Audrey Clary, heiress and LeFay Academy's brightest alchemy student, is about to have her first and worst detention experience of all time. It's bad enough that she has to stay in detention during Sunflower Day — what's worse is that she's stuck in detention with Marion LaRue, the self-proclaimed "Chaotic Fireball Legend" of LeFay Academy... and her former best friend.
What was meant to be a harmless little fire turned into an explosion that has Marion stuck in detention, missing out on one of the rare opportunities for her to enjoy life outside the academy. And of course, she just had to be stuck with Audrey.
Determined to not miss out on the long-awaited festival, Audrey and Marion begrudgingly work together to escape detention and find their way to the festival. As they explore the city and celebrate the Sunflower Festival together, their old friendship is rekindled, and new feelings for each other begin to bloom.
Perfect Gold: The Alchemy of Happiness, or simply Perfect Gold, is a Yuri Visual Novel made by Yangyang Mobile (The Letter and Love Esquire). It was released on April 19, 2021. You can play the game on Steam
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Perfect Gold contains examples of:
- The Big Damn Kiss: As expected of a romance-oriented visual novel, this has one. Two, actually. Audrey and Marion lock their lips at the Asterway Bridge twice — first, when they first hooked up; and second, when they finally patch up their differences for good and become real sweethearts.
- Break Her Heart to Save Her: The real reason Audrey ghosted Marion; when rumors about their relationship got to an alchemist socialite who it's implied wanted to marry her own son off to Audrey, the woman responded with veiled threats to expel Marion and other lower-class students, and Audrey felt she had to deny her own dreams to protect Marion's.
- Burn Baby Burn: When Audrey hesitates to let out her own worries, Marion encourages her to write them down on a piece of paper and then burn the paper in a portable pyre. Marion even states that back in her hometown, this was her compatriots' way of dealing with their various frustrations in life.
- Continuity Nod: Simone travels a lot, and she has been to Alkos, the kingdom where Princess Kamala hails from in Love Esquire.
- Dating What Daddy Hates: It's no secret that Audrey's parents would absolutely revolt if they knew she ever had feelings for an elementalist, much less a low-class rural girl.
- Doppelgänger Spin:
- To escape detention, Audrey and Marion use a water-based alchemic spell to create a copy each of themselves, in case someone sneaks up on them.
- In her duel with Marion, Audrey uses illusion magic to create two copies of herself, both of which are capable of putting up magical shields just like her.
- Fantastic Caste System: While every school of magic, as well as non-mages, contributes to society, the alchemists are the city's rulers and believe their own propaganda that they're basically the only ones who matter. It's combined with regular classism, as most alchemists are upper-class and like to throw their money around.
- Gilded Cage: Audrey lives trapped by the expectations of her family and high society. Marion calls it out by name during their fight.
- Nice Girl: Irene is very kind, compassionate, and supports Audrey's interest in healing magic.
- Non-Uniform Uniform: Audrey and Marion both wear variations on the same uniform, but with mantles showing the faculties they study in, different belts, and one wearing pants while the other wears a skirt. Audrey also leaves her tie and top button undone and wears mismatched socks, showing her rebellious nature.
- Parental Marriage Veto: Irene reveals that Simone was engaged to a rich alchemist who was pressured to break it off with her or risk being disowned from the family and ruining her career. This ends up explaining why she hasn't spoken to family in a year; she's been throwing herself into work, travel, day drinking, and trying to find herself while projecting an image of a fabulous socialite with no problems because she can't deal with the fallout of the breakup.
- Playing with Fire: Befitting the moniker "Chaotic Fireball Legend", Marion is capable of hurling Fireballs. During her duel with Audrey, she unknowingly hurts her with those balls.
- Red Oni, Blue Oni: Marion is usually the energetic and carefree red to Audrey's calm and responsible blue.
- Small Town Boredom: Marion came to Castlecoast to get out of her small town and see the world, and she's always swept into the big city excitement. She still, however, jumps to the defense of rural people when the city's mages are more than happy to look down on them.
- Theme Naming: Buildings and institutions in Castlecoast are all named after mages and alchemists in legend.
- Title Drop: Marion outright says the title when she talks about the artists' contributions to society.Marion: Yeah... we're surrounded by so much gold in this city, thanks to the alchemists... But it's the artists who turn it into perfect gold!
- Tomboy and Girly Girl: Marion comes from a commoner family and is rambunctious; Audrey is the heiress of a renowned alchemist family and thus acts as normally expected of an upper-class woman. In an interesting twist, their outfits are an inversion of their personalities — Marion wears a skirt, while Audrey wears pants.
- Zettai Ryouiki: Marion is Grade A on her right leg and Grade C on her left.
