Otome Game Review: Panic Palette

The story is about Itou Aki who lives alone in an apartment and starts her first year in high school. The story takes place in the same school & town as Little Aid so the game reused a lot of the backgrounds and some of the sub characters from there are also back (i.e. Sawato..) One evening while Aki is taking a stroll on the beach she runs into some guy wearing arabian clothes and he claims that she will be his wife because of a mark on her hand. Turns out this guy is an alien prince from another planet. She’s all like ‘Uh no’ so his eyeball sidekick explains to her that if she wants to remove that mark, she needs to collect some color auras from people (i.e. anger, happiness, fear etc.) So now it’s up to Aki (and us) to collect all the colors and use the coffee machine Mariko 2002 to create the special potion to remove the mark. Additionally her pest problem is taken care of by none other than the ORIGINAL Tokunami Touya nuko (who I guess the guy’s soul took over in Kaeru Batake xD!)

Reedy Vorpal the 7th – Well Reedy is our prince alien from Meldishia. His sidekick (or should I say caretaker?) Norlette helps Aki with obtaining the tools she needs to collect auras but says she must do this on her own or the potion will not remove the seal off HER. The problem with Reedy is that he’s adorable as hell and I really love him, but he was absent at least halfway through his route. Most of the game kept jumping between gags of various characters so I really didn’t get to spend too much time with him except at the beginning and near the end. They had cute scenes like going to the haunted house together and he took her to Meldishia to show her his edible roses. Reedy also enjoys flowers because its a hobby that passed on from his older brother who disappeared. Anyway Reedy gives her a potted plant that he names Georgeolina after his brother. There’s some old jiji named Yosshi who is Reedy’s grandpa. He had set up Reedy with a girl named Ruka, also from Meldishia. She was originally Reedy’s fiance but I guess he dumped that ho so now Ruka came down to earth to bitch at Aki that she took her man ┐(‘～`；)┌. So it takes Aki like the entire game to realize that she likes Reedy because she’s too busy thinking about her first love from when she was a loli. So then randomly on the beach one night she meets with Reedy and they admit their love and kiss (it was so rushed/random I felt nothing.) She then uses the shell aura she made to make that wilted Georgeolina plant bloom yippie? In the epilogue Reedy and Aki are living together in her apartment with Norlette nagging them (cockblocking too) daily. Ruka also comes back as a transfer student once again. Reedy has decided he will be staying on earth until he becomes more manly before he decides to get married or something. Honestly I really liked Reedy as a character but the lack of scenes for him in his own route was pretty pathetic.

Shirahara Hiroya – Hirotan |萌|･´∀`･)ﾊｧﾊｧ 萌えぇぇ↑  Wow I was surprised how much better Hiroya’s route was compared to Reedy which is sad as I think Reedy is supposed to be the main character?  So anyway Hiroya is the class rep along with Aki. He loves sweets and raw meat 😯 and is a complete yandere. If you ever get on his bad side…yea. (||ﾟДﾟ)ﾋｨｨｨ(ﾟДﾟ||) Ironically though he has a cute pet baby nuko that Aki helps him find when it gets lost. He often trolls poor Kou sensei and makes him cry rivers. (Although I don’t know if this is a coincidence but I got to call Kou sensei a pedobear and he ran away crying too 😆 ) When they are at the grocery store and some guys start hitting on her, he comes over and beats the crap out of them saying “I’m the only one that can touch her.” ｷｭ──｡+ﾟ(*ﾟДﾟ*)｡+ﾟ──ﾝ!!  He takes her to a scary movie and an aquarium (where he says he wants to eat sushi …sigh lol). For a while basically he seems like he’s trolling her but eventually he starts to get frustrated that she just doesn’t see that he’s just TEASING THE GIRL HE LIKES! ﾐｭﾐｭ（´ε｀* )☆ So one day in the nurse’s office he falls asleep (along with Yosshi). When it’s evening time she wakes up and realizes she has to wake him up too. When she goes to do it, he wakes up grumpy, grabs her necktie and pulls her in for a kiss. She’s like !?!?! but then he falls back asleep. A few minutes later Hiroya wakes up again and is like “hmm what’s wrong?” without realizing he just stole a maiden’s first kiss! Aki gets really upset but then she starts to realize she likes him and even has dreams about him molesting her 😆

