Only Two Routes Left Now...

Hello, and welcome to yet another post on Collar X Malice. Today I started Shiraishi's route, and it's been, uh, quite interesting so far. This time I took a few screenshots so the post will look less boring! I really could be doing anything else on a Friday night but I really wanted to get this post out before I forgot about half the route. Right now I'm probably on chapter two of this route, so not too much has happened yet. But still, I'm about to be discussing spoilers and stuff, so be warned!

Enomoto's Route: Final Thoughts

(I've gone back to giving my posts regular titles now.)

Today I sat down with my cat and completed Enomoto's route. Of course I enjoyed it. This game hasn't really disappointed me yet, and that's good because I had super high expectations for it. Luckily I managed to get the good ending without issues, even though I was getting worried that I might've messed up some of the choices.

I'm just going to leak out all of my thoughts on it down here. Unfortunately I didn't bother to take any screenshots so there's not going to be any images below. Sorry. Also beware of spoilers.

Collar X Malice #6 (I still can't think of a more creative title...)

I'm back at it again with another Collar X Malice post. There was going to be more of these anyway, unless my Vita blew up and I couldn't play no more. I always seem to write these posts at the worst times, when I'm tired and I can't remember much of the plot, but I still continue to produce them in this state everyday.

Today I played through about two chapters of Enomoto's route, but about 70% it was without sound so I didn't get to hear any of the voices. My trophy completion is currently at about 30%, which is more than what I had after finishing every single route in Amnesia: Memories.

(There's spoilers below, by the way.)

Collar X Malice Post #5 (I can't think of a better title, sorry)

I didn't get to write any blog posts or play on my Vita very much over the weekend, but I suppose it's nice to have a break from my regular activities. Over these past few months I've gradually gotten more serious about writing on this blog, although I still won't bother to write anything like a professional blog post, because I want this place to stay 100% casual.

Now I've got to get on with writing more about my adventures with what is turning into one of my favourite otome games: Collar X Malice. But you knew I was going to write about that because you read the title. After getting two bad endings I eventually got Sasazuka's good ending today. His route wasn't easy like Okazaki's, I had to actually use a walkthrough because I always do after getting bad endings; I'm just too lazy to figure out how I went wrong. Since I played this route over many days, the plot isn't as clear in my head anymore, like I state in almost every post now, because I'm scared people'll expect me to remember every single detail of the plot.

As always, there's spoilers down below, so beware. I don't want to be accused of ruining surprises for people.

A quick note: I promised to include more screenshots in my future posts but I only took two rubbish screenshots this time round. Sorry.

Oh dear, my laptop just died whilst typing the last sentence, even though the battery was still really high. Oh well, let's just get on with the post, shall we? I feel like I will have forgotten most of what I wanted to write, but I'm going to try to let my thoughts out anyway.

Sasazuka's Route: First Impressions

Hello again. Here is another one of my many posts on Collar X Malice. I seem to be writing a lot more about this game than any other. Yesterday I started my second route, Sasazuka's, but I didn't get past the first chapter until today. I played it so much earlier, I couldn't even stop because it was so good. But then my Vita almost died and I had to do other stuff, so I haven't actually touched it since lunch time. I think I'm somewhere in the third chapter now.

I have a lot of things to write concerning Sasazuka and his route. Let's just say that I completely understand now why so many people like him. Beware of the heavy spoilers down below! Also, I'm going to start adding more screenshots to my posts now, because endless walls of text are boring.

Sometimes I think that these posts look really bad because I end up repeating the love interest's name  about a billion times because I dunno what else to call them. It looks like that here, so I'll apologise in advance. To make it seem less bad I'm going to alternate between using their first and last names.

I've Finished My First Collar X Malice Route!

It took me around three days, but I've finished Okazaki's route! There was so much going on since I last wrote about it that I can't remember it all, so I'm just going to write about the stuff that stuck out to me like I normally do. There's going to be lots of spoilers down below, as usual.

Diabolik Lovers Drama CD Volume 2: My Thoughts

Yes, I know, another post on those silly vampire CDs. But they're really really good!

