And sow this blog has finally crawled to its 5th anniversary! A lot has happened in the last 5 years but since I do these posts every year I guess the usual focus will be on what happened in the past 12 months.
2013 Things of Note:
Otome Game Anime Adaptations – Well there was sure a lot of them this year. UtaPri 2000%, Diabolik Lovers, Amnesia, Brothers Conflict but they all have one thing in common: Heroine ends up with nobody. I guess in the end the anime is just the promo for the game and if you want to ship her with a certain dude, go play the game instead!
Otome Games Moving to PS Vita? – Not sure where Otomate is going with this but with 2 Vita exclusive releases could this be the push that will get other makers to switch? it won’t get me to switch but I’ll be keeping my eye out. Vita has a beautiful screen but due to hacking limitations, I wouldn’t be able to use programs like Remotejoy to broadcast any of my games. Not that I’m promoting hacking but at this point it’s the only viable method I have of broadcasting my games. I always enjoy chatting with my viewers so playing the games all alone again would be a disappointment.
Ports & Remakes – I noticed on my list of awesome games were a lot of stuff that was ported/remade from an older game. This is kind of bad because that just means that games in the past were good and new games are a shit. (；一_一) Also a few games announced for 2014 are ports/remakes of older games and while others may be happy I think I want to stick to buying new stuff from now on.
Bye Bye FC2 – I got rid of my FC2 blog, the last remains of my screenshot translations. Mostly it’s because I lost motivation to do it and 2nd because FC2’s blog system is awful. I had to upload 1 image at a time (though they increased it to 5 whoopteefreaking do) and the stats on the blog never worked properly. The only thing I liked about FC2 is allowing the use of javascript so I could put in widgets or flash banners in my side bar but otherwise it was crap and if you know what’s good for you, you will stay the fuck away from any Japanese blog hosting sites, THEY ALL SUCK. WordPress ftw!
My PSP kicked the bucket – Well my 2 year old black PSP finally died (not technically but i refused to play UMDs properly so I consider that pretty much death.) Thanks to Baggage Forward I was able to import easily a nice new red PSP for myself. Me and Red-kun are doing fine. ( ఠ‿ఠ )
Forwarding Services FTW – Yea proxies are easy cause they do it all but when you want to save a lot of money forwarding services are a lot cheaper. Thanks to Baggage Forward I was able to import several PC games, and a new PSP. I’m happy that people found my shopping post useful!
Goodbye CD Japan – Your customer service was good except now it’s complete and utter shit and well you can all go fuck yourselves along with your bullshit fees.
MMO break & switch – Once Tartaros announced end of service last December (which we all saw coming) I figured I was done with MMOs. Then I found out about RO2 in May so I jumped on the bandwagon but that shit fell apart within a month so I thought I was REALLY done this time. But then YoshiP came out and threw FFXIV on me, and even though I’ve never played a single Final Fantasy game in my life, I was hooked. Now I can’t rip myself out of it. So much for that!
I was gonna do my yearly awards and shit and I actually did have a large list drafted but you know what fuck it, let’s just get to the point of what was good and what sucked this year! And by this year I really just mean from December 2012 – December 2013 in my play log. In the last 12 months I’ve completed 38 games. Now that’s 38 console and PC games, not including any OELVNs, or any mobile games like SmaKare or Love Academy etc. If you include those it’s probably over 50 :lol:. I haven’t actually touched any mobile games ever since FF14 came into my life though and god knows if I ever will though I do have a few sitting on my home screen to guilt trip myself into playing them.
Games that Were Awesome:
- School Wars – yes the original game was awesome I fucking loved it. Too bad they switched writers and teams and well I don’t even know what’s going on in QR land anymore
- L.G.S. – This game is soooo underrated but it was so good! Houshin Engi, with an awesome heroine! And a sexy Suwabe voice fox man! Why haven’t you played this yet?
- Glass Heart Princess – Aside from that horribly hard to figure out Shinnosuke route, the game is overall awesome. I never thought I’d love a Hatano Wataru voiced character this much.
- The Wand of Fortune Series – Yea the system in WOF2 made me wanna punch a baby but god damn I love Lulu and all her mans (well except Bilal and all that fucking wasted ero potential! (；ಠ益ಠ；)) Still can’t decide whether I’m doS for Lagi or doM for Alvaro 😆
- Arcana Famiglia Festa Regalo – This was mostly a mini game but it was a hell lot of fun. The chibis were so cute and I got to kick all the annoying people (including the dad) in the ending credits XDD
- Desert Kingdom Portable – Fuck yea this is like the best game ever. Ok not the best game ever but the best game I’ve played in such a long time that I shun anyone who hasn’t played this yet. ( ｰ`дｰ´)ｷﾘｯ I love Lulu from WOF but the heroine in this game, Aspacia, takes the no1 spot this year.