She takes a love potion from Ruka but is too chicken to use it and ends up spilling it on herself before running away from him. He brings her bag to her place and then  feels that she has a fever so he places her into a futon. After some frustration he finally tells her directly that he likes her and leaves. The next day she tries to apologize to him but he tells her to forget what he said. That night Ruka tells Aki that the love potion was just a placebo and that she really likes him after all. Finally Aki takes the shell aura to the shrine (because if she falls in love with another guy and uses it, the contract will be cancelled.) She finds Hiroya there and confesses. He trolls her some more but then tells her he likes her again and kisses her. Reedy cries a river while Ruka slaps him to STFU and get over it. (Poor guy.) So in the epilogue Aki is at the seaside and says her goodbyes to Reedy (who has to get beat up & dragged back home), Norlette and Ruka.  Hiroya then shows up and they go near the lighthouse and make out ＼( ^o^)／ . Man the entire route just felt like you were dating Izaya from DRRR! XD Hiroya was such a delicious troll but then he’d like turn around, say thanks and blush and oooohh my heart. The route was so much cuter/better than Reedy but also possibly because I got to skip through all the completely irrelevant scenes with other chars…so the game felt like I was play solely for Hiroya. That’s a pity I guess as now I wonder what Reedy’s route would have been like if I only got to interact with him and not…everyone else.

Karasuba Kazuto – Kazuto’s route was cute. He was like a little puppy dog. Basically he’s a delinquin but when Aki decides to test “aura collecting” on him, she uses Norlette’s power and ends up KO punching him in the stomach. He’s so in love with her manly strength that he asks to call her ANEKI but settles on nee-san 😆 He was known as kenka bancho in middle school and he likes infomercials and shoujo manga ﾌﾟｯ(※థэథ)∵.*.∵ One day when Aki catches him reading shoujo manga he almost dies XD. He has some kind of chicken allergy or something so when Aki makes him some omurice with it inside, he ends up like almost choking but he gobbles it down anyway because how can he refuse cooking from his neesan! He has an older brother who was always sick. Because of this his parents always just paid attention to the brother and ignored him. He hated his brother for this so he took out his frustration and got into fights. The only person who cared for him was his grandpa so when he died he just felt lonely and devastated – and closed himself out from everyone. The only person who’s ever watched him and looked at him the way he was, was none other than Etsu. Throughout the entire route she kept trying to get Kazuto and Aki together because she knew that Kazuto liked her…despite her own feelings for him. Cue drama! So now Aki finds out from Etsu that she likes Kazuto and she’s now torn between her bff and the guy that she likes too.

She wants Kazuto to see her as a girl not as his “neesan”. While she’s emoing she loses the shell aura bottle and runs around the school looking for it. While she’s looking for it she runs into Kazuto in the park who offers to help her look for it too. While they are searching they hear a cry for help. Kazuto runs to see what it is and Aki is worried so she goes too. Turns out it’s Etsu who tried to save some kid from some delinquents who then tried to attack her. Kazuto stands in front of her and threatens to beat them up. Before a massive fight breaks out, Aki comes and yells “Mr. Policeman!!” and the delinquents run away. So then Aki follows them I guess to make sure everything is ok and then sees Etsu confess her feelings to Kazuto. She’s so upset that she runs away and then goes to emo at school in the nurse’s office where she ends up falling asleep. She wakes up with Kazuto sleeping next to her holding her hand. Hiroya is there to troll and he tells her to go back to sleep and “pretend” to sleep. When Kazuto wakes up, Hiroya basically gets him to admit that he likes her but he feels he isn’t good enough for her. He then goes to get some air on the roof and Aki wakes up even more upset.