This time I listened to Subaru's CD, which was about twenty minutes longer than Ayato's. You would've thought that they would all last for the same amount of time. Like the other one, I sat down and listened to it without any translations, then I read that afterwards to see how much I understood. I thought that Subaru would be nicer than the rest of them, but I was wrong. He's just as bad as the others, if not worse at times. But of course, I still enjoyed it.

Diabolik Lovers: Haunted Dark Bridal Drama CD Volume 1: My Thoughts

I went on Amazon the other day, and purchased two Diabolik Lovers drama CDs for a really cheap price, as well as the first game for the PSP. Even though you can just listen to the CDs on YouTube, I wanted to support the company by actually paying for it. Except I technically haven't supported them really, because I bought everything used.

They were shipped all the way from Japan and came super quickly. For used items, they were in almost immaculate condition. In fact, one of the CDs was still sealed in the plastic wrapping, meaning that I would be the first person to properly touch the disc and the case.

The drama CDs I picked were volumes one and two of the original series, featuring Ayato and Subaru. These were released about a year or two before the first DiaLovers otome game came out. So far I've only managed to listen to one of them, and I thought that it would be a nice idea to share my thoughts on them here, just in case anybody's interested. This blog is primarily an otome blog, but drama CDs are related to them so I might as well talk about them.

Since I've only listened to one of them so far, I'm just going to dump my thoughts on Ayato's CD and write about Subaru's at a later date.

More Thoughts On Okazaki's Route

If you're wondering why this screenshot is here, it's because I wanted to point out one of the many strange grammatical errors that are in Collar X Malice. There's nothing grammatically incorrect here, except the character is referring to the MC as Ichika, even though I changed her name to something else. This happened twice. Another common mistake is that sometimes the writers/translators got the character names all mixed up, causing a lot of confusion for me. I'm not going to let these errors detract from my enjoyment of the game though. I'm just pointing this out in case Aksys Games happen to be reading this, because they really need to hire some proofreaders, because a lot of their games have these problems.

Anyways, I'm now pretty far into Okazaki's route. There's probably going to be one more post on it after this one, then I will have finished dumping all of my thoughts on it to the world.

Also, if you want to listen to music whilst reading this, may I recommend Okazaki's character song? It's sounds quite bright and happy, it suits his character quite well.

And don't forget, there are lots of spoilers down below. 

The Shortest Common Route Ever

I've been continuing to play Collar X Malice, and after less than a day of playing, I've actually gotten somewhere!

 I didn't have to do any in-game flirting or nothing, the prologue ended and I was immediately locked onto someone's route. This is probably the shortest common route that I've ever played through! I'm so glad because that means that I don't have to spend half an hour skipping through it before starting my next route. But because I had absolutely no idea what choices give you points for which love interest, I'm probably going to have to use a walkthrough next time...

Through selecting the choices that I would probably make in real life, I ended up landing on Okazaki's route. I'm quite glad because he seemed like the nicest LI out of them all. Usually when I try to act like myself in these games, I just end up with a bad ending where I get nobody. This probably means that Okazaki is the one that I'd be the most compatible with in real life, and I think that would be true. The others would probably have no interest in me whatsoever if I had met them in reality instead.

Down below I'm going to spill my thoughts on this route I've just started. It's going to be spread out through multiple posts, because as I've said many times before (I'm super repetitive, aren't I?) , if I don't write my thoughts down almost immediately after playing, I'll quickly forget everything.

(This post contains spoilers, like usual.)

Collar X Malice: First Impressions

I finally got around to playing Collar X Malice. This game seems to be quite popular amongst the otome crowd, so I had rather high expectations for it. I'm still in the middle of the prologue, but so far it hasn't let me down. Today I thought that it would be a good idea to write down my initial thoughts on the game so that once I've finished it I can see if my opinions changed or if my predictions were ever correct.

As usual, there's probably gonna be spoilers down below, but since I haven't gotten that far there won't be too many.

Code: Realize: Future Blessings: Final Thoughts/Finis Route Opinions

I had planned to finish this game yesterday, but I had to do real life stuff instead. It's not like I'm in a race or speed running it or anything. This morning I managed to complete it and get around eighty-six percent trophy completion for it. So, what are my final thoughts? What did I think of Finis' route? Read below to find out, but beware of spoilers!

