TL;DR: The Muv-Luv trilogy is a must-read for anyone who calls themself a fan of visual novels. That said, its legendary status is only made apparent after reading all three games: Extra, Unlimited, and Alternative (note that this Steam title includes both Extra and Unlimited). While I would be cautious to recommend only Extra and Unlimited, I wholeheartedly recommend them in the context of the entire trilogy. Extra is redeemed by Unlimited and you will be thoroughly rewarded with Alternative.

This is a difficult game to explain without spoilers. So difficult, in fact, that the official Steam description and preview video delve into spoiler territory. Regardless, I will try to stay spoiler-free.

Muv-Luv is a visual novel trilogy and franchise that is highly celebrated in both Japan and the west. On EGS (Japanese), Alternative is ranked the #3 VN of all time. On VNDB (English), Alternative is ranked the #1 VN of all time by a significant margin (July 2016).

This Steam title, Muv-Luv, includes the first two parts of the trilogy: Muv-Luv Extra and Muv-Luv Unlimited.

I implore you to not skip straight to Unlimited (Part 2). Extra (Part 1), despite being slow, is a requirement to fully set the characters and tone for the sequels. This series truly is something special, but only when read in full.

Muv-Luv Extra is your generic anime high-school rom-com. The MC, Takeru, is your generic self-insert protagonist. Meiya is the generic affluent ojou-sama. Sumika is the generic short-tempered childhood friend. Ayamine is the generic Rei expy. I could go on.

While Extra is not terrible, it's nothing special on its own. It's leagues better than many VNs on Steam, that's for sure, but its real purpose is to build up the characters and set the scene for the remaining two games.

Unlimited--which is included in this release--is where things start to get unique and interesting (sci-fi, mecha, drama) but you must read Extra to fully appreciate it (and also to eventually appreciate Alternative, which is god-tier).

ART: Despite being an old game, Muv-Luv's art holds up surprisingly well. The rUGP engine was ahead of its time, and that helps breathe life into the visuals for Muv-Luv. The artwork itself, while aged, has an undeniable charm that keeps it fresh even in the age of perfectly polished HD assets.

MUSIC: You may have heard that Muv-Luv has an incredible soundtrack. Anyone saying that is referring to Alternative, which does have a phenomenal OST. Unfortunately, this is not true for Extra nor Unlimited. The slice of life soundtracks are repetitive in the worst way and there's not a wide variety of them.

VOICE: The voices, overall, are pretty good. I would prefer to have a fully voiced MC, but the performances from the rest of the voice actors make up for it.

ANIMATION: Muv-Luv was made long before the Live-2D or e-Mote systems were implemented and stood out as having brilliant animation for its time. The animation, especially in this renewed edition, still stands strong. You won't see most of the animated scenes until Unlimited (and only then ultimately polished in Alternative), but these scenes further down the line make you feel like you're watching a well-choreographed cutscene.

STORY: The series is praised for good reason. Unfortunately, it doesn't shine until Unlimited and doesn't fully blossom until Alternative. You will have to trust me on this one: Extra is a slow trudge, but you'll be happy to have not skipped it when reading Alternative.

This ended up longer than I expected. Should you buy this game? Yes, absolutely. But you must also buy and play Alternative for the full experience.

It's difficult to talk about the Muv-Luv series without devolving into platitudes like, "an unforgettable experience," or "one of the greatest VNs of all time." That's because it truly is something special. It's an introspective epic, full of action, comedy, and pathos. I consider it a masterpiece, not only within its genre, but among all contemporary fiction.

If you are at all interested in mecha, this is a must-play. If you are enjoy military fiction (e.g. Starship Troopers), you will love this. If you want visceral drama -- if you want to feel hope, horror, sadness, and relief -- this game will take your emotions for a ride. If you want to read something with intricate detail in military operations and quantum mechanics, this is it.

Yet it's difficult to recommend.

Muv-Luv is a visual novel (all story, no gameplay) originally released in 2003. It comprises the first two entries in the Muv-Luv trilogy: Muv-Luv Extra and Muv-Luv Unlimited. The final and most renowned entry, Muv-Luv Alternative, was released as a separate product in 2006, and, accordingly, the English localization will be sold separately.

If that's confusing: don't worry about it. Point is, this game is only 2/3rds of the full Muv-Luv experience, but it's the entire original game. For the purposes of this review, I'm looking at the series as a whole.

Why is Muv-Luv difficult to recommend to newcomers? The main reason is its sheer length. Extra and Unlimited together (that is, this Steam product) will probably take an average reader 40+ hours to complete. Alternative is about another 50+ hours on top of that. The whole series is bigger than most other VNs, including Clannad, Fate/stay night, and YU-NO. It has more words than War and Peace twice over, or all the Harry Potter books put together. It is long.

