Though she's thus far only worked behind a desk, the protagonist is keen to earn a promotion to field agent. So when, on a day like any other, her path happens to cross that of not just one but several godly monsters (and one actual god!) in need of her help, she doesn't hesitate to get involved.
The visual novel follows any of several individual paths, depending on whose case the player decides to take; each path is broken into three segments, with decision points at intervals that determine whether the story concludes with a relatively happy Thrilling End or the extra-happy Passionate End. "POV" chapters can also be unlocked at the ends of the first and second sections of the main story, showing a glimpse of the love interest's side of the story.
The app was released in July 2015 for iOS and Android devices. It was retitled from Labyrinths of Astoria to Astoria: Fate's Kiss in October 2015, upon the completion of the Season 1 story release schedule. In 2017, the original version of the app was discontinued and the title incorporated into Voltage USA's Lovestruck app.
In June 2018, the Fate's Kiss setting was revived via Lovestruck in Astoria: Lost Kisses, a new series featuring the adventures of the game's heroine and main cast set between the first and second seasons of the original game's routes.
Tropes:
- Abusive Parents:
- The mother of Cerberus and his brothers was outright stated to have been this, with Cerberus deliberately drawing her attention so she wouldn't hurt his younger siblings as much.
- In Medusa's and Chimera's routes, Typhon and Echidna treat the Chimera and Gorgon siblings terribly. The MC states that the kids acting against (or at least attempting to ignore) their parents was inevitable, given that treatment.
- Adaptational Attractiveness: Four of the game's love interests are monsters from Classical Mythology — Hydra, Cerberus, Chimera, and Medusa. Though still generally referred to as monsters, here they are depicted as attractive men and women who look fully human, with their traditional monstrous appearances relegated to their supernatural Auras.
- Adaptational Heroism: In Classical Mythology, the Lernaean Hydra, the Chimera, Medusa, the Nemean Lion and the Erymanthean Boar were all dangerous monsters who existed mostly to be battled by heroes like Hercules, Bellerophon, and Perseus. In this game, however, Hydra, Chimera, and Medusa are prospective love interests for the protagonist, and Nemean and Eryn (owners of the Lion and Boar Auras) are friends and allies to the main characters.
- Adaptational Villainy: The antagonist of Hydra's route is Hercules, who had some issues but is mostly depicted as a hero in classical myths.
- After-Action Patch-Up: This occurs on several routes, including Cerberus' season 1. He gets attacked by a death spirit and has to be patched up by the heroine.
- Ambiguously Brown: Cerberus has a dark tan skin tone. One of his brothers, Nemean, is black; Orthrus, the other, is fair-skinned and green-eyed, leaving Cerberus's ethnicity rather up in the air. That the origins of the various godly monsters are vague to begin with doesn't help either.
- Animal Motifs: Hydra is solitary and proud and has the ability to hypnotize people by eye contact. Cerberus is described by the game itself as a "puppy dog": he's earnest, loyal, and kind of goofy. Eryn, who possesses the Boar Aura, is blunt, straightforward, and no-nonsense.
- Beautiful Dreamer: When the protagonist happens upon a sleeping Hades during his route, she takes the opportunity to admire how handsome he is.
- Belligerent Sexual Tension: Hydra's route is made of this.
- Big Applesauce: H.E.R.A., an organization for managing the activities of Greek gods and mythological monsters in the modern-day world, is based in New York City. The title refers to the Astoria neighborhood of Queens.
- Blue with Shock: One of May's sprites is this.
- Brought Down to Badass: Downplayed, but Nemean continues to guard the gate to the Underworld after being stripped of the Aura that gives him his powers. Near the end of Hydra's route, the protagonist gets the chance to consider what that says about how capable Nemean is when she sees him in action.
- Cast Full of Gay: Played With, while only three males are lgbtq, almost every female character is and there’s Cyprin who’s non-binary.
- Character Overlap:
- Robin, the heroine's child with Chimera in Chimera's fourth season, reappears as an adult in Villainous Nights as the roommate of that game's protagonist.
Word of God states that Robin's appearance in Villainous Nights is not meant to dictate Astoria canon; the producers simply borrowed the character because they like them. - In Hydra's second Lost Kisses season, Eryn calls Diego Escalona from Havenfall Is for Lovers for an emergency house call after Hydra's office is set on fire.
- Robin, the heroine's child with Chimera in Chimera's fourth season, reappears as an adult in Villainous Nights as the roommate of that game's protagonist.
- Cliffhanger: Lost Kisses dispenses with the Multiple Endings employed by the Fate's Kiss seasons and instead follows the standard Lovestruck format. As a result, each Lost Kisses season usually ends on a cliffhanger designed as a Sequel Hook for the next season: for example, the first season of Hades's Lost Kisses route ends with the Gate of the Underworld open and Orpheus revealing that he's been colluding with the Furies, who he has just set free again.
- Dark Is Not Evil: Hades is the god of the Underworld, and his Aura is one of dark energy usually taking the form of a colossal skeletal figure. Nevertheless, he is a consummate gentleman and a Reasonable Authority Figure who often seems to be one of the only major Olympians to have his head screwed on all the way straight.
- Dating Catwoman: One of the romance options of season 3 is Astraeus, a villain from Hades' route.
- Death of a Thousand Cuts: Persephone's Aura takes the form of a swarm of butterflies with razor-sharp wings. She demonstrates just how effective they can be during the first leg of Hades's main story, shredding an enemy titan with myriad small cuts.
- Fantastic Racism: The gods utterly despise the titans of Tartarus, even though many of them hadn't even been born yet during the initial war between the two. They even went out of their way to give Earth and Olympus an atmosphere that contains a powerful anti-titan toxin.