Herlock's Route: A Very Long Summary/Review

Warning: This post contains massive spoilers for Code: Realize: Future Blessings.

After sitting down on the sofa with my cat and my Vita for many hours, I have finally completed Sholmes' route, and it was a very dramatic roller-coaster ride that I enjoyed quite a bit! I suppose this post is going to be almost like a proper review of it.

"Lupin's Gang" - My Final Opinion

(Massive spoilers for Code: Realize: Future Blessings down below!!)

I'VE FINALLY FIGURED OUT HOW TO USE "READ MORE" BUTTONS ON BLOGGER! Now nobody can be spoiled by accident scrolling down the homepage!! I've known how to do them on Wordpress for a long time but I never bothered to figure out how to do it on Blogger until today.

"Lupin's Gang" - Initial Opinions

(Spoilers for Code: Realize: Future Blessings down below!!!!)








At this point I am somewhere about halfway through the "Lupin's Gang" short story. It's turning out to be a lot longer than I had expected. The plot is also very different to what I thought it would be, too. I thought that it was gonna be about some other gang that Lupin was part of, I didn't realise that Lupin's Gang actually refers to him and the rest of the main cast of the story.

:)

(Spoilers for Code: Realize: Future Blessings down below!)






Saint-Germain's after story was mainly just plot, with a bit of fluff and some cute CGs scattered here and there. It was a good route, probably not my favourite of them all, but still great.

That Was Awesome!

(Major spoilers for Code: Realize: Future Blessings down below!!!)







Wow, Impey's after story was simply amazing! It might even be my favourite so far! In the original game I didn't really care for Impey that much, but now I really really like him. His entire route was so happy and there wasn't really much conflict at all, it was just pure fluffiness.

...

(Spoilers for Code: Realize: Future Blessings down below!)



I just added a "read more" tag to this so you can't really see what's down below anymore. That means I need to think of more creative titles than just "...". This post contains my thoughts on Victor's after story, just in case you were wondering.

A Satisfying Conclusion

(Spoilers for C:R: Future Blessings down below!)















I literally just finished Lupin's after story. I had to log on to Blogger immediately, because if I don't write about it now, I'll forget all that I wanted to say.

The Prettiest CG Ever!

MASSIVE CG SPOILERS FOR CODE: REALIZE: FUTURE BLESSINGS DOWN BELOW!!)












I haven't finished Lupin's after story yet (I've been doing other stuff in real life) but I have found the one of the prettiest CGs I have ever seen!

....

(Spoilers down below for Code: Realize: Future Blessings!)

Code: Realize: Future Blessings

Guess what I finally got around to play? I suppose you would already know if you read the title. Yes, I finally played the Code: Realize fan-disc, and it was amazing. I played it until my Vita's battery was almost dead, which actually wasn't as long as you expected since the battery was at fifty percent, but I still played it for quite a while without stopping!

(Spoilers down below!)

I Finished It!

(Spoilers for Sweet Fuse down below!!!)

I finally finished Sweet Fuse. But I'm still missing loads of CGs for some reason... Let's just hope they're just depressing bad ending CGs only.

Interesting...

(MAJOR SPOILERS FOR SWEET FUSE DOWN BELOW! PROCEED WITH CAUTION!!!!)

.

This post contains major spoilers for Sweet Fuse: At Your Side. This is also the last post you'll find that has been updated with a "read more" button. So scroll down the rest of the site with caution!!!

I've Almost Finished the Game....

Wow, this happens to be post number one-hundred and twenty! I've never gotten that far on any blog or diary before.

(Spoilers down below!) You know, I should really start specifying what game the spoilers are for because most people will have no idea what I'm talking about. The game talked about in this post is Sweet Fuse, by the way.







So, I'm on my second-to-last route now. I finished Mitarashi's, it was good, but since I completed it yesterday it's not as fresh and I've forgotten all that I've wanted to write about. But now I'm on Shidou's route. I have no idea why I'm leaving Urabe for last. Originally I was going to play his route third or fourth.