- Tokyo Yamanote Boys Dark Cherry Portable – Dark Cherry will always be my fav TYB game but I loved all the extra additions and voices in the portable version. It makes me sad that nobody bought this because it’s like dirt cheap on CD Japan now so if you have like $30 to spare you can pick up all 3 limited editions cheap!
- Hatsu*Kare! – Ah youth! Ah cute school romance! Ah blushing deliquent boys! Ah cutie gamer boys! Ahh cute 3D CG Chibis~. This is one of the best school type games of the year so if you’re looking for a fluffy romance game this is a must play.
- Tomoyo After -its a wonderful life- – There’s nothing wonderful about this story but boy is it so damn well written. (´；ω；｀)ｳｯ…
- Tiny x Machinegun The Game – FUUUCKKKK YEA NEW YORK CIIITAAYY. Ok yea the game had a lot more guro than I expected but the story kept me on the edge of my seat most of the time. The lack of voices in the first half kinda blew especially since there were a lot of great scenes but it still didn’t take away from the overall story. I felt like some loose ends could have been closed better but I still enjoyed it overall. Heinz is my waifu.
- Norn 9 – Ok just wanna say the story in this game is BAD BAAAADDD BUT I LOVED the characters. Seriously the individual stories of some character routes made me cry and break out the tissue box. If you can successfully do this with your plot being swiss cheese then you are awesome. Could have been more awesome if they had a better story though but still worth playing!
- The Dot Kareshi Series – Props to Rejet on the idea for this. Though I gotta say the CDs were eyebrow raising. Why change personalities in the drama CD when they were already awesome in the game???
- Koibana Days – Basically see Hatsukare. The only thing is, YOU GOTTA PLANT LOTS AND LOTS AND LOTS OF FLOWERS. Some people might burn out from this but I enjoyed my garden and the 20 pools I put inside of it 😆 Also hrnnggngngn Tsubaki and Tsukasa （*´▽｀*）萌え
- Danzai no Maria Complete Edition – I remember being all sad I couldn’t play DnM on PC cause I had Windows 7 but now I’m glad cause man those old endings are terrible! Terrible! If i wasn’t for the new ends I’d think this game is awful! Thankfully the old ends are just now basically the bad ends of the game.
Games That Were Shit:
- School Wars FD – I like my guns to not look like hair dryers pls.
- Kussoni Gohan – As coined by my friend, Isshoni Gohan was so fucking dull and stupid and a shitty excuse for a cooking game. The mini games were either absurdly easy or ridiculously hard but whether you passed or failed them made no difference. The only saving grace is the lunch set that I actually use for when I bring lunch to work now 😆
- Tasogaredoki ~Kaidan Romance~ – Fuck u and ur NTR Quin Rose. Also fuck you and your dumb relationship resets in your FDs lol.
- Amnesia Crowd – Otomate stahp. I said stahp. STOP IT. STOP IT RIGHT NOW. (；ಠ益ಠ；)(And they didn’t stop and now we have another dead horse to beat in 2014.)
- Hiiro no Kakera 3 FD – See above. But at least they stopped. Maybe. ( ´_ゝ｀)
- OZMAFIA!! – Hi I don’t like NTR and prostitution, bye. Also god damn that fucking eye catch….（#^ω^）
- Shirapooyu no Kai – Unlike Norn 9 which at least had enjoyable character stories, this game had mostly hateable characters, a hateable heroine and a plot that was pulled out of a horse’s ass. No otomate, throwing in slurpy kissing noises isn’t going to be a saving grace in anything but D grade eroge.
- UtaPri Music 2 – ホモォ┌（┌ ^o^）┐ Also some songs being too fucking hard for any average person to complete.
- Diabolik Lovers: More Fanfiction – I hope Rejet fires whoever the fuck wrote this game cause seriously what the actual fuck. It’s not even about the degree of abuse but more on the sense of shit just coming outta nowhere, characters doing things for no reason, and endings that for the most part were pulled outta someone’s ass. I didn’t have HIGH expectations but god damn I didn’t think the writing would be this awful. The seiyuus deserve gold medals for all the moaning and screaming they did (especially Hirakawa & Kaji orz).
Games that weren’t awesome but weren’t really that shitty… though I’ll probably forget about them by next year:
- Shinobutts 7 – Ok I’m being sarcastic but lol the cost of the fragmentation for what you got is absurd. The fact that only volumes 1, 3 and 5 had any romance is ridiculous. Volumes 2 and 4 were ホモォ┌（┌ ^o^）┐ and Volume 6 they completely bastardized and ruined my favorite character. The bonus volume for buying all of them was…incest. What a shame, I actually thought the original “personalities” of Amemakura were a million times better.