She doesn’t think she should go after Kazuto but then Etsu comes into the nurse’s office telling Aki that she was rejected anyway so no problem! I was kinda touched at this whole friendship of theirs since Etsu seemed kind of a stupid character most of the other routes 😆 They both cry and then AKi goes to the rooftop. She’s stopped by Reedy who tells her he’ll be taking her back to Meldishia. She says she refuses because she likes Kazuto and Reedy’s like “oh finally you admit it” and he uses the shell aura that he found that she dropped and removes the seal. Ruka then randomly confesses to Reedy saying she still loves him and then the 3 of them return to Meldishia while Aki runs to Kazuto. While she’s too busy mumbling her feelings, Kazuto tells her that he likes her and then she admits she likes him as well and then they kiss~. In the epilogue everyone forgets about Reedy & Co. except for Aki. (´；ω；｀) She and Kazuto in the meantime are all rabu rabu and getting all いちゃいちゃ  as usual. Eh well I thought Kazuto was cute to be honest. I usually don’t like the delinquent characters but he was just too adorable 😆 The whole Etsu drama just felt too dragged out though.

Nainagi Norihisa – Nori is a sub character from Little Aid who I guess never got his own route in there (or the Ps2 addon) so they gave it to him here. Sadly, it didn’t do enough justice for him which is pretty depressing. Anyway Nori’s face always looked really angry in the sprites. I didn’t really like the way they redid his character design for this game to be honest. Apparently he has a bad relationship with his grandpa who always expects him to be the exemplary older son. So then there’s a series of basically Sawato & Kazura trolling him for like his entire route and then I got a bad end. You see, for one reason or another, his aura is extremely difficult to collect since apparently he’s pretty much considered a “hidden” character rather than like a normal character. I didn’t know this so I was really confused as to why normally I’d reach 100% by like 4/28 but here on 4/28 I was only at 50%. Turns out after you get a bad end, Norlette gives you some magic item (like in Kaerubatake) which allows you to start with 50 aura already available. Yippie! That gives you 30% but I still barely made it to 100% by 5/7. Had to save/load state during 5/7 multiple times to get the perfect amount of auras. It’s absolutely ridiculous considering how pointless his route ending was. Turns out to stop all the yaoi buttsecks that was going on between Nori & Kazura, Ruka goes and uses some spell which ends up having Nori and Aki switch bodies. （ಠ_ಠ）

So after they switch bodies, it’s all weird as hell. It wears off in the evening after the sun sets but then Nori would run to her apartment at like 4AM so that they are together. This goes on for days and Aki has to do extra studying because she’s a freshman but has to go take Nori’s senior exams since she’s stuck in his body. Sawato tries to get them to turn back to normal but the best he can do is switch hair & eye color and then he gives Nori some striped socks (???). So then Nori admits that he has to leave the school because his grandpa is raging that his grades are falling. Norlette comes and says he can cast another spell but he doesn’t know if Aki’s body can take it. Nori says to cast the spell on himself instead. They cast it and it seems to work but Norlette warns them of some emotional side effects. After they finish their exams that day they go to leave but then Hiroya tells Nori he needs to prove he’s “worthy” of Aki by kissing her in front of everyone. Nori just grabs her next to him and tells them that it’s something they “only do in private” (*ﾉ∀ﾉ)ｲﾔﾝ. So anyway they leave and all the guys stay back rejected 😆 The 2 of them start talking and Nori tells her about his family thing and how his siblings got yelled at for not being like their brother. The 2 of them both say they “admire” each other (but not in the love kind of way wtf =_=). Suddenly Sawato, Norlette & Kazura all pop out saying they were waiting for the right moment sigh 😆

