More Otome Game Ramblings...

Cheritz, the creators of Mystic Messenger, are going to be releasing a new game soon, and it sounds really cool. So far it's only in BETA on the Google Play Store, but it should eventually come out of BETA and go onto the iOS App Store.

I didn't really know what it was going to be at first, so I did a bit of research on it. It's called the Ssum, and it's a calling/texting game like Mystic Messenger, but still a bit different. Apparently it learns your schedule so that you don't have to miss chats anymore whilst you're at work or school! And it sounds like you have only one relationship that never ends, so you don't switch routes or get any bad endings or anything.

The artwork is pretty, but it's a lot different looking to the art in the other Cheritz games. From the screenshots I've seen, the UI looks very similar to Mystic Messenger's, with the same fonts and everything.

I'm guessing that the game is going to be free to play, but it doesn't concern me that much because Mystic Messenger is one of the most generous F2P games I have ever played. It's probably not going to have any advertisements or anything like that.

I could play the BETA on my spare Android phone if I wanted to, but I'm just going to wait until it comes to iOS. Who knows, it might even turn out to be better than Mystic Messenger!

Speaking of Mystic Messenger, I'm having a break from it now. But on Saturday, I'm going to try Ray's route for the third time. The Max Speed feature would really help me here, but I'm too cheap to spend any money on the game! Another Story doesn't even give you Max Speed on the first day, unlike the other routes.

I was bored yesterday so I downloaded this F2P otome game called "Several Shades of Sadism". The UI and the fact that the love interests were all brothers kind of reminded me of Diabolik Lovers. It's an alright game, and it runs exactly the same way as Midnight Cinderella and Ikemen Sengoku, meaning it can also be a little bit laggy.

The interfaces of these F2P otome games feel like old fashioned HTML pages that use graphics as buttons. They even load like webpages too. Sometimes when I've been playing IkeSen on a slow connection, one part of the character's face will load before the other, so I just see a floating face for a few seconds!

Several Shades of Sadism (The name sounds like movie name you'd hear in a TV show that's trying not to get a copyright strike for using the name Fifty Shades of Grey!) has your average otome plot where the heroine ends up in a situation where she has to choose what attractive guy to start working for. At least the game still entertains me. It'll probably end up being deleted once I come across a "love challenge" that gets too difficult.

It reminds me of the first otome game I played, about two years ago. It was called "Shall We Date? Blood and Roses". The game was another boring F2P mobile app that I only downloaded because I saw it advertised on Facebook. I think I had it on my phone for almost a week, before I deleted it because I thought that the "love challenge" system would eventually become impossible to beat. The only thing I really liked about it was the art.

I then became curious of this strange genre of Japanese female dating games, so I searched for them on the App Store. They all intrigued me, but I was a bit put off by the F2P features that they all seemed to have.

Then I think I downloaded one of those F2P historical otomes, but I can't remember for the life of me what it was called. All I know is that I played through the prologue and it was about some girl who had a brother or something and that I chose the route of some guy with a red outfit and long, black hair. One of the character names from IkeSen sounded like it was from that game, so it may have been set in the same time period. It may have been that Samurai Love Ballad: Party game, but I don't think that game has the guy in the red outfit. That game was deleted off of my phone very quickly, too.

I forgot about the genre, probably because the only games I had seen were the crappy mobile ones. But then Mystic Messenger came along, and I became interested again. At least now I'm able to get some of the fancier paid otome games.

I was thinking of getting the one other PSP otome game that's in English, Sweet Fuse, but I'm not sure about the love interests that are available. I thought the PSP would have more games in the genre in English than just Hakuouki and Sweet Fuse, but I was wrong. Most of them are for the Vita, PC or Switch now.

Wow, I've rambled a lot in this post, haven't I? We might as well call this place Misty's Otome Blog from now on...

Here's another abrupt conclusion to this very long blog post. Goodbye!

I Played Another Otome Game...

So, last Thursday, Hakuoki (the PSP version) came to me through the post. I played it, and it was really good.

The first time I did it, I decided to only choose the choices that I would actually make in real life. Except those choices I made were really bad choices, and I ended up getting the "normal" ending where (Spoilers if anybody cares!) you end up spending some time with Chikage and everybody in the Shingensumi ends up dying off-screen. That depressing ending made me feel a bit empty and depressed.

If I had made the exact same choices that I did if I had already played two routes, I would have gotten to romance Chikage, who is turning out to be one of my favourite characters, even though he's a bit of a douchebag.

To ensure that I didn't end up getting any more bad endings, I decided to use a spoiler-free walkthrough. A few times I was going to make my own choices, but I quickly checked the Internet and found out that the options I were about to choose were the wrong ones. Using a walkthrough is a bit like cheating, but I really don't want to make any mistakes and end up making everybody die again.

I managed to complete Hijikata's route first, even though the Internet told me that he is best to leave for last. The story was really good, even though it was filled with a lot of Japanese history that I didn't understand. Before purchasing the game I heard that it would have a lot more plot than romance which concerned me, but I found myself not minding at all. It just makes it more meaningful when the romance scenes do eventually show up.

It took the main character forever to actually develop a relationship with Hijikata, but I guess it's more realistic than Mystic Messenger, where the romance only takes a bit more than a week to get going!

The soundtrack and the art work was amazing. I was really surprised when I found out that the entire game was pretty much fully voiced. It's a shame that I couldn't listen to the dialogue all the time, because most of the time I was playing it in public.