If that scares you, turn back now.

Still with me? Of course, the prose is nowhere near as dense as War and Peace, and a very large portion is voiced dialogue that goes at a comfortable peace. The series has highly advanced graphics by VN standards, with moving sprites, traditional animation, and 3D scenes, and a phenomenal soundtrack featuring JAM Project. It's not a dry read by any means.

But compounding the issue of length is that the game doesn't fully blossom until its final part, Muv-Luv Alternative. The themes that compose its central drama are merely touched upon in Extra, and Unlimited only goes toe-deep into the pool. For that reason, there are some who advocate skipping Extra, or Extra and Unlimited, entirely.

There's some merit to the idea. Frankly, Extra isn't anything special by itself. It's a generic romantic comedy, albeit a fun and amusing one, with little of import to say. Unlimited is largely the same thing, except with a change in milieu and some minor mecha elements.

However, I strongly recommend against skipping straight to Alternative. Not only would you lose out on crucial story, foreshadowing, and character development, it would be missing the entire point of Muv-Luv.

I have been intentionally scant on plot details throughout this review, but I can safely say this: Muv-Luv is about what we take for granted. It's about the duty one bears not only to himself, but to his country and his loved ones. The protagonist, Shirogane Takeru, lives a blissful, unaware life at the story's beginning. By the end, he will be confronted and challenged time and again, forced to evaluate himself and strive toward virtue.

The banality of Extra, then, is a crucial part of the experience. It grounds ourselves (as readers) in a world similar to our own, if slightly wackier and more harem-centric. When that carefree lifestyle is taken away from our protagonist, we feel the loss too. And when glimpses of it return later on -- fragments of peace amid despair -- we cherish it all the more.

What Muv-Luv does is bold and unusual. The first 20+ hours that a reader invests into the series are of enormously different character than its greatest part. Pragmatically speaking, that isn't bearable for most people, especially since it's polarizing content in its own right (being anime-inspired, reliant on Japanese culture, etc.).

Moreover, even when Muv-Luv is at its best, it's not the sort of writing that will appeal to all tastes. Lengthy action scenes are marked by even lengthier build-ups, and there are frequent monologues during periods of reflection. And tangential “infodump” scenes break up the pace to flesh out the world and explain events in more detail than practically necessary. These aspects make for excellent immersion and worldbuilding (think The Lord of the Rings), but can be off-putting to a reader looking for nothing more than hot-blooded action and drama.

So Muv-Luv is not for everybody.

But I love this game and wish for it to be loved by more.

If you haven't played a visual novel before, but find what I've said appealing and aren't scared away by the copious amounts of moe, give it a shot! If you are a fan of visual novels but haven't played Muv-Luv, what are you waiting for? It's a masterpiece.

«The first 20+ hours of the game are spent in light hearted atmosphere where the player gets to interact with standard anime girls. Even the beginning of Muv-Luv: Alternative is a power trip where the supersoldier protagonist breezes through basic training and displays his superior piloting skills (mecha otakuness pays off in the end). AND THEN IT GRABS YOU BY THE HAIR, PULLS YOU UP AND STARTS F***ING YOU IN YOUR FACE.»
- Anonymous board user describing his experience with the Muv-Luv trilogy

Muv-Luv is massive, by all means.

What on the first glance looks like a generic high-school-romance visual novel in fact turns into a dramatic SciFi / mecha / military-themed universe which took many influences from other franchises such as Starship Troopers, Evangelion or Gunbuster. The Muv-Luv franchise was actually so successful that meanwhile it expanded into numerous sequels, spin-offs, light novels, anime series and much more.

To begin with, this particular release of Muv-Luv consists of two separate games which you can select from in the main menu, Extra and Unlimited. Extra can be considered as a lighthearted introduction to the main characters while Unlimited finally introduces you to the serious SciFi world in which the franchise mainly takes place.

Personally I interpret both games as an overly long prologue to the amazing 50 hours long Muv-Luv: Alternative, the third game of the original trilogy which many players consider one of the best visual novels ever made (not included in this particular release, sold separately). That being said you need to bring up the patience and effort to read through both Extra and Unlimited, since in total it takes about 30 hours until you've seen all the endings. And to be honest, some routes and story branches in both games are not even that interesting. For instance I found Ayamine's route in Extra exhaustingly tedious.

