Otome Game Review: Garnet Cradle ~Sugary Sparkle~

Unfortunately there's no opening movie.

Fandisk キタ━━━(゚(゚∀(゚∀゚(☆∀☆)゚∀゚)∀゚)゚)━━━!!! Yea I’ve been wanting to play this for a long time ❤ The premise basically is Miku wants to go to the school’s Christmas party and then her dad gives her a box of candy. Depending on the candy you choose, it throws you into a “Miku is in a relationship with XXX but he doesn’t seem to show his love for her” story. Additionally all the guys get some goofy new outfit (like some wolf ears for Saliya and some traditional Japanese garments for Touya.) Details & spoilers after the jump as usual!

Sou – Sou was the diamond candy. Basically Sou’s problem is that despite him and Miku now being a “Couple” he still treats her like she’s his master and he’s her servant. He tells her he does things for he because it’s his “job” rather than because he wants to or because he loves her etc. She tells her problems to Tsubaki and she rages about her stupid brother and decides he deserves to be punished. Her dad puts a curse on her that once it spreads throughout her body she will forget about Sou and he will then disappear. The only way to stop this is to collect all the ornaments in this “game”. He collects them all but they don’t make the tree shine so he goes to each prince one by one to try to get the “real ones”. This also involved having to play & win mini-games like Black Jack against Rihito and a memory game Cookies Quest. In the end Tsubaki tells him that he’s lying to himself and not being honest with his feelings (lol) and he then tells Miku that while he’s become a human, he feels powerless and still has some regrets about it. He felt that he was a powerless human and could not protect her. Anyway then her dad shows up and gives her a dress and the two of them dance at the Christmas party. Afterwards Miku asks him if he can call her by her name instead of ojousama. There was no real kiss scene…I felt really disappointed meh lol.

Kiichiro – Kiichi senpai’s route was sweet. The story was basically the same as Sou’s but rather than Miku running to Tsubaki, she was just randomly thrown into that dream world with him. His big thing is (and I totally called this at least half way through the route) that he can’t dance and so that’s why he didn’t immediately agree to go with her to the Christmas party. It takes him a while to admit this, and it takes a few bishies to hit on Miku for him to finally get it through his thick skull that she is quite the eligible bachelorette 😆 The mini game here involved something called “dungeon escape” which looked like one of those ancient pixel mini games where you’re a little sprite that has to walk through a bunch of bushes and avoid ghosts and pick up items until you run into Kiichi senpai. It was kind of annoying cause I failed twice lol but at least the game lets you re-do it as many times as you want until you succeed. In this route I also ran into Sou who was such a dick it really put a damper on his character in this game for me 😐 Anyway after Kiichi admitted to Miku about his dancing issue everything was resolved and as usual her dad gave her an outfit to match his (some pirate wench which made her thighs look fat). Because he couldn’t dance, they decided to ditch the party and instead bake a cake together lol. Um yea I guess that works!

Rihito – For some reason in Rihito’s route, Miku forgets about all the princes including Rihito. The source of their fight was that he got mad because she would rather hang out with her friends than with him (who is obviously obsessed with her) and he calls her immature. So of course in this route they have to gather the xmas ornaments to get her memories back. Halfway through she remembers everything but Rihito is still being a whiny little bitch which made this route incredibly painful to go through. Anyway as usual he admits that he was just being his obsessive usual self, they go to the dance, he gives her a ring and there’s a half assed kissing CG (he kisses her hand!?) Ugh sigh. I barely paid any attention in this route. IN one of the parts he had to shoot an apple that was on her head. Like whatever Rihito, whenever you talk I put the game on auto and go surfing the web lol. I think its more of a sense of me not liking the character + the fact that all the routes are identical except for the different guy that made this route suck a lot to me.

Touya – Touya is a dork as usual and he wants to start preparations for their engagement while the only thing on Miku’s mind is the Christmas party and she gets all pouty that he doesn’t see things her way. I have to admit he’s a bit more mature than her on this one and her getting mad at him is dumb, but on theo ther hand he’s a little thickheaded when it comes to romance lol. He even says that going on dates is stupid and a waste of time lol, what an idiot. Anyway after he finally stopped being tsundere they went back and got all the ornaments. Afterwards he admitted that the reason he didn’t wanna “go on dates” is because he first wanted to be engaged t her to make SURE THAT SHE IS HIS and that no other men steal her away! Weirdo lol. So yeah then go to the party and dance as usual and then he gives her a bracelet and they kiss. Wow yea like an actual kiss scene. Sigh, this is probably the most decent kiss scene in the game. I mean I usually like tsundere guys cause they’re cute when they are dere, but Touya just annoys me to no end XD Maybe cause he keeps yelling like an idiot or maybe it’s his seiyuu I dunno. I just can’t really like him too much, but he’s not as irritating as  Rihito at least.