Norlette then explains to them that the spell they had cast on them was a wishing spell and it wore off when the 2 of them both made wishes to change themselves. The shell aura that Aki had has also changed since she had a “change of heart” and they then removed the Leedy marriage seal. Nori asks her to join their club since he says he’ll try his best not to leave the school. In the epilogue Nori is now the top ranked grades in the school and he offers to help Aki & Kazura study. Reedy & co. have gone back to Meldishia as usual. Kazura of course acts like a bro and tells Aki to hit that shit while he “goes to the bathroom”. So then Nori admits it (because Kazura egged him on) and says he likes Aki but he says he knows her feelings and doesn’t expect an answer. Well turns out Aki likes him too but she wants him to “realize” this – as Kazura jumps back in congratulating Nori on confessing and saying how now they’ll be “family” 😆 SIGH. WHAT DID I SPEND ALL THAT EFFORT ON (ﾉಥ益ಥ）ﾉ 彡┻━┻. I mean you basically HAVE to get a bad ending first in order to get that special item or complete the 5 guys routes all first….However, apparently if you do this route after completing the 5 guys routes it starts interfering with Norlette’s route too – which is why I had to try so hard to do it. Honestly, it wasn’t worth it. Some of the Sugita dialogues made me　ｷｭ──｡+ﾟ(*ﾟДﾟ*)｡+ﾟ──ﾝ!! a bit and I admit I laughed out lout really hard during all the body-switch scenario but overall romance-wise I was disappoint.

Nuinuma Kazura – Just wanted to point out that I kinda wish I had played Kazura’s route first and then Nori’s. Both routes overlapped really badly but most of the scenes were for Kazura and since I had done them in Nori’s route..there wasn’t much of a route left for Kazura at this point (´･ω･`；). Kazura is Aki’s cousin (ew..oh Takuyo and your cousincest) and also her first love. I kept thinking he had the same childhood friend crush on her as she did on him – but turns out he had a crush on someone else (who I believe to be the heroine from Little Aid – Akari.) So basically everything is the same and then Kazura hates himself for causing Nori to fail out of school. The body switch thing happens again and Aki blurts out that she likes Kazura when she thinks that he’s in love with Nori 😆 Kazura’s like “what..” and then hilarity ensues when Aki has to use the toilet in Nori’s body and Kazura’s like “I’ll support you!…from behind!…” ﾌﾟｯ(※థэథ)∵.*.∵ So anyway somehow they all think that they should kiss to try to stop the spell like in sleeping beauty. Sadly that means Aki kissing Kazura in Nori’s body. To avoid a yaoi scene we got this “imagination” scene of Aki in her own body kissing Kazura instead though 😆 So then I guess this sets a reaction on to the shell aura and Norlette and Ruka show up (after witnessing the yaoi scene) and use the shell aura to cancel out all the spells. In the epilogue Nori is moving away and Kazura & Aki say goodbye to him. Aki cries and Kazura kisses her on the cheek and I guess they’re a couple now..as he continues trolling her saying that’s his “way of showing affection” 😆 Sigh. I’m kinda disappointed again because while the route made me laugh on multiple occasions they completely flew over the romance. Well at least any romance that would start to happen would always be interrupted or be in a gag fashion (i.e. the yaoi kissing scene.) What a pity – Kazura looked pretty (*´Д｀)/ヽァ/ヽァ in some of his CGs.

Masoh Kou – Kou sensei is |萌|･´∀`･)ﾊｧﾊｧ 萌えぇぇ↑ . He’s 24 but he often acts like a kid so students tease him a lot. He rides a bike to school because he has no car but he wants a car so he can be “cool” and impress the ladies. He often wonders why he’s good looking and smart but just doesn’t have a girlfriend! 😆 In the past when he was in this school as a student, some kind of rumors broke out about him and a friend and a lot of people turned against him. He ended up becoming a hikki but it was Yosshi who then helped him get out and get back on his feet. He points out to Aki that she’s cute on the outside but quite manly on the inside XD. At the beginning she often teases sensei and says how adorable he is making him blush like a tomato. (;ﾟ∀ﾟ)=3ﾊｧﾊｧ They both are so busy teasing each other they start  to forget where the line is between joke and serious and both start falling for one another. When the other friends figure out that the 2 like each other naturally the first thing they do is call Kou a pedophile and  a hentai ＼( ^o^)／ . After one of the mystery club activities everyone acts bro and leaves Aki alone with Kou who drags her with him at night to the beach. He wants to look for a big shell but they find nothing so then he takes his shoes off, rolls up his pants and jumps into the water like a little kid. He tells her that right now he’s not her teacher but he’s just a man named Masoh Kou. (〃ﾉωﾉ) So because of them being out late at night at the ocean during May, Aki gets sick and so Kou lets her sit on his bike as he takes her back home to rest. He comes by her place after school to make her something while she’s recovering but she doesn’t feel well so she just has him peel her an apple.