I think that Shidou's the "Main Guy" of this game, meaning that he's the canon love interest and that his route will conclude all of the major plot points in the game. In the other routes Saki usually ends up not playing another game and instead goes off with her love interest to do something else, whilst you see the others being forced to play. This time Saki doesn't go off on a separate task, her and Shidou continue playing the games with all the others. In the other routes you saw and heard what the rest of the games were, but now you're actually playing them with everybody.

I think that Count Hogstein's identity's going to be revealed in this route. They never cleared everything up in the other routes, so they're going to have to do it here. After playing the secret route you see Hogstein (I'm sure he's called something else in the Japanese voicing but I'm not sure what!) in a different light. When I had the sound off I imagined his voice as older and deeper than it is in the voice acting, but now I just imagine it as a younger voice like it actually is. I never would've expected that underneath that horrible pig costume is just a young male with serious problems.

The romance between Saki and Shidou can get slightly awkward at times, but it's cute. However, sometimes Shidou just acts really weird. Like once he just said to her "You're face, it's really round, can I touch it?" and I was just like "?????". Who says that to someone? And sometimes he just randomly touches her hair and stuff. I'm not sure if he doesn't know how to speak to women or if he's just a bit odd. Again, I looked up the voice actor for this character and he also plays Hikaru from Ouran High School Host Club, someone who is the complete opposite of what he plays in this game.  I also looked up on the Wiki for Shidou's age and it was 22, not much older than Saki. I actually thought he was a bit older since I think Hogstein once mentioned that he was going bald or something. He's actually younger than Urabe, which is also a surprise. At least he's not double her age, like a certain someone in this game...

I just finished reading the scene in his route where they all have to dress up in animal costumes. It's quite funny how embarrassed Shidou acts. None of the others really seemed to care about wearing them.

One thing I've noticed in at least two routes now is Wakasa getting jealous of Saki partnering up with one of the other characters. Maybe he's one of those characters who loves you in every route? Maybe he knows that he's in a game and he's sad that you've picked another route? I doubt that any of those things are true. He probably just likes Saki because she's the closest to his age, she's a girl and it's better than being stuck with some other older guy. He's still my favourite love interest from this game though.

This game has taken me longer to play than some of the others, like Psychedelica of the Black Butterfly. It has a few more routes than other games so that's why. I've said this before, but it's such a shame how underrated this game is. If it was more successful, it might've spawned fan-disks or ports or even drama CDs! I might've even been the first person to purchase this game from the PS Store in months! At least people can still buy it new digitally so that Otomate/Aksys can notice people purchasing it, knowing that at least a few people appreciate it. It probably sold a lot more than I'm thinking though, because otherwise there would've been no English translation.

What a great game though. Every single game I've been slightly unsure about has always surpassed my expectations. I suppose keeping your expectations low makes it easier for you to be impressed. If you set your standards super high then it's easier to get disappointed.

It's finally the weekend. You know what's strange? I play my Vita more in the week when I have less free time than I do on Saturday and Sunday when I have nothing planned. Also, in the short time I've had my Vita, I might've even played it more than my Xbox One, which I've had for over a year. I suppose the portability's done that. Portable games are the best.

I suppose I'll see you all later. It's the weekend so I want to have fun and take a break from blogging. Goodbye!!

Every Plot Point is Clicking Together.......

(Spoilers down below!)








Today I finished two routes. Well, I started the other one yesterday so I was already almost done when I started playing, but oh well....

Shirabe's route was good and all that, it's not very fresh in my mind now so it's harder to talk about. But the route I finished in only a day (actually only a bit over an hour of play time) was Makoto's. Apparently it's best to play that one last, but it doesn't really matter for me.

His route was actually a lot sadder than I thought it would be, but I was still quite happy because a few of my theories turned out to be correct! I predicted that Makoto might've been either the player Saki replaced or Count Hogstein, and both of them turned out to be true! And those random dreams that occured near the end of each chapter, they weren't Saki's like I had thought, they were actually his! I think I misinterpreted them a bit because sometimes I had to play without the sound.

Makoto's actually really sweet but also just quite messed up. Saki had to somehow fix him with the power of love. I thought a couple of times that the route was going to end with suicide like a certain other game that I was gonna mention, but shouldn't in case the reader hasn't played it, but luckily he survived to give Saki two kisses. The ending wasn't exactly the happiest because he still had to go to prison, but they made it seem not that bad because of their love or something. This route must be a bit shorter than the others, which I expected after playing the original Hakuoki's "secret" route which was literally just an alternate ending. (I'm still disappointed with that, by the way.)