- Both Dia no Kuni no Alice Games – Ok after playing both games, I realized that the original “enjoyment” I had of the first Alice game I played was not there. No offense to the new characters and I love Sidney to death but there was a lot of dragging around. Changing of personalities for the twins & Elliot and all that horrid filler side character shit in Mirror World. Ugh, Quin Rose stahp.
- Double Score ~Cosmos x Camelia~ – Look I got nothing personal against double score but it never really broke out of the oh noes we’re too old for you template. The heroine was actually really great in this, but the guys just stayed within their templates and even though the CDs are randy as fuck the game felt like kindergarten in comparison. So with that, I was disappointed.
- Vitamin Z Graduation – I didn’t really expect much, but it was even more mediocre than I thought it would be. I kept telling myself not to buy it but when it was in front of me at Animate I couldn’t resist. Deep regrets about it now. 😦
- Okashi na Shima no Peter Pan – This game wasn’t bad, but you know now that I look back it wasn’t that great either. I really couldn’t stand Peter near the end (even though I love Ishida’s voice) and for the most part I really wanted to kick Wendy in the head. So I guess the negatives just ended up neutralizing the positives.
- Fuyuzakurasho -Sakuragatari- For an R-18 game it was surprisingly not that rage inducing. Most of the time the heroine was okay with what was going on so it didn’t feel like she was forced into rape in every other scene. That’s not to say there wasn’t any rape, there was, in a bad end, and it was bad. And there were tentacles. Still though I thought the overall story was interesting, but due to some system bugs and a terrible visual layout this game fell just a bit short of awesome for me.
- Uta no Prince Sama All Star – Well it was better than Debut, but it will still never be as good as Repeat. Also Ringo & Ryuuya’s routes really sucked and the princes’ routes really sucked too. Honestly my best memory is Ranmaru’s tsundereness & his nukos, Camus’ fabulous horse and Reiji’s randy as fuck hotel scene. Well Ai had a good story too but I just don’t like him, I think Aoi Shota’s voice grates my ears in an odd way.
- Black Wolves Saga Last Hope – I liked the game as a “story novel” but I think as an otome game it’s not really great. Most of the game is finished once you do the first run so you pretty much skip away until you see the “branched off endings” of all the other characters. Still, I laughed heartily watching Auger ballerina in the burning forest. Also Rath is a cutie pie.
- Storm Lover 2nd – Well this was just a disappointment. I expected the same level of quality as the first game but a lot of stuff just wasn’t funny and the random scene capturing made me flip a desk many times. Still the game had some great characters that were a saving grace enough that I didn’t put the game into my shit category (Javier!! :mrgreen:)
Landmines I managed to Avoid:
- Brothers Conflict Brilliant Blue – After a long wait it was finally released only to have it be a literal fill in the blank of Passion pink. That means everything is the same except for the individual brothers. So yea sure the brothers routes are new, but everything else is copy pasta. What was the point of delaying it all this time if you’re just gonna copy & paste chunks of scenario? 😐
- Seishun Hajimemashita – Apparently the story/characters in this game is great but the unresolved bugs (despite delays) pretty much make it unplayable. Things like sprites turning into black parts of your screen, using jump command jumps you into another route, save data disappearing…and the plethora of other issues pretty much ruin the whole gaming experience. My trust in honeybee is prettttyyy low.
- Solomon’s Ring – Holy shit reading all the reviews this game is shit. I mean I figured it was shit but it’s probably the shittiest shit that was ever shat out of a butt in 2013.
- Shinigami Kagyou Kaidan Romance – This was an easy one to avoid. Anything Kaidan Romance from Quin Rose is by default a visible landmine. Actually by not buying anymore Quin Rose games I think I’m already avoiding majority of the minefield. ( ´_ゝ`)
- Getsuyou no Kusari – Even though I love the artist of Kaeru Batake, I just can’t stand any kind of mob bullying in a game – particularly bullying the heroine. If I played this I get the feeling my previous PSP would have been smashed to pieces from the built up rage.
- Urakata Hakuoki – Not that it’s surprising that any Hakuoki milking is going to be bad but I guess fans of Hakuoki were probably extra heartbroken. I hope for their sake SSL isn’t as terrible?
- Hyaku Monogatari Kaidan Romance – As I mentioned with the other game, 1. lol kaidan romance 2. lol Quin Rose fandisks.