BUT (and here it gets interesting) it still pays off if you read through everything and therefore immerse yourself into Muv-Luv's characters and world, since later in the third game a huge chunk of the story touches upon that. After sucking in all that what Extra and Unlimited offered, finishing the third game will be one of the most rewarding and complete visual novel experiences you might ever have.

Therefore especially Extra may leave you rather unimpressed at first, but the experience definitely takes epic proportions by the time you finished both games and finally start Alternative.

In case you never played any visual novel before, here's the deal: You read yourself through textboxes and occassionally make decisions that to some extend change the outcome of the ending. Everything is accompanied by CGs, an appropiate soundtrack and sometimes even by voice actors. What may sound pretty boring to many is in fact pretty intense. Visual novels have the pace and format to tell such detailed and immersive stories that animes, movies or TV shows can't equally pull off due to their technical limitations. What a movie cramps down to 2 hours, a visual novel makes you experience in 40.

The story of Muv-Luv puts you in the shoes of Takeru, a regular, rather lazy Japanese high school student who's into mecha arcade games, good food and the comforts of life. He is best friends with Sumika, the girl next door who spent all her childhood with him. When he's not spending his spare time with her or his other buddy Mikoto in the local arcades, he's usually goofing around at school and interacting with his mostly female classmates. But everything changes as one day Takeru wakes up in his bed - next to a unknown, mysterious girl...

Telling anything more would already result in spoilers, but rest assured that you'll adore the Muv-Luv trilogy if you like SciFi-themed anime with military / mecha / conspiracy / traumatizing vibes to it. The later parts specifically reminded me of Verhoeven's Starship Troopers, which I already mentioned before.

Now the Muv-Luv games initially started as Eroge visual novels with some kinky +18 scenes in it. This particular Steam release (also known as All-Ages version) has all of the H-scenes removed due to Steam's content policies. The developers / publishers solved this problem by offering a separately available Director's Cut patch that unlocks the +18 CGs in the game. While that's technically a good solution, the bad news is that you need to fork out another $10 for that patch, which is quite a rip-off in my opinion. In the end it doesn't even affect that many CG's and scenes, which are pixelized anyway due to Japanese pornography law. Furthermore personally I didn't like the kinky scenes that much since they kinda feel out of place considering the intense story and all - but that's up to you.

So, should you get it?

If all that already sounds too long and tedious for you, then just leave it be. You'll most likely get bored after a few hours of listening to Sumika's annoying chatter.

But if you're ready to dive into this universe that later shines with excellent world-building and geekiness, then come on board and enjoy this rollercoaster full of excitement, emotions, blood and tears. Consider this release as an overly long prelude to Muv-Luv: Alternative, which will most likely blow you away completely.

6 out of 10 Yakisoba Pans, if you look at both first games from a individual perspective
8 out of 10 Henyus, if you put both first games it in context with the complete trilogy

«That purple haired girl has interesting and seemingly impossible polygonal shaped hair.»
- Random normie comment about one of the protagonists

tl;dr: Good title, becomes excellent when combined with its sequel, Alternative, which is not yet released.

Ignore the play time, I've read the series before this Steam release.

First things first: if you plan to read the entire series (or even just Alternative), go in as blind as you can for the best experience. DON'T google search, DON'T search Youtube, DON'T go to wikis, as these are all places where you will likely encounter spoilers in some fashion. Even if you don't run into a spoiler directly, any site with comments has a high potential of *that guy* who likes to spoil things because he wants to be a douche.

Muv-luv is a highly acclaimed series of Visual Novels, much of which is focused on Alternative, the third part of the trilogy which has not yet been released. This title contains the first two parts, Extra and Unlimited, which I believe are essential to the experience. While Alternative is where the rollercoaster is most thrilling, the climb up provided by the two parts in this title enhance the experience, and in my opinion, are pretty good themselves.

Extra is the first part of the trilogy, and it is a fairly standard Slice of Life High School Romcom. It establishes many of the important characters in the series, and has some foreshadowing of future events. Its most important role is to establish emotional connections between you and the characters in a carefree environment. If you find this part unbearable, the main route(s) to read for plot are Sumika's and/or Meiya's. These two routes are largely the same, except for the ending, and completing these two were originally required before unlocking Unlimited. The other routes obviously delve more in-depth with the other heroines, and also introduce a few side characters who pop up later, but are not necessary to the main story.