Saliya – Saliya’s route he basically tells her Christmas parties are stupid and that she shouldn’t go and he won’t go either. She runs to Tsubaki for help like in Sou’s route and as usual the dream sequence adventures begin. Surprisingly Saliya’s route went a bit differently. When she ran away from him to Rihito, Rihito poisoned her tea and she fell asleep and unable to move her body. Unfortunately in addition her heart stopped beating and her body began getting colder. Tsubaki showed up raging that Rihito was only supposed to “get in the way” not hurt Miku. She then is thrown into a dream sequence where Saliya has been erased from existence and all the princes want her to chose one of them. She wakes up and glomps Saliya glad that he isn’t gone. They then go to all the other princess, get the ornaments, there’s some half naked hugging from behind and they are back to the normal world. Saliya then tells her the reason he didn’t wanna go to the party with her is because he didn’t want other men to LEER at her sexy dress that he gave her as a present. She says she’s sorry that she didn’t get him anything as always, but Saliya is the only one who’s like I GOT A PRESENT RIGHT HER BABY *ravages her in a drunken passion* 😆 Um anyway Saliya’s route was slightly more interesting than the other guys and it had 2 kiss scenes but still wasn’t  that amazing.

There’s also a a bad end route where you basically end up in darkness with Sou..umm I dunno I don’t think that’s such a bad end. I wish they didn’t turn Sou into this big bad guy in this game, he was my favorite character ;_;.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Final Thoughts~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

What can I say, I’m disappointed. The game site made it seem like you’d have this romantic thing going on with your favorite bishie, but instead it was a story of misunderstanding with a half assed ending for each guy. Hell the guys felt more romantic when they were not in their own routes. So for example Saliya had some hot scenes while I was doing Touya’s route, wtf man? It’s like this game totally supports “cheating” on the other guy or something..which you can’t even do because once you pick a candy you’re on that guy’s path and if you don’t do the right choices the game ends immediately anyway =_=; Also just like with  Pretty Witch Academy all the routes were identical except for whatever guy you were with. That was a real drag, and hell some of the supporting characters felt like they were even saying the same lines sigh. I’m really disappointed with this fandisk, and unless you’re a hard core GC fan I wouldn’t really recommend it anyway 😐

Advertisement

14 thoughts on “Otome Game Review: Garnet Cradle ~Sugary Sparkle~”

  1. yea the exact same “drama” was so lame, it was just like pretty witch academy!

    I’m avoiding all Quinn Rose games. I don’t particularly like the art style and I really lose patience super long games like that ^^;

  2. Yeah this was a big disappointment. Don’t you just hate drama, especially when the drama is almost the same for all the guys. I wish they’d just filled the game with more doki doki moments, like in one of the da Corda d’Ouro games (forget which exactly). But noooooo they think we’d rather see their relationship have problems, like we haven’t seen enough of that in the first game.

    Regarding mini games, they don’t appear in fandisks only, after the first Heart no Kuni, Quinrose added card games in all their later Alice games. You could play either blackjack or a game called “heart and clover”, if you won at the blackjack game the guy would like you more and give you clocks (that you can use to change time, so if you’re having trouble triggering an event that happens at night cause all you get is noons, you can just change it to night). If you had a perfect win at the heart and clover game you got a CG and the guy liked you more. In Joker you need to play heart and clover to change the seasons, but you did not need a perfect win.

    But these games had a purpose, and you could just reject the guy when he asked you to play with him, except the heart and clover game in joker so you can change the seasons (but you only need to do that 8 times, and it’s a very quick game). Otherwise I agree, the mini games in this game were very annoying to the point of frustration.

  3. OMG I KNOW so disappointing. It basically was downhill after the first 2 guys. I woulda finished this game faster but it was sooo draggy I would stop for a few days before continuing 😦

    I’ll start my next game after my Japan trip xD Hopefully it’ll be good!

  4. Omg this was sooooo disappointing. T_T

    I was expecting some sexy costumed parties and events going on… but was terribly crushed after reading it.