- Dousei Kareshi – After the original artist ran away and the game was delayed a million times I decided to give up on it. Good thing I did since apparently the focus of the game is really the whole NTR part rather than “living with a dude” part. Whew dodged a big one there cause after Ozmafia more NTR was the last thing I needed.
And now while we’re at it here’s my thoughts on otome game companies over the past year:
Otomate: Well what can I say, their delays on games were okay in the first half of the year but as we got to the 2nd half, multiple things I had preordered/was going to preorder got delayed. Strangely enough they finally managed to release Brilliant Blue only for everyone to find out that it’s a template of the first game with only the individual brothers’ stories being different. ( ´_ゝ｀) And with them moving stuff to Vita I think it’s great but choosing to milk Hakuoki and Amnesia as the first game is a really terrible idea – in my eyes anyway. I definitely don’t want to upgrade to a Vita for either of those. Also now that Idea Factory opened up a US branch maybe they will consider importing more titles because the fact that the English version of Hakuoki costs like $50 less than Japanese version is absurdly amazing.
D3P: I had high standards for D3P last year but with Vitamin Z Graduation and Storm Lover 2nd being major disappointments (and the horrible pain of Custom Drive last year) I’m rather wary of anything they produce now. With this in mind I chose not to play Vitamin R even though I love the original X cast. Maybe someday I’ll forgive them…maybe.
QuinRose: Quin Rose thinks it’s more profitable to push out shitty games every month than to push out a good game every 4-5 months. Maybe it’s profitable for them to sell 2000-3000 copies every month, I don’t know but their decline in quality has broken my trust for them as a loyal fan. I can’t see myself buying much of their upcoming games anymore….
Takuyo: I love Takuyo’s silly games but lately they’ve just been pumping out serious depressing games. That is until Rakuen Danshi! I love this game! I hope within their games about nuns and taisho bullying, they continue to release at least one game with goofy jokes and lighthearted scenarios.
Broccoli – I’ve conluded that all of Broccoli’s original games are gonna be ホモォ┌（┌ ^o^）┐. MeiKoi was a phone port so it doesn’t count but I think the sequel/FD will be original right? I expect more ホモォ┌（┌ ^o^）┐ in that one. Honestly Broccoli just go make a god damn yaoi game, I can tell you really REALLY want to.
MEAD – Well I thought Sakuragatari was ok but due to the poor programming we’ll probably never hear from them again. Oh well such is the life of 1 hit wonder R-18 brands.
Rejet – Wow I can’t believe I forgot you! Maybe because you had more good games than bad games this year! I enjoyed Dot Kare and Tiny x Machinegun and hell even BWS Last Hope for what it was. However I don’t know what happened with More Blood. Perhaps next time you won’t hand the writing responsibilities over to Otomate?
The 2D Mans who Made my 2013 Awesome (*´д｀*)ﾊｧﾊｧ :
- Itsuki from School Wars
- Sou Dakki from L.G.S
- Tenma Sensei from Glass Heart Princess
- Alvaro and Lagi from Wand of Fortune
- Ash & Luca from Arcana Famiglia
- Sera & Yismar from Desert Kingdom
- Jesus from Tokyo Yamanote Boys
- Yuuji from HatsuKare
- Heinz from Tiny x Machinegun
- Akito and Natsuhiko from Norn9
- Tsubaki & Tsukasa from Koibana Days
- Klaus from Danzai no Maria
- Axel from Ozmafia (the only saving grace)
- Subaru from Diabolik Fanfiction
As you can see, I am not chained to any 2D husbandos (。≖ˇ∀ˇ≖。). I want them all bwahahaha!
Stats & Dumb Crap Only I care about 😆
Top 5 Referrals (excluding search engines):
- The blog of the Get Dumped creator (dayum girl ur game is awesome)
- My now defunct anime blog
- My otome gamer friend in Japan who plays games at the speed of light
Top 5 Search Keywords (not including breadmasterlee cause lol):
- amnesia otome game
- otome game review
- diabolik lovers
- amnesia later
- otome games
Top 5 Most Popular Posts:
- Diabolik Lovers review
- Amnesia Review
- Brothers Conflict Review
- Love Academy Review
- UtaPri All Star Review
So basically most of my traffic this year was because a bunch of games I reviewed got turned into animes and people wanted to know what actually happened (rather the half assery most of the animes have provided.)
Afterthought:
Well after some unpleasant run-ins this year and last year my outlook on otome gaming and its fandom was pretty low. I decided to put it all behind me and just focus on my reviews – but then I get buried in a pile of terrible and mediocre games. Just then in July I discovered the beta for FFXIV and once service opened in August, I couldn’t rip myself out of it. I was having so much fun, making new friends, leveling up my character, crafting stuff…otome games seemed like a waste of time in comparison. If it wasn’t for the fact that I had a bunch of preordered stuff, I might have quit otome gaming cold turkey. However thanks to comments of encouragement here you guys really kept me going. It made me realize that if I stop reviewing that a lot of people would be disappointed because I know people do look forward to what I write (despite the vocal minority of haters.) I’m still playing FFXIV but I try to balance it out with my otome games since I’ve finished the main story and there’s no rush anymore.