He starts babbling again about why nobody wants him and then he puts his forehead next to hers to check if she still has a fever. |萌|･´∀`･)ﾊｧﾊｧ 萌えぇぇ↑  Before he’s about to leave Aki cries and tells him to stay. She tells him that she likes him and asks him to kiss her. He tells her that he can’t because she’s his student but I guess he can’t restrain himself to her tears too long before he says “You better not regret it later…” So then like he’s about to kiss her and all of a sudden he cracks his joints and stops. Wtf!? He gathers himself, tells her that he’s serious, and leaves. (ﾉಥ益ಥ）ﾉ 彡┻━┻  That night Aki has a dream that sensei comes to her place to pick her up, tells her he loves her and they hug. She wakes up disappointed only to find Ruka making fun of her 😆 The next day she walks into the classroom and suddenly the entire room goes silent and stares at her. She’s not sure what’s going on but later overhears 2 girls talking in the library about a rumor that she and seisei may be dating. After hearing this Aki’s in no mood to return to class so she goes up on the roof with Reedy & Co. who are on her side. Etsu suggest that they tell everyone that Sensei was with them all and it wasn’t just the 2 of them being alone. Hiroya says that they should just stay put and let the adults handle everything without them causing anymore commotion. All of a sudden there’s some announcement about an exploding bracelet that Etsu has and they  start playing hot potato until Aki gets it and it attached itself to her hand. She can’t remove it and suddenly an explosion happens – and it produces a doppelganger that looks like Aki. Not shit sheet again. ／(^o^)＼ﾅﾝﾃｺｯﾀｲ

The doppelganger says that if Aki can’t defeat it in 3 days, she will disappear. So then the doppelganger goes crazy and starts getting all ichaicha with Kazuto in the middle of class. The students start saying “hey sensei aren’t you jealous?” and he explains that there’s nothing between him and Aki and that he sees nothing in her beyond a student. The real Aki sees this and with Ruka’s help goes home and gets depressed. The bracelet apparently belongs to Ruka’s family so Ruka and Norlette then spend the next few days trying to figure out how to stop the doppelganger. The next day Aki finds all her friends looking for her dupe. She then sees sensei show up and they tell him that they believe in him. Reedy babbles about how love doesn’t matter if its child or adult but everyone’s like “umm that would be a crime..” 😆 So then the dupe shows up in front of Aki and says insults to her about sensei again. Everyone shows up and chases the doppel down who flirts with Kazuto before running away again. Kazuto tells Aki to go after Kou and so she runs to the school in her regular clothes only to get yelled at by one of the other teachers there for not “knowing her place”. Kou sensei shows up and apologizes to the other teacher on Aki’s behalf saying he will talk to her and take responsibility. They go into an empty classroom and Kou yells at her saying that they cannot have a relationship and that there’s plenty of other guys out there for her. He tells her to leave and before she does Aki asks if her feelings for him are a burden. He doesn’t answer and so she leaves the classroom depressed – but then sensei says to himself “there’s no way they are a burden damnit!” Aki runs into her clone again who tells her that she should just disappear along with her feelings for Kou. Aki gets depressed and goes home.