    The game sounded so BORING. Like I wanted to quit reading after the first guy, but I was like, “NO i must keep reading to be a good informative reader!” then I was like, “WTF what a waste of a game” afterwards. >_>

    I feel sorry for you having to play it lol… I’m sure you were expecting sooooo much more. But thanks for the review (even if you didn’t enjoy it) and I sure hope the next one is a lot more fun! ;D

  5. Kagerou said, “If only America made otome games…”

    It took a while, but English-speaking fans are finally creating visual novels for female audiences. These include:

    – Spirited Heart, from the Winter Wolves team (free demo, $20 full). Similar to Princess Maker 2, but from a female perspective, and adds GxB relationships.

    – Fantasia, the Realm of Thanos (free visual novel for Windows and other computers). The writer is from Malaysia, but has a good grasp of English.

    – RE: Alistair, which is a fairly small-scale free Tokimemo style game.

    – Festival Days Sim Date, which is one of the better-written Flash dating simulations.

    There are a few other similar OEL otome games. Some have been made with Ren’py, others have been made with Flash. Sure, there have been disappointments, but overall, I’m proud of my fellow English speaking fans. Perhaps someday, fans will be more interested in original-English-language games than untranslated titles.

  6. Not sure about the nurse, since I haven’t played Garnet Cradle itself… wanted to finish other games I’ve installed in my PC first before starting that one.

    I was mostly hoping they’d just contain more short scenarios, sort of like an after story for each guy… just doki-doki scenes, I guess. …since the title was Sugary Sparkle, I was expecting sweet romantic scenes but I guess that was where I went wrong XD

    Other than that… I’m always a sucker for Carnelian’s arts, so I guess when I finally get to play I wouldn’t complain.

  7. yea basically Tsubaki made this alice in wonderland world and the guys all wear random cosplay outfits (that fits their personality I guess?) to which then Miku wears a matching dress to the christmas ball. Yea it was lame, the mini games weren’t even fun…rather they were annoying because it’s like geez come on why do I need to play this 8 bit maze game e_e;

  8. I am also still LOLing hard on *Sugary Sparkle*

    WTF, mini games? If the first game was a clickclick fiesta, then why do I need to play a halfass mini game for the fan disc? From what you have told me & read, it seems like the CGs/routes are not even worth wasting 5 minutes on a mini game.

    I’m also kind of confused about the outfits. Do these bizarre cosplays make sense with the storyline? Or I guess the more correct question is, where is the setting of this fan disc? The first CG looks like Alice in Wonderland meets Beauty and the Beast meets [insert any fairy tale with princes]. Is it playing off a fairy tale setting instead of the Miftar (sp?) world?

  9. Kagerou> oh np haha the game’s almost 2 years old at this point xD Glad you enjoyed it lol.

    sharakael> I was hoping too. The sensei from the first game (the nurse) was like completely GONE. you’d think they woulda given him some bonus route or something ?_?

  10. Thank you for the review!
    …I had hoped that they’d do something more with the fandisc instead of just making it into something to get fans to part with their money…

    In any case, I guess I’ll delay playing this one ^^;

  11. =o Actually, I am so out of the loop that I didn’t even know about it until now! m(_ _)m I’m sorry!

    I just played it though =D I have to say, best female protagonists I’ve seen so far. Though I think I liked Natsuko’s rejection scene better than the actual happy ending XD “Ew! You pedobear!” It made me lol.

  12. ”It seems to be a Japanese thing. If only America made otome games <=/ Those girls would rock. ””

    I hope you had a chance to try out my game RenAi Blogger ;D I assure you the women in there kick the protagonist's ass lol

  13. Aww, this is kind of disappointing and yet very nice to know. I’ve actually been trying to look into this game for some time (if only for the pretty CG’s, lol), but I couldn’t find a single comprehensive review of what it’s actually about. The most I got was that it had something to do with saving Christmas XD

    Anyway, wonderfully informative review as always. It’s unfortunate that so many games have half-assed story lines – it’s like the writers just gave up – though the real problem that I always have is the main character. I’m still trying to find a game where the girl isn’t such a weepy, mousy, submissive, airheaded…well, you get the idea.

    It seems to be a Japanese thing. If only America made otome games <=/ Those girls would rock. It would be like, "Wonder Woman vacations in Tokyo."

Comments are closed.