I think that a lot of the character backstories from the other routes were spoiled here, so I can understand why this was locked. When I restarted the common route for the third time, there was also a character who wasn't there before, but he didn't pop up again. Earlier I said that I was missing things from Wakasa's route, and I think I've found one of them. When you play the common route before unlocking Makoto, there's a part in the story where you explore the park for the first time and you get to choose what character you do it with.  But once you unlock the extra route, you can't get it again unless you choose this one choice at the beginning that shoos Makoto away. When I did the common route to get Wakasa, I was unaware of this and ended up missing a CG of him. But today I managed to get it so everything's fine, I suppose.

But now I have to skip through the common route again to pursue Mitarashi. I've never found an otome that's easier to get the route you want, and all of the good endings, than this game. I have been using walkthroughs occasionally just to check my answers, like when I wanted Makoto's route I wanted to look up to see how to get his route without getting loads of affection points for the others. A lot of times I've gotten bad endings because I failed the mini game, or just made one wrong choice, but it wasn't like the other games where it's because I made hundreds of mistakes in the past and it's impossible to go back and see where I messed up.

To be honest, I was a bit skeptical of Sweet Fuse in the past because none of the love interests really appealed to me. I know people should be judged by personalities but I'm pretty shallow and just go by looks. Even after I had bought it I was a bit skeptical still, but I'm glad I played it now. It's like that with a lot of things I'm not sure about, I experience them and then end up loving them. This otome is as good as all of the other wildly popular titles, so it should be talked about more! Well, I suppose me covering it on this blog might give it a tiny bit more publicity... It would be cool if it had a fan-disc or something but I'm not really sure where they could take the characters once this is over... Maybe they could just do after-stories or something?

I wonder how people feel about the kinds of posts I write on my blog. People usually write reviews for video games, not personal diaries on them! I could do reviews but by the time I've finished a game a lot of the minor details will have slipped my mind, and I'm not going to write notes whilst I play because that'll ruin it. I suppose these posts could count as notes, but they don't really dive that deep into the plot so they're not. Writing these posts makes my blog slightly different, but I honestly think that this place is turning more into my own diary than an actual public website.

Anyway, that's enough of my ramblings. I still haven't learned how to conclude posts in all my years of blogging, so I'm just gonna say goodbye. Goodbye!

.

(Spoilers down below!)




Towa Wakasa is now my favourite character in this entire game, because he's so adorable. His ending was lovely, and it even came with a cute CG to add to the collection! When I went back into the "Diary" feature to see if I had gotten the good ending or not, a few of his chapters were missing for some reason. I don't know if it's a glitch or if I somehow missed out a huge chunk of his route. It seemed like I'd read the whole thing before. Meoshi's route was also missing a chapter. How strange.

I literally just found out from the Wiki that in the Japanese version of the game, Towa's meant to be 15, but in the English localisation he was made to be 17. I wonder why?

I just ignored it and went onto Shirabe's route to get it out of the way. Even though I started it today, I've almost finished it. The plot in this route is great, but the romance... I can't remember how old Saki's meant to be but if she's still in school, she can't be any older than eighteen. And how old is Shirabe supposed to be? It says online he's 32, which isn't as much as what I thought he was. In the game they act like he's in his fifties or something, but being in your thirties isn't that old! Maybe if Saki was a bit older, I could understand her falling in love with him, but the kissy scenes grossed me out because I think he's two old. They were even worse for me because I thought he was a lot older than he actually was!

But this route was worth it because it gives you some answers about the overarching plot! In most otome games I've played, each route connects to something bigger. I usually forget that when I begin a new game, and I did here. Everybody was invited to the park because they're all connected to a bus crash! It was mentioned in Wakasa's route (but he was unaware it was a bus accident) and in Meoshi's too. It's basically the tragic event that forms all of the character's motivations. I even think Saki was involved in it too, because of those dreams she has that seem to involve something like a car crash. Even though she volunteered to join Hogstein's game, I still think that she has something to do with it. And the person who was originally meant to be in the game but wasn't because of Saki offering to do it, I theorise that Minami was that person, because I dunno why his route would be "secret" or he would be a possible love interest if he didn't have some connection to the plot. At first I thought that he might've been Count Hogstein but I'm not sure now.