I want to thank everyone who’s been reading all this time, and new readers alike. I want to thank those of you who were lurkers for a while but decided to de-lurk and come and post your first comment. I want to thank those who come bringing me different points of views and creating multi reply loong conversation threads that are always a pleasure to respond to. I want to thank those of you who link here from your blogs, twitters, tumblrs and do so because you found a review funny or informative. There’s nothing that makes me happier than seeing someone sincerely laugh at what I write because after all, this blog is supposed to entertain. It was never meant to be “serious” and I’m sorry that there are those who took it seriously and get extremely upset over it. When I started this blog it was just a place to let my thoughts out about the games I play, whether it be mmos or otome. When I realized most people enjoy my reviews, I made it a main part of the blog and cut my MMO babble to a minimum.
As far as the outlook for 2014 – I’m not sure what to do. At the moment only a few games I’m interested in that are coming out next year but that will of course change. Still though, it’s hard to imagine what will be good and what will be terrible anymore. There’s not much that’s “new” for me anymore. I think after 200+ games I’ve seen it all. The voice actors which I once have loved aren’t so “great” to me because I’ve heard them in so many similar roles. And while I used to force myself to sit through terrible games, when I have FFXIV as an alternative, it’s just hard to force myself to sit down and play these awful games. A lot of people suggested I take a break from otome gaming but for me once I drop something, it’s hard to look back. That’s why I always try to “finish” a game fully before I put it on the shelf because once it’s on the shelf, I’ll never come back to it (*looks at Miyako FD :roll:). That’s why even if it’s only 1 game per month I want to try to keep this hobby as active as I possibly can. Anyway we’ll see what happens next year.
One last thing is due to the vast amount of otome blogs that are…dead on my blog roll I’m officially instating a 1 year update policy. If your blog hasn’t been updated in over a year I will be removing you from the list. However, if you ever decide your passion for otome games is back please drop me a note and I’ll gladly add you back on again! Reason I’m doing this is I sometimes browse through my blogroll and makes me sad seeing all these blogs that are dead or have expired domain names etc. Blogging can be a pain sometimes and I can understand people losing interest but I’d like my blogroll to be less like a graveyard I guess 😆
Once again, thank you for reading, thank you for lurking and thank you for supporting and motivating me all these years!
P.S. Sorry I’m too busy to have a giveaway this year! 😦 If my work schedule and backlog calm down next year maybe I can have a random one or something later on!
かわいいじゃなきゃダメなの！ 
Yea DK was one of my favorite 2013 games!! And it doesn’t even count cause it’s a port lol all new games are so bad lately or they’re just lame sequels/FDs/ports 😦
I plan to get a vita just for project diva f2 lol, none of the otome games for it are catching my eye. Pirate game seems interesting but not sure how it fairs with the romance aspect? Seems like some adventure rpg game but I could be wrong.
And lol solomon’s ring, don’t even waste your money XD Thanks for lurking!
5周年おめでとう\(^o^)/ It seems like I started lurking yesterday…thank you for continuing to write!
Desert Kingdom is good?! I fell in love with the art, but I figured the story would just be Oto-fluff so I didn’t get it…now I have to! Thank you 🙂
I’m wondering about the Vita, too…that new pirate game (forgot the name, Vita only) they mentioned in the Feb B’s Log looks cute. You’re probably right, though. It’ll probably take a bit more time for things to switch over. Might as well wait a while longer…
Solomon’s Ring sounds so bad that I’m tempted to get it *argh*…sometimes a thing can be so bad it’s amusing as a kind of farce…
Anyway! Happy New Year (goes back to lurking)!
Ahaha ok thanks for the advice. I’ll be look forward to your future reviews~ ^^
I don’t remember what I did but I think due to the address issue I hesitated to have another give away after that. I kinda knew the winner of the magazine so I was okay with them seeing my address. Not so sure after all that happened now xD
When you gave away a magazine, did you actually put your actual address or just not have a return address on the package? I feel hesitant to put my actual address just bc you know lols Then again, I’m kinda worried what if it doesn’t get sent properly or something?
I mean I just have people comment and then I use one of those online number generators and after putting everyone’s names in an excel spreadsheet, generate the number, whoevers name matches the number is the winner.
