci Code itself. On the flip-side, there’s a wealth of side characters actually worth caring about, and a story packed with weak-but-intriguing-enough political machination. I was rarely bored, and often eager to play just one more scene. (Except in cough Dante’s route cough)… The plot branches early and takes wildly different turns depending on the LI, which was also really refreshing and kept me coming back for more.

By far my own personal fave was Yang, who was a delightful psychopath in every route; the one character who didn’t shift his morals to meet the heroine’s storyline. He’s just a bad, sexy, bad, naughty, bad man. I can respect that. Gil is also very, VERY good; perhaps the first Final Otome Boy I was actually dying to unlock, and he was worth the wait.

Anyway. I’m glad to hear the sequel is being localized; I hope Yang comes back to kill me soon.

I think this one is definitely a must play for Otome fans! I have to say, I kind of have a love/hate relationship with it?? Especially after playing the sequel (you can read my super long review of that one lol). For me personally, I had to take breaks at some point because it’s just a lot, and made me feel all the emotions.
My #1 was definitely Dante, I know it’s not really explicitly stated that he’s the “canon” route or the “poster boy” of the game (especially since his route isn’t locked until the end), but I feel like it’s kind of made out to be that way, especially since he’s on the cover of both games. Regardless, I’m a sucker for kuudere, soft LIs and Dante checks all those boxes. He’s just a sweetheart and I couldn’t get enough of him. And yes, he’s stupid hot 🥵
I have so many other thoughts I could share but will leave it here lol. The last thing I’ll say is that this game’s artwork and music are absolutely top tier. The CGs are just stunning and a lot of the musical pieces were very emotionally captivating.

Overall, I found Piofiore to be decently enjoyable. Like Code: Realize and Collar x Malice, it's very plot-heavy at the expense of romance, but it's not entirely without some heart-fluttering and steamy scenes. Sadly, none of the LIs really captured my heart, but the routes were still fun to read for the most part. That said, the finale was kind of a mess, and the "core" plot never explored some of the things I hoped it would. Also, the food descriptions always made me hungry.

Things I Liked:
- A+ voice acting from some familiar names.
- Gorgeous art and MC.
- The M rating is definitely earned; some themes and endings are very dark.
- Despite being a naive, sheltered church girl, Liliana was a solid MC who knows how to play to her strengths.

Things I Didn't Like:
- The LIs. I can excuse organized crime, but I draw the line at Catholicism (jk jk jk. kinda.)
- The behavior of some LIs in other routes was frustrating and downright baffling to me.
- Oliver doesn't have a route of his own.

Came for Gilbert Redford, stayed for... EVERYONE! (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧

Pros:
✓ The Story - the overall world-building in this game is great, the setting is clear and the characters' places in society is made evident at the very beginning. The routes themselves are also very entertaining.
✓ The Character Images are top notch! I usually hate playing the bad endings/tragic endings in Otome Games but the artwork is so beautiful it made me WANT to play every ending just to complete my image collections.
✓ The routes vary a lot. I love this because one thing central to many otome games is the repetition between routes especially if you play routes back-to-back. However, Piofiore varies so much between routes that other than the very beginning dialogues there is seldom you need to skip.
✓ The LI's are just phenomenal. They're all quite different and all have flaws (some more than others cough Yang cough). You won't always see their full spectrum of colors until you do other routes and get a good grasp of them outside of their main routes.
✓ The voice acting is elite. Seriously, some of the best I've seen in otome games. All the voices fit the characters to a T, and if I had to pick my absolute favorite it'd be Yang's VA. He delivered the voice of Yang to infinity and beyond. Seriously just buy this game for Yang's voice acting no cap.

Cons:
✕ I wish all of the routes were as equally action-packed and interesting. I won't go into much detail here to avoid spoilers, but there is definitely an imbalance when it comes to entertainment factor between routes. Some routes will have you on the edge of your seat the entire time and others will pale in comparison.
✕ The bad endings (NOT to be confused with the tragic endings) are forced and mostly for the sake of "completion". There is absolutely nothing interesting about them and they actually undo good characterization (especially Orlok's bad endings).
✕ Without spoiling anything, people need to beware there are mature and uncomfortable themes in this game (Yang's route specifically). It wasn't something that bothered me, but there are a lot of people that could be triggered by such things. I didn't see much of a "disclaimer" type thing for this game so I wish they had made it a little more evident that there are potentially harmful themes in this game. Please that in mind before purchasing if you are someone who may be upset by the nature of these themes.
✕ I'm a sucker for side characters so I wish they had at least some more background information on characters like Marco, Luca, or Roberto (Roberto deserves a route highkey).

Rankings:
These are my personal rankings from Most Interesting to Least Interesting when it comes to ROUTES. This takes into account how much *I* enjoyed the story and how engaging it was overall.
1) Yang - Edge of your seat interesting.
2) Dante - Lot's of one-on-one time...
3) Nicola - Great story progression and plot twists!
4) Gilbert - Ehhhhhh.
5) Orlok - Romance factor is pretty much non-existent.

Here are my rankings for the actual LI's themselves (totally personal preference).
1) Gilbert - I've got a thing for eye-patch guys okay?
2) Dante - Have you seen Dante tho.
3) Yang - His voice is just... PLAY THIS GAME FOR HIS VOICE.
4) Nicola - Tbh his character art is way better than his main appearance but meh.
5) Orlok - I prefer mature looking LI's and he is the opposite of that lmao.

I like my otome games with plot and without stupid protagonists. Piofiore mostly checks off these boxes.

The plot in Piofiore was what you'd expect from a mafia game set in the Italian 1920s, and it was pretty good if predictable at times. It wasn't afraid to get dark when needed either. Please be aware that sexual assault occurs in some of these bad ends. Some of the bad ends were really, really Y I K E S.

Liliana is a decent protagonist. She comes off as naïve but that's to be expected with her background. She adapts to her situation, depending on whichever route she's on, and though she can come off as a little passive in some routes is overall a character with her own ideals and a backbone to to stand up for them and the ability to make decisions when needed.

It's easy to say the art is gorgeous, the setting well-done, the music suiting and voice acting superb. If you're looking for an otome game with a story that moves along at a fairly quick pace due to its interesting plot and don't mind the violence and questionable content in the bad ends (or willing to skip them), Piofiore is a very easy recommend.