- Fun with Acronyms: The protagonist works for the Hell and Earth Relations Agency, commonly referred to as H.E.R.A.
- Gate Guardian: Cerberus, naturally, guards (one of) the gates to the Underworld. His brothers Nemean and Orthrus also work as gate guardians.
- Gay Option: Medusa is one of the potential love interests.
- Happy Ending: It's a Voltage Inc. game, so of course it has these. There's the thrilling and passionate ending, both of which are different shades of happy.
- Hostile Weather: This happens on several routes, in the form of pouring rain that causes flooding. Occurs on Cyprin's season 1 storyline and Hades season 4 storyline.
- I Am Who?: The Season 2 routes go into further detail on the Secret Legacy that the initial routes hint at - the protagonist is actually the goddess Hera, reborn but not awakened to her power and identity.
- I Just Want to Be Normal: Chimera has this in spades, and for good reason. He has the power of three auras shoved into one, but this has made him mentally unstable. Furthermore, the method used to do this enables his father to control Chimera against his will.
- Interquel: Astoria: Lost Kisses takes place between the first and second seasons of the original Fate's Kiss storylines.
- Jerk Jock: Hercules is depicted as, essentially, a high school jerk jock made demi-god. His strength and status as the son of Zeus has made him arrogant, quick to resort to beating down people who oppose him and unwilling to listen to reason even when it comes from a top-tier god like his uncle Hades.
- Mayfly–December Romance:
- Hades is one of the original Olympian gods, and was there for their war with the titans. He's been around for a long time, and the considerable difference in their age is one of the things that makes him reluctant to act on his feelings for the protagonist, referring to himself as an "old man."
- While most of the godly monster love interests it’s rather vague about what ages they really are, Medusa is explicitly stated to be several centuries old and has seen the Ottoman Empire.
- Missing Child: Medusa's season four: Saffi has run away and neither Medusa, the protagonist, or anyone in the gang knows where she went.
- Mystical White Hair: Hades, a top-tier god who governs the Underworld, has white hair (with lavender/pink highlights).
- Oh, My Gods!: Is often exclaimed by the heroine and other characters due to knowing Greek Gods walk amongst them.
- Order Versus Chaos: The Top Tier Gods versus the Titans. The Top Tier gods are all about following laws and controlling everything, while the Titans are passionate and believe in spreading chaos and having fun.
- Our Titans Are Different: The titans in this are normal-sized humanoids who have auras that they can project away from them. They were banished to Tartarus, and hate the Top Tier gods. They want to overthrow them and take back Olympus, so they can get out of Tartarus for good.
- Perspective Flip: Each character's Main Story 1 and 2 is followed by a short segment showing the love interest's perspective on a scene from the preceding chapters.
- Power Parasite: The Auras that give demi-god and godly monsters their powers are linked to unique Artifacts, and can be stolen if someone overpowers the Aura and takes the Artifact from its owner. This is, understandably, a serious offense; when the protagonist meets Hydra, he's been arrested under accusation of stealing such an Artifact from Hercules. In fact, it's Hercules who's been stealing the Auras of various godly monsters, including the one Hydra is accused of stealing.
- Purple Is Powerful: Hades is one of the most powerful of the gods and by far the most powerful of the game's possible love interests. His Aura, fittingly, is purple in color, and he also has purple eyes.
- Reasonable Authority Figure:
- Cyprin has great faith in the protagonist and will back her up however they can, even if she's acting well outside of H.E.R.A.'s auspices.
- Hades even moreso. In Hydra's best ending, one gets the impression that much of the trouble could have been avoided had someone gone to Hades about Hercules's misdeeds sooner; when he finally does hear what Hydra and the protagonist have to say, he takes it very seriously.
- Roaring Rampage of Rescue: Hades and the protagonist spearhead an invasion of Titan-occupied Olympus in the third installment of his route, in order to rescue the Olympians captured by Pallas.
- Scenery Censor: One of the CGs from Cerberus's route shows him standing, completely naked, with his groin blocked from view by a bunch of bananas in a strategically-placed fruit bowl.
- She Is Not My Girlfriend: Both Hydra and the protagonist get on this, with both of them - at the same time - exclaiming "No!" when Cerberus asks if they're dating. Cerberus then teases them, saying that they must be married.
- She Is the King: In Chimera’s season 2, Prime seeks to become and in Medusa’s season 3 can become King of Monsters. The title remains the same regardless of gender due to there already being a Queen.
- Shipper on Deck: It doesn't take long on Hades's route for Persephone to become convinced that he and the protagonist would be perfect together. May also has a tendency to pick up on who the protagonist is crushing on, and typically is on board with it, offering support and friendly ribbing.
- Shout-Out:
- Occasionally characters talk about a TV show, "True Love, Delicious Lies," which is likely a reference to a different Voltage game: True Love Sweet Lies.
- Diego happens to be in New York in Hydra's route of Lost Kisses because Eryn got him tickets to Hamilton.
- Stalker with a Crush: Astraeus in Hades's route takes an unwelcome liking to the protagonist and spends the rest of the route looking for opportunities to kidnap her, despite her clearly stated lack of interest.
- Workaholic:
- Hades, in keeping with his classical depiction as the most serious of the gods, spends most of his time working. At one point in his route, the protagonist brings him dinner only to find him asleep at his desk, and from what Persephone says this is far from an uncommon occurrence.
- Cyprin as well, multiple times during their route they’re found sleeping at their desk, and at times the protagonist has had to insist they eat.
- The protagonist herself, season 2 even starts with May noting how the protagonist has finally made time for the right person.