Then just contact them via email and offer whatever you want as the prize ^^
Congrats on the 5th anniversary! I always enjoy your reviews~
Also, can you share your know-hows on doing giveaways? I’m considering to do giveaways as well, but I’m not really sure how to do one. ><
thank you! I think I Played more last year but ff14 pretty much took up most of my time (still is lmao)
I don’t really play that fast (at least no as much as I used to)
WHen I was unemployed I think I finished 1 game every 3 days lmao. Maybe cause I read fast?
wow,happy 5th anniversary!! 38 games,12 month, waw!
I’ve always been curious how you have time to play games as much as it, I myself have a lot of time but takes a long time to completing the game, can you give me tips master (シ_ _)シ
“The voice actors which I once have loved aren’t so “great” to me because I’ve heard them in so many similar roles”– toriumi （｀・ω・´）
he got so many roles in otome
Thank you!! And yes god I’m sick of shitty mediocre games ;__;
Can’t watch my live stream anymore? I still broadcast pretty much daily o.o!
And yea once stuff goes to the Vita no more broadcasting as I don’t see any viable way for me to do this!
Cheers to your blog’s 5th year anniversary! \(*´∀｀*)☆
And a good flip off to all of those dreaded bad games through 2012~2013! 凸(○ ヮ ○)凸
Its been been nice for me to be able to finally get to lurk on your blog after so long!
I missed those days where I could watch you livestream ;(”
Just hoping that Ps Vita doesn’t ruin it in the future :L”
(Holy Hells, its a good thing I copy and pasted the above msg cause I forgot my password for my wordpress account and then got locked outta my old email for my email [damned new settings for yahoo..] ._.” I dont use my wordpress account enough haha..)
Thank you~!!
Congratulations on your five year!
Hmmmmm. As much as I love your game reviews, I think I would be even more sad if you forced yourself to do it. Maybe it’d be better to only play the games you found really exciting (even if that meant that you’d play one game a year?). No matter what, the thought of anyone spending huge chunks of their time doing something they don’t find fun seems insane to me. Take care of yourself and your time first. If you don’t like doing something… don’t. Time is more precious than anything else – it’d be weird to waste it on stuff you hate. Maybe it’s not as simple as that, but if you gave otome gaming up for that reason, I wouldn’t mind at all.
Thanks you too!!
I heard about the moujutsukai one, I’m tempted since omg get to poke the animals with your fingers!!xDDD
but if they are indeed headed that direction I wonder why all their newest game announcements are for PSP still hmm
and thanks!
Happy 5th anniversary! \o/
About the Vita ports, Otomate just announced Moujuutsukai is getting one and apparently Princess Arthur has a trial out now. So well, it certainly looks like they wanna head in that direction but who knows about the other companies.
thanks for the reply xD!! i was nervous about the PSP Console but with your answer the only thing that i must do now is wait until Christmas and then play the game xD!! (even if i have than play it with the system of “fuck it and learn” lol)
Actually doesn’t matter for me if you’ll play it the next year xD! in fact i was worried because i didn’t know if you already had played it and i missed the broadcast TT-TT!!
Have a nice and happy end of year ;D!
More games = more landmines I guess xD Or maybe my tolerance is getting low hahah. Thanks for reading!
haha I’m glad you found my brief reviews useful XD I try to keep things as simple as I can (except when I start rambling about my favorite characters lmao)
You should be able to use any PSP to play games because they are region free. My previous PSP was an American PSP and it played all games fine! I only imported the Japanese one because I wanted it in red lmao
The Alice remake isn’t top on my list since it’s mostly a repeat so I don’t even know if I’ll get to it before the end of the year!
thanks for reading 😀
Oh I hope you enjoy it! Just be careful of the elitist douches on the NA servers lol.
Thank you for reading x3
I hope you at least give Starry Sky in Summer a chance as that one had no bugs in it and it’s one of my favorite honeybee game xD
You bought a guide?? I didn’t even know they sold guides o.O I usually just google it and find someone’s blog lol.
Thank you! ^_^
Congrats on your 5th anniversary!! Yeah from reading your reviews, this year didn’t seem to be too good…hopefully next year will be better. Thanks for all your hard work on writing these reviews, too!
I really love what you do when you play this games! you helped me a lot especially because i cant read japanese so play this games by myself would have been impossible xD!
I just want to ask a little thing… if i want play a game in japanese… could i just use a PSP Console of my country (Chile) with access to any not-original game or i need import one from Japan?