I love writing down predictions so that I can go back and see if I was right. People who've already played this game must be looking at them and laughing because they're probably all wrong. I don't know. I'll have to wait until tomorrow to see if I was correct!

Wow...

I hope I can speak Japanese well soon, because I just ordered the PSP Hakuoki fandisc for dirt cheap and free shipping on Amazon. It's from an Amazon voucher gift so it's not my own money. :) It was kind of an impulse buy but it was so cheap and I'm learning Japanese so..................

:)

(Spoilers down below for Sweet Fuse!)



Today I decided to start Wakasa's route. When I reloaded the common route, things turned out a bit differently. There was a new character, I forgot his name but he's the "secret" route. He hides in the shadows and none of the others really know about him except Saki, probably so they don't have to rewrite much of the common route. He's actually quite sweet towards the MC, but also slightly annoying. He just pops up in the middle of a game and stops Saki to chat when she's in the middle of stuff! I had no idea how the others didn't notice her talking to him.

I kept making choices that raised his affection, so I had be very careful and make sure that his affection didn't get higher than Wakasa's. Once I actually got onto the route, he just disappeared and I haven't seen him again since.

I thought that Saki was going to be protecting Wakasa and telling him that everything was going to be alright when he got scared, but things reversed. He got some inspiration from Mitarashi and changed quite a bit from when I first saw him in the game. Fun fact: His voice actor plays Kanato in the Diabolik Lovers series, is in the Hakuoki remake and plays somebody in Collar X Malice. It's strange, I'm starting to take more notice of the voice actors in these games.

I'm enjoying this route more than Meoshi's. The very first bit was quite similar, in the alien spaceship game they had to play, then it branched off and did its own thing. Wakasa is very sweet. I absolutely love him, he's probably going to be my favourite in the whole game. When they were in the hospital, he was absolutely horrified and trembling, but he still stood there and comforted Saki and told her it would be alright. That scene was absolutely adorable. When I first saw him and heard that he was a boy band singer, I thought that he was going to be a little princess, but I was very much wrong.

The route's also a bit like Meoshi's in that Saki and Wakasa are separated from the rest of the main cast for most of the story. I expect that's going to happen for all of them so that the couple can have a bit of romantic development. I'm at the bit now where Wakasa and Saki bravely went to rescue the hostages, and now they've just found out that Count Hogstein is actually more than one person! I'm glad that I'm finally about to find out about the villain and his motives. In Meoshi's ending (I think it was the good ending!) they didn't really find out about who he really was, in fact nobody managed to catch him at all!

I am very much enjoying this game, but I kind of also want to finish it quickly because I have Code: Realize: Future Blessings waiting for me. Usually even if I enjoy something I still want it to be finished quickly because I like the feeling of completing something. Sweet Fuse feels kind of underrated. I suppose it came out quite late in the PSP's life cycle, so most of the people on that console would've moved on, but then again it is playable on the Vita, but not many people play that anyway so it wouldn't've helped sales that much. I wonder how popular it was in Japan? It must've been if they localised it, or maybe it was just brought over because Aksys chose it? I heard that Aksys like to choose the least romantic games with the less doormatty protagonists. Online I read this interview by the person who wrote the English version of the PSP Hakuoki game rewrote some of Chizuru's lines to make her seem less passive and more suited to a Western audience.

I think I began to ramble on a bit there. It's probably time for me to stop writing now. See you all later!

I Ordered A Lot of Otome Stuff!

Hello everybody! I haven't been playing my Vita at all this weekend, because I don't normally play it then, but I did get given a really big Amazon voucher. I haven't spent it all yet, but I've still bought four otome related items for pretty good prices.

I ordered Collar X Malice, DiaLovers Haunted Dark Bridal for PSP and two DiaLovers drama CDs. I know most of the stuff I got is in Japanese, but I'm going to be using my slowly improving language skills and online fan translations. It's going to be very exciting once I get them. I also got C:R, Future Blessings from my local gaming shop, so once I've finished Sweet Fuse I'll be playing it.

