Renai Karichaimashita: Koikari - Love For Hire
Due to family circumstances, Yuki has only one belief: money will make his little sister happy. And thus, he works part-time jobs late into the night. His plan is to start working full-time after graduation, but his little sister tells him that if he won't go to university, then she won't either.
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The Princess, the Stray Cat, and Matters of the Heart on Steam
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Once upon a time, after his mother passed away, a boy called Nora felt all alone in the world. He spent every day with his unique and kind hearted friends until one fateful day, he had a chance encounter with a princess from the Netherworld.
The Princess, the Stray Cat, and Matters of the Heart is a fantasy, comedy and magic game
developed by TOKYOTOON
and published by TOKYOTOON and Fruitbat Factory.
Released on June 17th 2019 is available on Windows, Steam Deck and Steam Machine.
It has received 341 reviews of which 309 were positive and 32 were negative resulting in a rating of 8.4 out of 10. 😎
The game is currently priced at 19.50€ on Steam.
The Steam community has classified The Princess, the Stray Cat, and Matters of the Heart into these genres:
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Windows
- OS *: Windows 7/8/8.1/10
- Processor: 1.3GHz and above
- Memory: 512 MB RAM
- DirectX: Version 9.0c
- Storage: 8 GB available space
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The Princess, the Stray Cat, and Matters of the Heart (I'll sometimes call Noratoto to make it easy) is a comedy-heavy moege visual novel that could have been something I considered very solid, if not outright great, if it focused on the things I liked. Unfortunately, it was kind of a mixed bag, so I guess my overall opinion is that I… kind of like it? Despite the name of the VN, the actual thing I liked the most about this visual novel was the focus on the childhood friend group. I don’t think this group’s interactions get on the level of the Kazama family from Majikoi or the Little Busters, but they’re definitely a huge step up from the average friend group in visual novels. The way they joke around and mess with each other feels pretty close to an actual friend group and fits pretty well with scenario writer Hato’s penchant for "lolrandom", quirky Japanese humor, at least compared to Marco & the Galaxy Dragon. What helps is that three out of the four routes are childhood friend heroines and they definitely my favorite characters of the VN. I like how the whole group was essentially made up because of the main character Nora’s mom taking them in when they didn’t have the best life as kids, and the various flashbacks around Nora's mom and the childhood friends were some of the better parts of the VN to me. And what helps is that, because of the relatively close-knit group of friends, all the main characters are basically around the whole time in every route, which helps a maintain a deserved lighthearted VIBE considering their friendship, but most importantly, can lead to a handful of surprisingly wholesome emotional moments, especially when one of the members of the childhood friend group is dealing with some issues, like bullying or overprotective moms. I also like how a lot of the drama basically starts because of some of the characters' parental figures, or sometimes lack of them. It creates a strong theme of the importance of family and friends. If Noratoto focused mostly, if not fully, on this childhood friend group, with a mix of goofy comedy and wholesome friendship and romance, but surprisingly decently deep emotional drama, this could have been a very solid, if not outright great, moege for me. However, this visual novel is called "The Princess, the Stray Cat, and Matters of the Heart", and unfortunately, I don’t really like the advertised main gimmick(s) as a whole. I think introducing the implied true main heroine of the story, the Princess of the Netherworld, Patricia, was perfectly fine. I do think a girl who wants to destroy the Earth but realizes she’s actually pretty naive, and her getting addicted to Earth’s “grimoires” (porn books), was actually a pretty fun gag. I wouldn’t have minded an Netherworld-focused route if it did a better job introducing the importance of how the Netherworld affected Patricia and how she became who she is, and wrote the romance around her better. However, overall, I did not really care that much about the Netherworld or the girls around it, besides maybe Patricia herself, who I only kind of sort of liked. Her older sister, Lucia, and especially her younger sister, Euracia, were just kind of annoying and never really got better, even though Patricia's route tried to make them “develop” into accepting Patricia’s romance. Considering these characters were mostly just comic relief and total outsiders to the childhood friend group, I did not care much about the VN's attempt at developing their characters, especially considering that the 18+ version does the typical trap of making it so the MC is forced to have sex with the sisters even though it’s not their route because “it’s hot.” Speaking of sexual stuff, I was mostly not into the whole gimmick of the main character, Nora, accidentally being turned into a cat by Patricia. I think this gimmick could have been fine in moderation, especially since there are moments where the cat gimmick was used for decently well-done drama, like in Yuuki’s route’s cat café, and him attempting to protect Michi at certain points in her route. When the gimmick first happened in the common route, it led to a lot of dumb misunderstandings, and most importantly, a lot of repetitive "accidental pervert humor", just because Nora is a cat and can’t interact with most humans. I think I first read this visual novel around when it first got translated in 2019, and I stalled it for years until 2026. All because the common route had at least a full straight hour of these stupid jokes around this cat gimmick. The worst part, to me, is when Nora does (temporarily) go back to being human, he doesn’t immediately tell his supposedly close friends about his issue; only Michi finds out because of one of many accidental pervert moments. Usually, the first third of a heroine route is focused on Nora finding a way being able to permanently turn back into a full human, which I say, thank God, since that meant 2/3 of the heroine routes were parts I could fully take seriously. But the fact that I had to deal with the second half of the common route being mostly really unfunny, and the beginnings of the heroine routes still having some of that annoying humor, definitely hurt my enjoyment of Noratoto. There are some other nitpicks I have about this visual novel, like sometimes the humor can be a little too over-the-top/random even for me, Koki getting unfairly beaten up for no reason constantly, and even the decently done character drama usually had to be interrupted by jokes because apparently the writer can't be too serious for too long. Basically, it all comes down to the fact that the scenario writer relies a lot on his “lolrandom” humor style, so you basically have to be at least kind of a fan of his humor to consistently enjoy this VN. There's also some non-humor related nitpicks I have. Like Shachi’s route having almost no conflict and having a very underexplained reveal, and the Netherworld feeling surprisingly unimportant despite the title heroine Patricia being from it. Despite all my complaints, I came out with slight net-positive feelings on Noratoto, mostly because of the big focus on the childhood friend group and three out of the four main heroines being very likable childhood friends with decent drama and backstory. If Noratoto focused mostly, if not fully, on this, and did not also include lame humor around repetitive cat-sex jokes and underdeveloped, boring Netherworld stuff, I could have loved this VN instead of just kind of sort of liking it.