PD: I’m so excited because you will play the Re-make of Heart no Kuni no Alice! I bought it ’cause i saw it here xD
You are an angel you know?
congratulations on your 5th anniversary! always a pleasure reading your blog posts *-*
after i read a post of your final fantasy post, i wanted to play it :’D maybe buying it next week
heard you like mmos with good graphics and character designs ,maybe you will like phantasy star online 2(you can make some hot bishounen *Q*) i played it,but i had no japanese knowledge. XD it shouldnt be a problem for you ^^
i really love your blog ^-^ keep it up! hwaiting *^*!
Congratulations!
Thank YOU, too, for all your hard work.
Hoorah! Happy Anniversity!
Seeing that you mentioned Seishun Hajimemashita (Which I am currently at play. I LOVE LOVE Kanade!) in the Landmines, I’m not surprised at all.
I first thought you were supposed to play a persons route specifically after another but after seeing you had the same problems I was not the only one going through some buggy game play,finding myself in a different persons route with the jumping and so on.
It kinda disappoints me since I really wanted to finish everyone’s route ( besides the females, it’s awkward for me…) I find the bugs and LONG prologue/beginning inserted with the route to become fairly unbearable…. I’m so glad I started and ended with my first and last game from honey to be with Kanade (T – T)b
And Yes Dear… Diabolik death disc can just be flushed down the toilet. That’s where Kou belonged in the first place, Karl Heinz is a Friggin’ douche!!! And I love you dearly Subaru. Your Drama CD was just- *shot*
O Ma Gyahsh! And BroCon PP, I can’t friggin believe I wasted my time and MONEY on purchasing both game AND guide!!! I feel like a loser… I want to destroy it!!! щ(ಥДಥщ)
Thank you very much Dear…
Quin and Rejet….. What the shmeck…
Yea hence my “i’m done with you quin rose” xDDD
OMG WHAT.
WHAT IS THIS.
WHY.
WHY WOULD ANYONE.
I’m speechless. I. What the hell. Quinrose.
ooh I see what you mean regarding the sharing. that would be nice. I’ve searched around and only seen one $200 program to broadcast vita games which is too expensive for a hobby like that.
Regarding Alice it was announced in last month’s B’s Log. http://kirihamasaki.tumblr.com/post/67760361574/heart-no-kuni-no-alice-fandisk-or-au-wonderful
The heart remake should be the same save for the art – I haven’t started on mine either (and it’s like last on the priority of pile sitting on my desk)
for i & II the answer is tumblr. so as long as they keep their trash in there and off my site I don’t really care 😛
Thank you for reading and stopping by the broadcast 😀
And lol well I guess as I always said “I suffer so YOU don’t have to” 😆 Though honestly my tolerance is growing thin after all these years ww
And as far as Clannad, Nagisa will always be my #1 ;u;
I have some really weird and nonsensical landmines myself, so I understand you on that one. At least yours make sense in context of Greater Humanity lol.
I mean, they have sharing features built in on the PS4 (press ‘share’ on the controller and poof, your Let’s Play is on the internet! Or something along the lines), so they might add those features to a Vita? And then the Vita MAY have sharing features by itself, without needing a console or a TV, just a wifi internet. It’s already capable of pretty amazing streaming capabilities—–it’s a big ‘if’ Sony would add such a feature, though.
Which one is that? I did read about Diamond, which I agree because while Sidney is cute, WHATEVER THE HELL HAPPENED TO MY BOYS. If you mean the new Heart remake, no, I haven’t touched that one yet, don’t tell me anything happened. -_-
LOL at least they did that….but it’s still so half-assed, bleah. I don’t derived a joy out of knowing the boys rode off into the sunset together while the heroine vanishes either, it’s like, dude, HANDLE YOUR PLOTS AND SHIPS PROPERLY. I totally feel you on the weird AU thing. 😛 No idea how some people lap these things up…
If the haters hate it so much, then they should either i) stop reading and go to a place where haters congregate or ii) create their own hateblog or iii) at least troll intelligently.
Mind you, everyone has their likes and dislikes. The least I will give to something I hate is to make snide comments and ignore the rest, provided the original view doesn’t spout nonsense. Otherwise it’s open season for a concerted assault. It is quite obvious what is my main peev on the subject of animu/mangos.
It has been a pleasure going to your site all these years and congratulations on your 5th anniversary. It must be tough maintaining this blog and finishing all those games, so you have my upmost respect. Sometimes when I watch your broadcast or read your reviews, I think to myself “man, am I glad I didn’t pick up this game.” You save me a couple of bucks, but then I spend it on other VNs that are worthwhile. Thanks for your sacrifice. Just kidding. Thanks for reviewing in detail and keeping up with otome games. Not many people can do what you have done and I do hope you continue even when the going gets tough.
Also, Tomoyo is best Clannad.
Yeah I made one and I’m now tweaking it…I will move all my reviews to wordpress soon so you can link to it if you want!
