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Friday, 29 March 2019

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!


Where do I start on this one? There's a lot of stuff to talk about. I had to use a walkthrough again to get onto Shiraishi's route, but I've figured out how the common route choices work now! Basically you get the first choice in the game, which determines whether Ichika dies or not, then there's bits in the story where Ichika has a confrontation with each possible love interest, where the game will give you two choices. If you choose the correct choice for that character, you're going to get their route, unless you pick another correct choice after that, because then you'll get the other person's route instead. I've gotten every set of character choices so far except Yanagi's, because I think he's locked until last, which in convenient because I decided to leave him for then anyway. On my first playthrough I almost got Sasazuka's route, because I chose the right choice for him, but then I also chose the correct choice for Okazaki too, so I ended up landing on his route instead. It feels like I'm writing a game guide now. I should probably get into discussing the actual route....

Shiraishi didn't really appeal to me that much at the beginning, but I still didn't mind him. He is a bit of a weirdo, but a likeable weirdo. I didn't even realise that he'd been wearing cat ears for the entire game until today! He really likes cats, and most people who love cats are cool in my opinion. There's a cute scene where Ichika watches Shiraishi pet the local strays, where the game gives you a CG with it too. Even though most of the people dislike him, the cats don't seem to mind Shiraishi that much.


Ichika really, really didn't like Shiraishi at first. He's just a bit too insensitive for her liking, because he'll just say whatever he wants without caring about what other people think. Ichika even got invited to Mukai and Sakuragawa's little club where they like go to the pub and complain about Shiraishi all evening. They drag Ichika out for drinks one day, but they don't realise that Shiraishi's been watching them for the whole time... He didn't really seem offended about anything they said though. The game needed a reason for Ichika and Shiraishi to get close together, so they made her chug his alcohol down by accident, and pass out on his lap.... How embarrassing for her! Shiraishi had to take her home in a taxi, even though all of the others were there too so they could've taken her home instead.

Then at work Ichika gets a lot of presents from Shiraishi and stuff, and he actually makes an effort to talk to her and not treat her like an experiment or something. They try to have normal conversations and stuff like regular people and Shiraishi tries to ask Ichika questions about herself. This might've happened before the pub scene, I can't remember but it doesn't really matter to be honest. 


...

But then Mukai makes Ichika go over Shiraishi's house and cook him dinner, so that she can find details about his personal life to embarrass him with a bit later. Isn't that a bit mean? If you really disliked him you'd file a formal complaint to your boss, instead of nosing round his house. So Ichika goes round his flat, and she's lucky enough to be the first person ever to be invited there. Shiraishi goes into his bedroom and lets Ichika do the cooking. Instead of doing what she intended to do, she starts poking around his stuff and under his bed, even though he's literally in the next room over. Of course she gets caught, and he pins her against the wall and says some strange stuff to her.




I thought it was going to get steamy here, but Ichika actually fought back and didn't sit there like a doormat. She was super angry and just walked out without cooking nothing, even though she probably spent a lot of money buying all of the ingredients beforehand.

I kind of like these scenes where the MC gets pinned against the wall, even though it's probably not a very good situation to be in. I don't know why, but I really like love interests that do that. That's probably why I enjoy self-inserting into stuff like Diabolik Lovers.

I think Ichika and Shiraishi make up after this, I dunno if I've got that far yet. The gift giving bit might've come after this, but I don't think it did because the screenshots I took from it have an earlier timestamp than the two above.

As I said, that's all I've read so far. This route's quite good so far. It's the only one where Ichika really hates her love interest at first. Some of the other boys might treat her like dirt or attempt to push her away, but she never really despises them like Shiraishi. I kind of still like Shiraishi myself though. His design isn't super appealing to me, but he's an interesting character. At this point I don't really know what his backstory is, except that his parents died when he was really young. I dunno if he'll end up being my favourite LI in this game, but I know I'll enjoy the rest of this route.

My favourite boy from this game was originally Okazaki, but after playing Sasazuka's route, I don't know if I like him more than Okazaki or if I like them both equally. I also liked Enomoto and his route too, but he's not really my type. He was quite a good match for Ichika though. 

I think that's all I can manage to write today. These posts end up taking way longer than usual to write because my computer is so distracting. Hopefully you all had a nice day. My next post may not be on the weekend because I don't actually play games often then. See you all later!









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