Now I'm currently completing Saito's route. I'm about more than halfway through, and it's really enjoyable. I can see why a lot of people like him the best out of the main cast. Saito seems like the kind of guy I would date in real life.

After I've done this route, I might throw the walkthrough away and actually use my own skills to play the game. I don't know if I'm going to try to aim for any bad endings, unless there are some where you don't have to act like a bitch to any of the love interests.

I've been so invested in Hakuoki that I don't really play any of my mobile otome games that much anymore. I'm still grinding on Mystic Messenger to unlock Another Story and I always log into Ikemen Sengoku to get coins, but I deleted Midnight Cinderella because I wasn't really interested in it anymore, and it ran terribly on my really fast iPhone. Also, I wasn't really getting that interested in the love interest I chose. Rayvis was a bit too boring for me.

I'm thinking of getting a blue and white PS Vita before they stop making them so I can enjoy more otome games! Most of the good games can be purchased on the PC, but I don't think I would ever complete them if they were on my laptop. Handheld gaming is more accessible for me because I can play anywhere I want.

A gaming shop nearby sells a lot of otome games for the Vita, including a special edition of Code: Realise that I want to grab before anybody else does!

Anyway, that's all I have to say for today.

I hope that everybody reading this has a great weekend, and a good Halloween!

Falling Down the Otome Rabbit Hole

During a break from grinding for hourglasses on Mystic Messenger, I decided to go further down into the world of otome games. I had played a couple before but they were lame free to play mobile games and I deleted them before completing any of the routes.

All of the interesting otome games are for the PSP or the PS Vita, I've found. I have a PSP but it has no memory card, and I don't have a Vita. For Christmas I think I might persuade one of my relatives to purchase me a Memory Stick and a couple of otome games, but I have a couple of months to go yet.

So, after extensive research, I decided to download two free to play cash grab otome games. I know Mystic Messenger is free to play too, but it isn't difficult to get through the game if you don't pay any real money, except if you want to play Another Story. You'll be grinding for months if you want to unlock that.

Whilst playing and downloading the two games, I was thinking of this GIF:

To be honest, the games aren't that bad. The games I downloaded were Ikemen Sengoku and Midnight Cinderella. They both happen to be made by the same company.

The interface works exactly the same as another otome game I've played before, but after a bit of research I found out that it's because they all happen to use the same engine.

Ikemen Sengoku is my favourite out of the two, because it has the most interesting plot. It took me a while to pick which fictional boy I wanted to date, there were so many to choose from! After reading a few route previews I picked some blonde guy called Kenshin Uesugi because his route reminded me of Jumin's in Mystic Messenger and I really enjoyed that route. They are probably completely different from each other but the fact that the MC gets "locked up" in both of them makes me think that they are similar.

I think I am on Chapter 2 now and I am enjoying it. Luckily I haven't run out of those annoying chapter tickets yet. A guide I saw online told me to save them up but I am not very good at that, because I keep wanting to see what happens next in the game!

This game also has the thing where you have to dress up this ugly looking avatar to gain points to move on or something, but I haven't paid much attention to it yet because it's boring and I don't care about how pretty my avatar is. There is a PS Vita version where all of this F2P stuff is gone, but it's only in Japanese and my Japanese is sub-par beginner level, plus I would have to pay a lot of money to buy a Vita and to ship this game over from Japan.

Sometimes the MCs in these games act nothing like me and none of the choices you can pick are things I would do or say, but it's not really the game's fault. The MC in this game is a fashion designer who isn't afraid to stand up for herself which is cool, but it breaks the immersion for me because I am not a fashion designer and I am very much a shy pushover, but again, this is not the game's fault. Some people like the MC to have a personality but I tend to self insert myself into all of these games so I don't really care if the MC is fleshed out or not.

Midnight Cinderella is another good game. I had heard about it a few weeks ago and I was surprised to see that it had its own fanbase. I was considering downloading it back then, but when I heard it was F2P, it put me off playing it, until yesterday when I saw a lot of people praising it. Picking a route to play in this game was slightly hard, but not as hard as Ikemen Sengoku. I picked some guy called Rayvis (I forgot his last name, sorry!) and he's pretty cool. It seems like both of the men I have picked in these games take a while to open up to the MC. At least the romance has to develop over time. Sometimes the romance in these games comes way too quickly, especially in Mystic Messenger. (Why do I keep comparing every game to MM?)

I like fantasy fairy tales so the story in this game also interested me. Still, I think it's a bit stupid that they just pick some random girl to be a princess every few years or so, but I suppose they needed a reason for the MC to become royalty and meet a bunch of hot anime boys.

The UI in Midnight Cinderella can be quite annoying for me. Sometimes it feels a lot less responsive than the other apps on that phone. Ikemen Sengoku has the same UI but it seems to respond better. I don't know, maybe I'm just nitpicking here.

My first impressions of these games seem pretty good, don't they? Hopefully I won't waste all of my in-game currency and chapter tickets so I can actually complete a route. I think I'm starting to like otome games a lot more now. To be quite honest, I don't actually play them for the plot, I just really like "dating" anime boys. I know it's sad.

But anyway, that's all for now. This is a rather long post, isn't it?

Goodbye!


P.S. I don't edit these posts at all because I don't consider this a serious professional blog.