Overall good The music, visuals, characters are varied and pleasing. Some routes are mixedbags. I prefered Patricia's route, I feel like it is definitely the "main path" I'm not really in a good mood to make a review but it was pleasant. Sorry for making this one shorter than usual. It's good and worth it.
Narratively, a mess. The writers do not know how to end the stories for the two most compelling love interests. Things get rushed to a ludicrous degree when the writers decide the curtains must fall. The side heroines have proper writing, though, and the music is really beautiful. The art is pretty. And the story is incredibly funny. I played with the partial TL patch. There is only one H scene the story is better with. The rest detract, a lot. You are not missing too much without it. The TL is opinionated, no honorifics and some weird nickname choices as well as a couple typos. Very quality TL work. I recommend for some lighthearted fun. It has some adorable moments, but if you're wanting something cohesively profound, this is not it.
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Frequently Asked Questions
The Princess, the Stray Cat, and Matters of the Heart is currently priced at 19.50€ on Steam.
No, The Princess, the Stray Cat, and Matters of the Heart is currently not on sale. You can purchase it for 19.50€ on Steam.
Yes, The Princess, the Stray Cat, and Matters of the Heart received 309 positive votes out of a total of 341 achieving a rating of 8.36.
😎
The Princess, the Stray Cat, and Matters of the Heart was developed by TOKYOTOON and published by TOKYOTOON and Fruitbat Factory.
Yes, The Princess, the Stray Cat, and Matters of the Heart is playable and fully supported on Windows.
No, The Princess, the Stray Cat, and Matters of the Heart is not playable on MacOS.
No, The Princess, the Stray Cat, and Matters of the Heart is not playable on Linux.
Yes, The Princess, the Stray Cat, and Matters of the Heart is playable and fully supported on Steam Deck.
Yes, The Princess, the Stray Cat, and Matters of the Heart is playable and fully supported on Steam Machine.
No, The Princess, the Stray Cat, and Matters of the Heart does not support VR.
The Princess, the Stray Cat, and Matters of the Heart is a single-player game.
Yes, there are 6 DLCs available for The Princess, the Stray Cat, and Matters of the Heart. Explore additional content available for The Princess, the Stray Cat, and Matters of the Heart on Steam.
No, The Princess, the Stray Cat, and Matters of the Heart does not support mods via Steam Workshop.
No, The Princess, the Stray Cat, and Matters of the Heart does not support Steam Remote Play.
Yes, The Princess, the Stray Cat, and Matters of the Heart is enabled for Steam Family Sharing. This means you can share the game with authorized users from your Steam Library, allowing them to play it on their own accounts. For more details on how the feature works, you can read the original Steam Family Sharing announcement or visit the Steam Family Sharing user guide and FAQ page.
You can find solutions or submit a support ticket by visiting the Steam Support page for The Princess, the Stray Cat, and Matters of the Heart.
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Additionally, we incorporate data from the SteamSpy API, which offers insights into game sales and player statistics. This helps us present a comprehensive view of each game's popularity and performance within the gaming community.
Last Updates| Steam data | 03 October 2026 22:21 UTC |
|---|---|
| SteamSpy data | 14 October 2026 14:41 UTC |
| Steam price | 27 October 2026 03:37 UTC |
| Steam reviews | 19 October 2026 10:11 UTC |
If you'd like to dive deeper into the details about The Princess, the Stray Cat, and Matters of the Heart, we invite you to check out a few dedicated websites that offer extensive information and insights. These platforms provide valuable data, analysis, and user-generated reports to enhance your understanding of the game and its performance.
- SteamDB - A comprehensive database of everything on Steam about The Princess, the Stray Cat, and Matters of the Heart
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- ProtonDB - Crowdsourced reports on Linux and Steam Deck The Princess, the Stray Cat, and Matters of the Heart compatibility
Game modes
Features
Online players
3
Developer
TOKYOTOON
Publisher
TOKYOTOON,
Fruitbat Factory
Release
17 Jun 2019
Platforms