Unlimited is the second part; in this Steam version, it is unlocked from the start, but I would highly recommend reading at least one of Sumika/Meiya in Extra before reading Unlimited. The genre shift from Extra to Unlimited was originally a surprise, but over time it has become rather well known, and even a selling point for the franchise. It is spoiled in the preview video, but I can't blame them when the part of the franchise that most people think of is after the genre shift. Most of the side stories and spinoff VN titles are concerned with either Unlimited or Alternative, and the world most think of when talking about Muv-luv is introduced in Unlimited. The routes in Unlimited are nearly identical, save for a couple unique romance scenes; completing any character's route is more or less the same as finishing any other, though each route has the same two variations of endings. If you don't have a favorite character to choose at this point, Meiya's route is probably the best option story-wise. Unlimited has a significant amount of world-building; some find it tedious, others fascinating. I fall in the latter camp, but regardless, understanding the world established in Unlimited is important for understanding Unlimited and, ultimately, Alternative. Let's just say the ending is rather...abrupt.

Much of the hype understandably goes towards Alternative, but I would still recommend buying this title as well. I found Extra more tolerable that others, it seems, and found Unlimited quite enjoyable. On its own, I might recommend waiting for a deal before purchase, but upon finishing Alternative, I believe buying both titles at full price is well worth the cost. There is some debate whether it's worth buying something when you only experience an enhanced payoff in a later title, but I would recommend getting both. Having some time between the releases is useful in a couple ways; it gives you time to digest what happened in Extra and especially Unlimited before diving back into the world with Alternative, and if you find Extra or Unlimited tedious, there's plenty of time to get through it before Alternative arrives.

-I have read the entire series and more MLE, MLU, MLA. +

So as you can see on the other reviews many people praise this VN.
Yet if you google muv luv reviews you will see a few of the more well known sites bashing it.
So what gives?

I'll talk first about the things that the review sites dislike about the game.

ML; Extra.
Lots of people I know pick up the ML series due to the MLU and MLA parts of it but they hate the idea of trodging through extra.
Extra is a slice of life anime styled story where the main char has a harem.
I know lots of people reading this will instantly cringe at that idea as it really only resonates with otaku weeb trash and I'd agree, I am not really into such stories my self.
However.
MLE is a prolouge, its just very very long and its not that bad either, as a person who avoided all slice of life and especialy harem '♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥' I'll say that MLE is very worth going through. For me if this game was only MLE I'd not buy it I admit but if you combine it with MLU and MLA it makes sense and enriches the other two stories.

A porn game;
This was the other biggest complaint people seem to have.
When it was released the ML series was classed as Eroge which is basicaly otaku for a VN with porno scenes in it.
If you look up at the screen shots you will see pictures of the 'flight' suits that are revealing for no other reason than fan service and people seem to blast that too.
Problem is. Fan service will exist in most forms of anime/VN/LN its just a thing.
Why hate on a game's story simply because you see boobs?
Do boobs ofend you? If it does why are you bothering with the review section? Its clear they are in the game.
The steam version is the all ages version so all sex scenes are removed but as a person who has read sex scenes I can tell you they were shoe horned into the game only to appeal to the pervy otakus back in 2001 when it was EXPECTED to have those types of scenes, Fate stay night another famous VN which has since had succsesful anime ALSO had these types of scenes.
As a side note for people who are waiting for the 18+ patch take my advice when I say the sex scenes are pretty bad and just put into it 'because' if you really want porn there are plenty of free sites I am sure you know about already.
TLDR; The game is not about sex. It has sexual content with the 18+ patch that will come eventualy but its not worth caring about. People bashing the sexual content in this game are prudes. If you are prude avoid and gtfo.

Story
Of all things some sites bash the story.
As a person who has finished the series I will say that for me out of all the games I have played over the past 24 years (alot) and as a person who focuses on story driven games when Im going single player-
This is the best story of them all.
It has to be due to the games nature but this story is amazing.
It will make you FEEL something about what is going on.
If you have a soul you WILL cry at certain points.
You will think about it will you study or are at work, you won't be able to wait to know what happens next and after its all over and you clear MLA you will feel like you just walked through hell and came out alive with all the good and bad feelings to go with that.
For me story wise you would have to get into some serious novels to get anything better.
I am talking about enjoyment factor and the idea of caring about what is going on in this game.

If you are a person who enjoys anime in general then you need to read this, it is your duty.
If you enjoy Sci Fi and are no put off by any of the other content you have seen so far then you have to read this.
If you enjoy a bit of romance in your action story then you have to read this.
If you are a weeb, i guess you have already read this and if not you are a slacker.
If you like mecha this ♥♥♥♥♥ on any other mecha story out there.
If you like reading and don't mind anime themed stuff then read this.

If you get offended at any of the screen shots I guess you have to pass but thats your issue really and its you who will miss out simply because you can't see past the cover.

