otome_games | Entries tagged with phone games

Bakumatsu Renka Shinsengumi for Switch, PC launches June 17 This is a port of an older mobile game, the protagonist is the the first female member of the Shinsengumi.

Nekopara: Catboys Paradise announced for PC, iOS, and Android. This is an April Fools joke that became real, from a company that usually makes catgirl games.

Also Otome Games in Nintendo Switch (English) is very thorough and has a bunch of games I hadn't heard of, including some upcoming games.

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Since it's the game of the month I decided to make a review post with all the games that are free right now...but alas the current crop are largely not to my taste. Still, maybe they'll be to yours!

Here's a post I made about Voltage/Love365 in general explaining the payment structure and reviewing the games I've played. I've found a few I really like, including Dui from Star-crossed who is free for the next week and a bit.

Note that there's some variation in when these games are free for, and what "free" means.

Irresistible Mistakes: Shunichiro: The protagonist wakes up realising she had a drunken one night stand she can't remember with one of her coworkers. Shunichiro is her cheerfully hedonistic boss, it glossed over the consent issues too much for me but he had a certain skeezy charm. This seems to be permanently free.

Irresistible Mistakes: Yukihasa: a brilliant but emotionless doctor who thinks love is a delusion and just wants to be friends with benefits. I had complicated feelings on him as a character, but the route seemed to be going in a "fix the neuro-atypical person with loving sex" direction. Free for February.

Butler Until Midnight: Yuma: The protagonist finds out she's the daughter of a prestigious man and is bullied into letting a butler train her to be a refined lady. They were so manipulative and mean in the prologue it felt more like a butler themed horror game, but it's probably fun if you like domineering butlers? I've heard there's a lot of fat shaming, though. Yuma is apparently extra mean to start with but becomes nicer. Free for February.

Star-crossed: Dui This is a cute romance with the god of the star-sign Gemini, who has two sides to his personality. Free with ads until February 11.

Destind: Araya: the protagonist matches via a dating app with a younger friend from highschool who's been pining over her. He's rapey and manipulative. It's "Love Choice" which means the good choices, leading to the super happy end, cost money. Normally you'd also have to wait or pay to read the episodes, and that part seems to be permanently free, but unlocking the super happy ending still costs like $30 and even people who liked the route gave it a low score for the poor value for money.

I posted a bit more detail over on my dreamwidth.

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I decided to check out both the Japanese and US Voltage apps (both in English) and had a lot of fun.

Here's my review of the apps in general including discussions of the freemium payment structure etc.

From what I can see, both always have female protagonists, and have "free" romance phone games that encourage you to spend money but you can genuinely have fun with for free by slowly accruing currency or playing free games. They all also have autoplay, so you don't have to click too much.

Voltage USA:
Mildly diverse, has some games with female or even non-binary love interests.
You mostly spend money to avoid inconvenience, and have to go through the same rigmarole to replay episodes.

Voltage Inc:
VERY tropey and heterosexual, like interactive illustrated Harlequin romances.
You generally pay for a route outright, and can replay it at will, but there's some with the "pay to avoid inconvenience" model. Has free games.

And here's the games I played a chunk of:

Love and Legends: Altea Chapter 1 f/f with a cute wizard

"Irresistible Mistakes", mostly Shunichiro m/f after a drunken hookup with a coworker

After School Affairs- Shinichi m/f forbidden affair between teachers. This uptight maths teacher is free for the rest of January.

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I just finished Kazuya's route for this. It's a phone-based dating sim, a prequel to Hakuoki set 300 years earlier, but can be played as a stand alone game. It's set during the end of the Warring States/Sengoku period of Japan in the early 17th century.

The heroine, Yukina, is a ninja bodyguard to a demon princess, and chieftan of a demon clan in her own right. The princess has gathered the leaders of Japan's demons to ask them an important question, and Yukina finds herself drawn into human politics... and also drawn to one of the other demon chieftains.

The love interests. From left to right: Senkimaru, Kazuya, Chitose, Kazutake, and Shin

The love interests of Demon's Bond. Senkimaru is androgynous with shoulder-length white hair, turquoise-colored eyes, and an enigmatic smile. Kazuya short black hair, amethyst-colored eyes, and a cool expression. Chitose has short light brown hair, red-colored eyes and a determined smile. Kazutake has short chocolate brown-colored hair, green-colored eyes and a smile between aggressive and energetic. Shin Shiranui has long dark pink hair that is worn in a high ponytail, amber-colored eyes and a smug smile. They're all pale. Senkimaru and Shin are in kimono while the other three are in armour. Kazutake has his shirt open.

The (VERY SHORT) prologue is free but each love interest's route costs $5US. Apparently the routes share some content.

I just played through to the good end for Kazuya, a kuudere. It was great, but I'd rate the proportions as like:
Japanese historical drama: 50%
Anime-esque fantasy nonsense: 20%
Yukina kicking ass: 20%
Romance: 10%

All those parts are done moderately well, but if you're just there for the romance you'll be disappointed. From reviews I've read, the other routes are similar in this respect. Kazuya and Yukina develop a very sweet relationship, but it's more of a shonen-y warrior connection than romance for most for the game.

I didn't love it quite as much as Hakuoki (WHICH I ADORE) but I still enjoyed it a lot, and it has some nice Hakuoki connections lore wise, eg the Princess the protagonist is guarding is an ancestor of Princess Sen.

Here's my reaction posts to the prologue and Kazuya's route

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In May 2015, the gacha game Ensemble Stars! was first released. Since then, it has seen massive success, garnering multiple mangas, a light novel, several musicals, two different kinds of concerts (performed by voice actors and holograms), and dozens of albums. An anime adaptation was announced December 2015, but it was delayed massively. And so yesterday, July 7th 2019, marks the release of its first episode - and the first ever official English version of any part of the Ensemble Stars! franchise.

Enstars is a fandom that has become very near and dear to my heart through the tireless work of fan translators, but now that it is finally starting to make its name in the English speaking world, I really wanted to make a promo post to tell new people about it! It's a little long but I promise you that this is a very interesting and influential franchise - like, it has done so well in Asia that it was more talked-about on twitter in 2018 than Super Smash Bros or Final Fantasy! It's honestly wild that it's been so looked-over by English-speaking anime/otome fans!

So if you're interested, please come on over to my dreamwidth to learn about this giant cast of weird-ass ridonkulously shippable dumbasses working hard to become the best school idols in Japan! <3

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In short: Mystic Messenger is a well made and enjoyable phone based dating sim with some aspects I found annoying.

The protagonist stumbles into the chatroom of a group of friends who run a charity, and ends up getting to know them and helping to organise a big party. The game involves joining group chats, answering emails, messages and phonecalls in real time (not real phonecalls etc, it's simulated within the game) as well as traditional Visual Novel scenes.

Below, from left to right: Jumin, Yoosung, Jaehee, Seven, Zen.