I'm very happy at what I've bought, it's certainly going to make for lots of blog posts. Once I've finished with the DiaLovers game I'm gonna make a guide on how other Japanese beginners like me can play it easily.

:)

(^._.^)ﾉ

Well, I've almost finished my first Sweet Fuse route. I'm pretty much at the end, with probably only like a few sentences and a final kiss CG to go.

(Spoilers below!)



I'm super glad that I chose Meoshi's route first. I thought that he was gonna be one of those quiet boys who doesn't actually speak to you properly until near the end, but he warmed up to Saki quite quickly. In the common route he was still a bit shy but the change started not far from the beginning of his route. He's not just a lazy hikikomori like you think he's gonna be, he's actually quite sweet and intelligent. There's actually a reason behind why he spends most of his days playing video games. I can actually kind of relate to his awkwardness sometimes, so it helped me to better feel a connection with this character whilst doing my self-inserting. He kind of feels like a cross between Hanzo Urushihara (my very first true husbando from Hataraku Maou-Sama, this light novel series I used to read) and Saito. It's funny, I looked up the voice actor for him, Masakazu Morita, and he's the official Japanese dubber for Zac Efron, meaning that he's done films like High School Musical and all that. The other otome games he's been in are Collar X Malice and Tokimeki Memorial Girls' Side.

Although there was quite a lot of plot here, there was still plenty of romance to keep people like me entertained. I got plenty of bad endings by failing the mini-game thing (I still can't remember what it's called!) but near the end I failed it and it still let me through alright. It was super easy for me to make the right choices, literally every single one I picked gave me affection points. I don't know for sure yet but I think I'm getting a good ending. This is the second game I've played which notifies you whenever you do something the character likes, the first one was Hakuoki and it was super hard to figure out which answer the chosen love interest would like, whereas here it's super easy.

The story is so interesting! The stakes are super high, literally every single bad ending involves the main cast dying in some way. It's like one massive escape room story in a big theme park that's video game themed. I love theme parks so much and this place feels like one I'd like to go to, except I wouldn't really because it just ends up turning into some death game. The villain, Count Hogstein, is super quirky and interesting. I don't really know his motivations yet but I'm sure I'll find out soon. His voice actually sounds like someone young trying to mask their voice, so I wouldn't be surprised if it's some teenager or something underneath. Near the end of Meoshi's route the story turned into some kind of zombie survival story, I normally don't care for horror but it was really fun, and it allowed for some great romantic moments.

Saki is such a wonderful MC. Whenever the screen turns red and she gets angry, you get to make her scream at people. I do it almost every time and it always works out well. Even Count Hogstein is scared of her anger. It's such a change of pace from the passive doormats we get normally, even though I usually don't mind those girls. Normally in most otome routes it's always the LI who does the first kiss, but this time it was Saki who kissed Meoshi first. She was comforting him because he was crying that he was useless and she just decided to kiss him. It was really cute.

I pretty much like all of the main characters even though I'm not really sure about some of them as love interests. Saki's meant to be still in secondary school yet she can still date Shirabe, a grown man with a child who's like twenty years older than her! I don't think I'll be able to self insert during his route, I'll probably just call the MC some name other than my own and enjoy it like a romance novel. Normally I self-insert with everyone but he's just way too old, I'm sorry, it's just gonna feel weird for me since I'm still really young like Saki... Next I'm gonna do Wakasa's route because I really like him. It'll literally be dating a J-Pop star, which should be interesting, plus I just think he's gonna be a good love interest. Since he's a bit of a scaredy-cat, I expect Saki to be the one doing all of the protecting and stuff whilst they're solving the puzzles and that. I suppose I'll be starting that on Monday since I'm taking a break from games for the weekend. I'm so glad I don't have to sit skipping through the common route for hours, this one's super short. Not Amnesia short where there's literally no common route, but probably one of the shortest I've played so far.

Wow, I did have a lot to write about today. I haven't seen many people discuss this game. It's a shame because it's so good! Anyway, that's all for today. See you all later!