Have You Played the Top Rated Otome on Steam and Itchio?

[alias_sqbr]

I thought it would be fun to look at the top 10 rated otome on Steam and itchio, and see which I've played, and ask if you folk have played them yourselves.

Italics mean I tried and didn't like it. Bold means I tried it and did like it. But obviously all of these are beloved by a lot of people, and alternative opinions are welcome! I'll list what gender(s) the protagonist can be, followed by what gender the love interests are. Sometimes I couldn't tell!

Steam top rated games that show up when you search for "otome":

• Angels with Scaly Wings: (??) "You, the player, are an ambassador for Earth sent through a mysterious portal into the world of dragons."
  
• HuniePop: (m, f)/f. Very much aimed at dudes, also racist. NOT OTOME.
  
• The Cinderella Phenomenon: f/m. A douchey princess is cursed. I thought the narrative was WAY too mean and condescending to the princess.
  
• Hustle Cat: (m, f, nb)/(m, f). Magical shenanigans at a cat cafe where everyone is cursed to turn into cats. Delightful.
  
• Nightshade／百花百狼: f/m. 'The romance revolves around Ninjas who have lived through the Sengoku Period.'
  
• Misao: (m/f)/?. "In this horror-adventure game, you must search for your missing classmate in a school plagued by unnatural phenomena." Not sure it's actually otome.
  
• Pizza Game: f/(f, m). A comedy dating sim about being the secretary to a serial killer.
  
• Lingua Fleur: f/f. 'focused on friendship, love, troubles, efforts, and confusions between girls.'
  
• Hatoful Boyfriend: Holiday Star: f/m? 'The loveable birds of Hatoful Boyfriend are back in the remastered holiday-themed sequel'
  
• Demonheart: f/m? 'Discover the secrets of the witches and demons in this dark fantasy romance game'
  秋色的記憶(體驗版) / Fall...in Love (demo):f/m? 'love simulation game. Characters are based on real-life persons instead of entirely fictional.'
  
• Hakuoki: f/m. Ninja vampires in late 19th century Japan, as the very concept of being a samurai comes to an end. I LOVE THIS GAME SO MUCH.

(It's 11 because I miscounted and couldn't bring myself to remove Hakuoki)

Top rated itchio games:

• When the Night Comes: (m, f, nb)/(m, f, nb). 'a queer, narrative-driven, supernatural visual novel.'
  
• The Cinderella Phenomenon: f/m. As above.
  
• Cute Demon Crashers: f/(m, f). A girl decides to lose her virginity to one of three aromantic succubi/incubi. I only played the f/f route but it was pretty fun. There's no romance, just sex and friendship.
  
• Wilder: Ran's Story: f/m. 'In a world where djinn are slaves and humans their masters, can two souls drawn together from opposite sides of the divide truly find happiness?' (The LI is the slave)
  
• The Lady's Choice: f/m. 'As the daughter of a Viscount, and heiress to a small fortune, you are invited back into society even after years of seclusion at your family's estate.'
  
• Ebon Light (demo): f/?. 'a dark fantasy visual novel with romantic subplots, lots of choices, a customizable protagonist, and multiple ways to die.'
  
• Queen's Crown (demo): f/m? 'Settle the conflict in your kingdom and decide who - if anyone - will be at your side when it ends.'
  
• Nusantara: Legend of The Winged Ones: f/m. 'This is a story about birth and death, peace, war...and love.'
  
• Aloners: f/m. 'A mature story about survival, loneliness, and love' Post-apocalyptic.
  
• The Blind Griffin: f/m? 1920s magical speakeasy.

Some of these look pretty good! I really must get around to trying When the Night Comes, it looks totally up my alley.

So, have you played any of the ones I haven't? Have alternate opinions on the ones I have?

Comments

[waterscroll]

There are a lot of things here I haven't heard of!
From Steam:
1. Whyyy is Hakuoki so far down the list, it is the most compelling piece of storytelling I've encountered in a very long time and a year and a half after encountering it I'm still obsessed with it.
2. I did two routes of Cinderella Phenomenon and I liked them but didn't *love* them. And yes, it was kind of mean-spirited. But it was clever and original in a few ways and I found it worth playing.
3. Hatoful Boyfriend: Holiday Star. No dating, no romance, no route splits, but a good story and nice art.

