Competence is easy to admire when it is real. I had more fun watching people bluff their way toward it. There is a particular kind of comedy in seeing a bad plan survive one conversation too many, especially when the people telling the lies slowly become capable of doing the job they only pretended they could handle.
By the time The Pretenders Guild sent me to New Trinity, Paris and Ash had already lost the restaurants they ran back home after the king’s taxes left their hometown in ruins. Broke and needing money quickly, they answer an advertisement looking for a guild to escort someone to the capital and simply pretend to be the adventurers the job requires. I liked how little ceremony the setup needed. The scam gets everyone moving almost immediately, then leaves the friendships and romances to complicate a plan that was shaky from the start.
Ash’s customization gave that setup more replay value than I expected. I could choose gender, pronouns, appearance, voice, and one of three backgrounds, Shika, Reaver, or Cubi, and that last choice determines which two of the three romance routes are available. Rafael can be pursued by a Shika or Cubi Ash, Paris by a Reaver or Cubi, and Braums by a Shika or Reaver. Those backgrounds also change pieces of dialogue and characterization, so replaying with another Ash did more than swap a portrait. I especially liked that the customization feeds back into who Ash is allowed to become close to rather than sitting apart from the story as decoration.
The choices themselves work through emotions, with optional hints available if I wanted clearer guidance, and that suited a game built around personality better than a plain list of neutral responses would have. The structure is still fairly linear, but eight endings and additional unlockable scenes gave me reasons to keep circling back. At roughly 98,000 words, there is enough material here for those returns to feel worthwhile, although repeating shared story sections eventually made the route differences less surprising than they were the first time through.
I enjoyed the cast most when the romance candidates were allowed to bounce off one another instead of waiting politely for their own routes. Rafael’s calm, literal manner makes his misunderstandings funny without turning him into a joke, while Paris has years of history with Ash that give his flirting a familiarity the other relationships cannot copy. Braums brings a more awkward energy into the group, and the contrast between all three kept the guild scenes lively. I came for the individual routes, but the group chemistry did more to convince me that these people belonged together.
That warmth matters because The Pretenders Guild keeps returning to friendship and honesty underneath the comedy. The original setup is a lie, yet I gradually cared less about whether the group could maintain the act than about the relationships forming around it. I will not say where any route or ending takes that idea. What stayed with me was the way a get-rich-quick scheme slowly gave me a group I wanted to see remain together, even when their reasons for being there were messy.
Harlevin handled the story, art, music, and programming, and the amount of material packed into the finished release is hard for me to ignore. There are 30 CGs, and I liked having those larger illustrations break up the regular dialogue scenes at moments worth remembering. The original soundtrack is also Harlevin’s work and was released separately on SoundCloud. I never felt the music was fighting the comedy or romance for attention, which suited a story that already has plenty happening in its conversations.
Voice acting became another substantial part of the finished version. Four actors voice the different Ash options, Justin Sabio, Christian O’Boyle, Elissa Park, and Dani Chambers, while Tony Onorific voices Paris, Belsheber Rusape voices Rafael, and Joshua Waters voices Braums. Being able to choose Ash’s voice alongside their appearance made the protagonist customization feel unusually complete to me. The current release is fully voiced, and hearing different versions of Ash occupy the same role gave repeat playthroughs another small but noticeable change in personality.
I also appreciated a few options that are easy to overlook in a free visual novel. The game supports one-button input, lets me change the font from the main menu, and even allows the main menu screen itself to be changed. None of those features transformed the story, but together they made the release feel more considered than its price suggests. The content warnings cover language, descriptions of intimacy, brief nudity, minor drug and alcohol references, and violence, without those elements becoming the identity of the experience.
Harlevin originally released The Pretenders Guild under the Minyan Studios name before rebranding the one-person studio as Harlevin. Years later, Celestial Crowns was described by the developer as its spiritual successor, carrying forward character customization and three romance interests while replacing emotion-based choices with personality-based ones. That connection made sense to me after finishing this. The customization here never felt like a side feature, so I can understand why it became something worth building on rather than leaving behind.
Verdict
The Pretenders Guild won me over by letting its central bluff become the starting point for a much warmer story about friendship, romance, and the identities people choose for themselves. Ash’s background meaningfully changes route access, the three romance options bring different relationships into the same group, and the amount of art, music, voice work, and replayable material gives this free release far more scope than I expected. I came away remembering the guild less for how badly its members begin pretending to be adventurers than for how convincing they become as a group.
