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.
First things first, I have to say that the artwork is absolutely amazing! It's done by the same person who did Amnesia, another beautiful looking otome. In a lot of games there's always a few awkward sprites or CGs, but this one doesn't seem to have any so far. Even the UI looks quite nice, it feels a lot more exciting than a lot of other games.
The plot that I've read so far is quite interesting. Basically you have your MC, I think her name's Ichika or something but I changed it, and she's a policewoman in Shinjuku, which is currently quarantined due to some terrorist plot and a lot of crimes. One day she's out doing police work when she wakes up in this strange church-like building, with a poisonous collar round her neck. The collar was placed by the mysterious terrorist group who have been targeting the area. She gets told that she's not allowed to tell the police about this collar, or else people are gonna die.
Then Ichika (I really hope I'm getting her name right here) gets rescued by three strange men, who are also quite handsome because they have to be, they're the game's love interests. They're all ex-policemen who are investigating the terrorist plots for some reason, I have no idea why yet. They send her home, but the next day she meets up with them again in their detective agency office, offering to help investigate the cases. Some other stuff happens too, but that's just the basic plot of it.
It's quite an interesting plot for an otome game. Even the MC's quite interesting, she's not really one of those girls who has to be saved all of the time or anything. She's not a doormat, and she's not a 100% self-insert canvas, either. You can change her first name, but not her last name. Like usual, I put my real name in there for a complete immersive experience, and it does feel very out of place next to her Japanese surname, but I got used to it when I played Hakuoki, which also only lets you modify Chizuru's first name.
All of the love interests are quite interesting, too. I'm probably going to end up picking my favourite character's route first, which often ends up ruining the rest for me, because sometimes it feels like I'm actually dating them, so when I just reset the game, moving onto someone else, I see my previous love interest there, all lonely, and I kind of miss them a bit. I'm used to it now though.
I don't really know which love interest is my favourite yet. Sasazuka is the one I'm the most interested in right now. That's because I've seen so many people think he's the best one out of them all, even though he's really a bit of a dickhead to the MC, so much that I have absolutely no idea how a romantic relationship is going to spawn out of that. It's makes me curious about him, so I want to play his route badly to find out more about him. In real life I'd be absolutely terrified of him, but behind the safe barrier of a screen, I actually think he's kind of cute. His voice turned out to be a lot deeper than I expected, I thought that it was going to sound a lot higher than that. But seriously, I kind of think that Ichika should slap him in the face sometimes. Apparently he's nice underneath, but I don't think that I could imagine him saying anything kind to anyone. He's probably going to soften up once the romance between him and the MC heats up, though.
Another love interest that caught my interest was Okazaki. I just think that he's quite sweet. Also, he shares the same voice actor as a few characters I like, including Finis, whose route I literally just completed. They're all quite interesting love interests, to be honest. Each one of them looks like they have a very deep and potentially depressing backstory, but most otome LIs do.
I'm surprised that they haven't ported this over to the PC yet, since it's actually quite popular. Knowing that it's only been released on the Vita makes it feel exclusive and rarer to me. There is a fan-disc, which is always good to know in case I'm ever starving for more content. The problem with the FD is that it's a Japan exclusive, and looking at the current state of the Vita, there's probably a very slim chance of Aksys localising it for us English speakers. Oh well, I suppose that's another reason to keep learning Japanese.
As you can see, I'm rather enjoying this game so far. I've liked every console otome I've played so far, which is great. I think I'm just easily pleased sometimes, but these games are seriously all really good. Imagine if I had never purchased my Vita, I'd be left with the small pool of localised PSP titles and cheesy mobile titles. This blog would probably be less lively too. So I'm glad that I fell deep into the world of otome. Even if it does turn out to be "just a phase", at least it would've provided me with some happy memories.
I really can't wait until I next pick up my Vita. Until then, I'll see you all later!
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