9999/10

Muv-Luv in all honesty is enthralling tale, about how vastly different one's perspective can shape the world, but most of all how the present is always changing and nothing is set in stone. However, unlike today's more recent visual novels, where the lengthy and juicy bits are not an issue, muv-luv has a very slow uptake and deserve the readers undivided attention, to fully grasp the meaning behind them.

The difference between extra and unlimited are like day and night, but both cannot exist without the other, since the both complete each other in a way, only after reading both parts, would the reader fully understand, sadly extra falls in comparision when seperated from unlimited. Tho, the same cannot be said of unlimited. Another wonderful statement, is how different environment can easily change a person's behaviours and values despite being the same person. Goes to show how flexible these characters are.

I highly recommend people to prepare and enjoy the ride, one measely mishap can easily ruin the experience, thus reading in moderation might be the best, since some part are best savoured before moving onward.

So. By Now you've seen all the reviews from all the people who have played it before. Every single one basically has the same message, put out in different terms. But you're there wondering, okay, I'm a noob, I don't know VN, or any of this stuff, and I've never played Muv-Luv. Where's my voice so I can make an educated decision?

I'm that voice.

Heads up, I've been aware of VN's but never been able to get them or figure any way of making them work, so the closest I've gotten to this kind of game is my love for anime/manga/manhwa. That, and reading some reviews and getting the genre shift spoiled for me is as far as I had knowledge wise heading in.

First thing's first. I loved Muv-Luv Extra. I loved the characters. The humor made me laugh. I enjoyed the world. I enjoyed the different routes I played. I enjoyed the harem aspect. I enjoyed working to find one route/girl to pick and seeing where it went. I enjoyed the cartoons/journal drawings. I think Meiya is best girl, but ayamine is most interesting. I liked the mutual violence between Sumika and the MC. I was happy playing that game. I do not agree with other's who say that that Extra is trash. Even without playing Alternative, maybe because I haven't played a thousand other games just like Extra, I had a blast. Do I believe Alternative is the best ever, and ties in and builds up the other two? A hundred thousand times yes. I was looking for forshadowing but couldn't really find or feel any, so if they are as intertwined as promised my mind is really blown.

Why am I so confident that Alternative is everything they are promising us it is?

Unlimited is ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ awesome. If Extra made me happy, Unlimited got me pumped. The production values went through the roof, and there were so many cooooooooollll moments and plot stuff. It was like if you liked Code Geass, but you got to sit in it and read it and enjoy it in immersion at your own pace. And it felt like this was only the first half of season one. Meaning I could kinda sense I still had like 2 or 3 wild balls to the walls arcs to go. I don't think I'll be dissapointed in the payoff.

Let's be clear though. This was not meaningless build up just for Alternative. Even if I die before Alternative is released or it goes dark, I won't be sad for my time or money. 9.5/10. Great story. Great Fun. Making Steam great again, and I hope we get more awesome Visual Novels in the months and years to come. What a great genre.

You'll never truly appreciate Extra until you finished alternative :(

People often say Muv Luv is slow at the start and gets better as you go. I'll just say how it went for me.

There are three parts in the Muv Luv Trilogy. Extra, Unlimited, and Alternative.

When I first started reading Extra, it seemed inane and cliche. It took me several months to get through it, because I wasn't really particularly invested.

When I hit Unlimited, suddenly it became pretty interesting! Still a little slow, but I was hooked. I played it when I had spare time over the course of a week or so.

When I hit Alternative, I literally could not put it down for anything. I literally did not sleep for nearly 72 hours until I finished it. By the end I was a complete emotional wreck.

Coming back to Extra, it's very emotional experience on your second playthrough. Everything I didn't care about before seems much more important, and there's lots of subtle little foreshadowing.

I'll admit that this game is the weaker half of the trilogy. But I still think it's absolutely worth it, and if purchased with its sequel (expected release winter 2016), then I'd absolutely recommend it. It goes places you won't expect, and has one of the roughest emotional rollercoasters I've ever experienced.

Muv-Luv Extra: Romance, Comedy and Slice of Life, with cliche setting and characters, but nonetheless kind of enjoyable, just don't expect to be blown away.

Muv-Luv Unlimited: Take the Protagonist to a new world/universe that seems to be the same, but quickly turns out to be vastly different, and turns into a Sci-Fi, Mech, world is ending setting with a bit more seriousness, but still with some lighthearted tones from Extra.


Muv-Luv Alternative: Continuation of Unlimited's setting, ditches the lightheartedness and goes completely serious and establishes a really good story, a lot of world building, a lot more character introductions, several good plot-lines, interesting and developing characters.
Everything gets really interesting, if you liked Unlimited you'll love Alternative.