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otome_gamesNekopara: Catboys Paradise is a free, fluffy, G-rated catboy dating sim from NekoWorks, a Japanese company that usually makes porny catgirl visual novels. It's very well made for what it is but the unaddressed consent issues creeped me out. Also the routes are pretty short, stopping before any overt romance. If you're into mildly furry, mildly femdom plotless fluff and can turn your brain off you might have fun.
The love interests are the cheerfully boyish Dill, chill bro Sage, sly and flirty Laurier, and uptight glasses guy Fennel. They're all basically good-natured, though from what I've seen Laurier can be mildly dubconny.
You play a Shy Nice Girl who's just graduated college, who's hired some catboys to be waiters in the cafe she inherited from her grandpa. It is very pretty and well made, and the one route I've played (Dill) was cute, plotless, slice of life where nice people are nice to each other and form a cute, slightly romantic bond involving a lot of blushing and holding hands. The heroine has no name, face, or on-screen dialogue, but the catboys react as if she'd said things like in a drama CD. The only choice is what route to pick.
The catboys are biologically wired to be cuddly and subby, wanting head pats and for the heroine to become their official forever owner. I was torn between being into it and creeped out by the power differential. So I made the mistake of looking up the wiki and was SO CREEPED OUT by the porny 'catpeople have the same rights as regular cats' worldbuilding I'm not sure I can play again unless I can convince myself this is a major AU from the catgirl games. I feel like it would actually bother me less in straight-up porn, or if the narrative acknowledged that dating someone you LEGALLY OWN is kinda creepy, but as it was I kept being distracted by thoughts about catboy civil rights.
Meanwhile all the other reviews I've seen have complained about how short and unfinished-feeling the romances are.
Still, it's free and well made for what it is.
The love interests are the cheerfully boyish Dill, chill bro Sage, sly and flirty Laurier, and uptight glasses guy Fennel. They're all basically good-natured, though from what I've seen Laurier can be mildly dubconny.
You play a Shy Nice Girl who's just graduated college, who's hired some catboys to be waiters in the cafe she inherited from her grandpa. It is very pretty and well made, and the one route I've played (Dill) was cute, plotless, slice of life where nice people are nice to each other and form a cute, slightly romantic bond involving a lot of blushing and holding hands. The heroine has no name, face, or on-screen dialogue, but the catboys react as if she'd said things like in a drama CD. The only choice is what route to pick.
The catboys are biologically wired to be cuddly and subby, wanting head pats and for the heroine to become their official forever owner. I was torn between being into it and creeped out by the power differential. So I made the mistake of looking up the wiki and was SO CREEPED OUT by the porny 'catpeople have the same rights as regular cats' worldbuilding I'm not sure I can play again unless I can convince myself this is a major AU from the catgirl games. I feel like it would actually bother me less in straight-up porn, or if the narrative acknowledged that dating someone you LEGALLY OWN is kinda creepy, but as it was I kept being distracted by thoughts about catboy civil rights.
Meanwhile all the other reviews I've seen have complained about how short and unfinished-feeling the romances are.
Still, it's free and well made for what it is.
no subject
Date: 2021-07-24 21:45 (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-08-01 14:54 (UTC)Same! Like, I was fine with Nameless, which is about a girl romancing dolls she literally bought in a store, because even though it glossed over the power issues enough to have happy romantic endings it still acknowledged that they existed.