That night she gets a phone call from Kou asking to meet with her tomorrow at the seaside. They both get there early and he apologizes to her that he couldn’t protect her. Aki says she loves him and he tells her that he cannot answer her feelings right now because she is his student. Before Aki runs off crying, he grabs her arm and kisses her. He tells her that if she doesn’t mind waiting for him, when she grows up (aka becomes legal) he will tell her his true feelings. Aki says she will wait for him and sensei leaves. Suddenly doppelganger shows up to make fun of her again but Aki says she will believe in sensei’s feelings and wait. Doppel gives in and says she lost. He admits that he’s actually just a jack-in-the-box type of toy. The 3 day disappearance is actually his personal time limit and does not affect the original user. He says the reason he told her the truth is because he kinda began to like her and then he poofs. Since Aki’s decided on her feelings, the shell aura has completed and she removes Reedy’s seal. Ruka and Norlette say their goodbyes and prepare to return to Meldishia. In the epilogue, it’s probably 3 years later or so, Aki has graduated from high school. She gets a letter from Kou to meet her and she meets him in front of the school gates while he’s patrolling. The female students make fun of Kou as usual saying that Aki is his girlfriend. When all the students leave, Kou tells her that she’s become prettier and that he loves her. He says sorry for making her wait so long and then they kiss~(´∀｀*)ε｀　)ﾁｭｯ (Prolly shouldn’t be doing that in front of the school gates but anyway.. XD) I loved sensei so much. He was just adorkable in every way.  Nojima Hirofumi I never heard before until I played Tartaros but I guess I like his character here a lot more than I do Aerlot 😆 I wish he would do more otome games in the future (*´ω｀*). Sensei’s route I recommend leaving for last because I really liked it. I could almost say Takuyo makes the best senseis but then I think of the crap with Kaeru Batake and Himehibi2 and I guess I take that back lol.

Norlette – Also known as Mr. Eyeball, he’s actually Reedy’s older brother Georgeolina that was mentioned in Reedy’s route (who he named the plant after 😆 ) Because there was going to be a battle of whether he or Reedy would take over as the next King, Norl decided to leave the castle with his mother and live as  a commoner. One day he heard of a parade in town where the royals would be greeting everyone so he decided to sneak in to see if he could take a look at how Reedy had grown. He was thinking Reedy would be happy not having to worry about fighting over the throne with his brother but Reedy in fact was very depressed. As Reedy mentioned in his route, he really admired Georgeolina and was devastated when his brother “disappeared”. That’s when Georgeolina decided he would become his brother’s servant and always be by his side so he could protect him. He took that eyeball form and changed his name so nobody would know who he really is – except for his grandpa Yosshi. So basically most of the route you just skip without gathering any auras (yippie!) and in the end Norl secretly takes his human form in front of Aki to surprise her – and also because he’s kinda fallen in love with her after all this time (*´ω｀*). He does this polite confession and Aki’s like “zomg!?” She doesn’t think he’s serious (and neither did I lol) but then he kisses her hand and is like “do you understand now?” （ಠ_ಠ） No I don’t but let’s roll with it. What a pity, Norlette is pretty hot when he isn’t an eyeball. I kinda wish he had more to his route but oh well!

So while the game was kind of a drag at first, all the characters really grew on me. The scene skip (where it asks – do you want to skip scene y/n) was like a god send. Sure regular skip is good but this saves a hell lot more time. I wish all games were like this! Unfortunately the downer is I’m sure I missed a line or 2 of dialogue in some of the scenes I skipped. I have to say the first run there was just too much sidetracking. Once you got the first run out of the way, any new gag scenes were alright with me because they weren’t 90% of the route like the first time around. You can’t expect me to care about say Reedy’s route/storyline when every 5 minutes Sawato is dancing around and Nuinuma is trolling Nainagi while Hiroya trolls Kou 😆 I mean sure that was all okay in their respective routes but it wasn’t something I cared to see when doing someone else’s story – not more than I needed to anyway. I guess this is where the similarities with little aid came in and also why I just couldn’t be bothered with doing the student council routes. On the topic of little Aid, Akari showed up in one of Nuiniuma’s CGs! Who knew he had a crush on her. Now I kinda wanna replay that student council route in LA again…oh wait maybe I will as that’s the game I plan to play next! I figured since the setting is the same why not just get all of it overwith at once? XD Anyway despite some difficulties with the color collecting in Nori’s route, overall I really did enjoy the game. I laughed out loud a lot and by the end it made me slightly sad that I’d be parting with these characters. The music and some of the overall feeling in this game reminded me a lot of Kaeru Batake. I wonder if the same “team” of Takuyo worked on that game? Tokunami Touya aside, a lot of the BGMs felt similar as well. I would definitely recommend checking this out, but for better enjoyment of the easter eggs, I suggest playing Little Aid first – preferably the PS2 version so you don’t miss out on Sawato’s route like I did the first time.