From ichio
1. The Blind Griffin - I did one route and liked it. I thought it was better on worldbuilding than romance and the worldbuilding was good but not brilliant.

Some of these sound very interesting. Here's a review of Angels with Scaly Wings:
https://techraptor.net/content/angels-with-scaly-wings-review

Nusantara: Legend of The Winged Ones also sounds like something I might like and I've added it to my Steam wishlist.

ETA: And here's a review of it:
https://otakudonblog.wordpress.com/2017/10/04/otome-review-nusantara-legend-of-the-winged-ones/

Yep, looks like my kind of thing.

[alias_sqbr]

And it's only on the list at all because I went to 11! HOW IS IT BEATEN BY HUNIEPOP.

Thanks for those reviews! They both sound like I might like them but maybe not, so I'll be curious to hear what you think if you play them!

[yeh]

it's kind of funny to see the sequel game to hatoful boyfriend up on this list instead of the original, but it makes sense since it released later.

i played the demo of cinderella phenomenon!! the writing felt high quality at the time of release but tons of other english VNs have come out since so i'm not sure how it stands anymore? i got interested in the story but the art convinced me to skip it.

[alias_sqbr]

Yeah I think a lot of people played the original Hatoful Boyfriend before it got onto Steam. But it was still a surprise, I double checked the list a few times to make sure I hadn't missed it.

I actually didn't mind the Cinderella Phenomenon art, except for the backgrounds making me annoyed with envy haha.

[caramarie]

I've only played Hakuouki and Cute Demon Crashers, of these. I think I even played all the routes in Cute Demon Crashers! It's the cutest smutty game I've ever played.

There's also several of these games I have but have never played, oops.

[alias_sqbr]

I was all "How did When the Night Comes fly under my radar??" and went to add it to my itchio to-play list...only to discover it was already there.

[chrry]

ooh this is a cool idea~ I never sort games this way so it's interesting to see the results for the first time. I'm a bit surprised I'm not familiar with so many of them tbh :o

I've played Nightshade, Holiday Star, Hakuoki, Cute Demon Crashers, and The Blind Griffin.

Holiday Star: imo this one is a must if you're a Hatoful Boyfriend fan

Nightshade: I played when it was released and the only things I remember about it is that 1: it's good, and 2: it destroyed me emotionally (not as much as Hakuoki tho)

Cute Demon Crashers: omg I was thinking about this game the other day, it's so sweet and cute and I love it. I felt like I was melting when I played. it's been so long tho, I really need to replay it one of these days, it's very short and I miss the characters so much ;;

The Blind Griffin: This one was fun. I found all the characters very endearing~


Hmm, I'm reading what you guys say about Cinderella Phenomenon and I'm a bit surprised because I've never seen anyone mentioning anything like that before? lol I've just heard that the game is amazing and the MC is great. I want to play at some point too but it's not really a priority rn.

[alias_sqbr]

Yeah, I was surprised how many unfamiliar games there are too.

My feelings on The Cinderella Phenomenon are definitely not typical, there's a reason it shows up on both lists! So you might well enjoy it.

[terpsychora]

Alright, I know I'm late, but better late than never, right?

A lot of these games are on my backlog OTL I really need to get back into visual novels...

Anyway, from Steam: saw a playthrough of HuniePop (why is it even on the list?) and thought it was pretty generic. Read a playthrough of HoliStar. It was pretty good imo, I didn't like it quite as much as the original, but it had some cool moments and I enjoyed that last chapter very much (just my experience, but I have yet to see a story based on Night on the Galactic Railroad that would be disappointing). Oh, I also played Misao. I have no idea who tagged it as otome. It's just a horror game with absolutely no dating sim elements.

I haven't played any of the itch games, but I have some of them downloaded. And I see here my biggest problem with itch.io: you can't filter out demos. It's so frustrating for me, because I hate it when I see a cool-looking game only to discover that it's just a demo and that the last update was over a year ago (and it's sadly something that happened to me more times than I can count).

[alias_sqbr]

It's so frustrating for me, because I hate it when I see a cool-looking game only to discover that it's just a demo and that the last update was over a year ago (and it's sadly something that happened to me more times than I can count).

Yeah that has happened to me a lot as well :(