I totally understand you on the bakumatsu stuff…….It’s like they have no new themes to work with anymore which is a bummer. But Hanamani is still quite good, so if you’re ever in the mood………..Otomate’s script is hit-and-miss but they churn out so many games a year it’s bound to be like that…It’s also a shame you’re not into wafuu games because Rejet’s Ken ga Kimi looks really good as well.
I think that is what I’ll do :3
btw, I love the Diabolic Lovers picture that you posted. lmao x’D It’s the best Diabolik Lovers picture ever!
Yea I figure if I shut down because of the haters, the haters win! Therefore, I must keep going!
The only thing that may kill my motivation at this point is just all the terrriiibble games.
Abuse & stuff aside, it’s like the makers just slap some seiyuus & pretty pictures and expect us all to buy into it!
Lol thanks 😀 Someone’s gotta play them!
For Brocon you can always just buy the twinpack to save money!
Yea like PlainPeace did great with LoveRevo but releasing such crap as Solomon’s ring is pretty surprising xD
Thanks for lurking & reading!
I noticed you’ve in fact already created a wordpress blog xD
Should I link to that one instead of your tumblr? Let me know!
I’m pretty much sick of the bakumatsu stuff which is why I haven’t bothered with HanaMani. It could be a good game but I blame Otomate for ruining 和風 things for me ;u;
CONGRATULATIONS on 5 years of blogging otome games!!! And dear gawdz, plz don’t ever fw@kkin shut down despite how worse the fandom is becoming (I can’t really say it’s getting any better what with how the proportion of good vs. bad (Diabolik fuhkkaz) games are, and other things). But seeing as I’m a do-M for this fandom, MOAR MOAR MOAR (~insert Joubachi’s Utsuro’s face here)!!!
Crongrats on your 5 year anniversary, and congrats on pushing through those late shitty games! ^w^ I’ll be trying some of those awesome games you listed + some Brothers conflict (but I am conflicted on which game to buy because I love 8 of the 13 brothers just by watching the anime… sadly, not all of the brothers got some love in it ;w;)
THANK YOU for including Subaru and Axel in the list 😀 They’re two of my many sweetie pies~
And yes Solomon’s Ring was pretty awful. Pretty bad CGs and no effort whatsoever. There would be a lack of relationship development-everything would just skip and skip and i didn’t know what was going on anymore
And oh boy Brothers Conflict… So many half assed things went on in the show lol
Well keep up the good work and I look forward to reading more of your awesome, hilarious reviews
-Cheers from a longtime lurker
Thank you!! I’ll add your link as well.
Well yeah I used to use tumblr only for posting artworks and it’s fine for a few pictures but when I wanted to write reviews I found that I couldn’t format the paragraphs like how I wanted to… So I’ll definitely consider getting a wordpress just to put my textwalls!
In newer games Hanasaku Manimani has really good story and characters (but yet again it’s about bakumatsu and I’m kinda tired of that subject in otome games lol) And people say the story is much better than SBL so you might want to try that! Also, Meikoi! If the sequel is written by the original writer then I’m not too worried about the homo content ww
damn I looked up my comments and you really did comment 2 years ago xD (and on my birthday at that lol)
I’m glad you’ve started playing a few otome games. Most games that have a lot of stat raising have less text and therefore make it easier for a beginner.
I’d go as far as saying play Koibana days cause its mostly flower planting and then you get your short moe scenes which hopefully you don’t need deep knowledge to understand (not hard to understand a blushing tsundere really XD)
Thanks for reading and good luck in school 😆
Hinano, congratulations on your five years! Honestly, I’ve always been an on/off reader of your blog, but I can never delete you from my bookmarks because I think you’re just so interesting. I love the personality you bring out into your posts and they’re always fun to read :).
I’ve only posted once before asking how long you’ve been studying Japanese, and for some reason after getting my answer I found my resolve and started seriously learning the language myself. It has now been two years, I’m in my last year of university, and I’m slowly learning new words and grammar every day. I am now playing Tokimeki 3, but I hope in a year I’ll be able to tackle some beginner otome games (I tried UtaPri Repeat but I just had to dictionary so much stuff I decided to stop for now xD) and every once in a while I’ll play through a bit of Starry Sky.
Anyway, I just wanted to say finding your blog so many years ago inspired me into pursuing the Japanese language and I am a happier and better person because of it. I hope one day I’ll be able to post on your blog again not as a poor university student, but as a fellow otome gamer.
and yep I saw the brocon anime, hence the QUALITY image in my tweet in this post 😆
I can’t take that game seriously enough to ever play it or review it lol, theres a ton of reviews on the net for it by now anyway 😛
The only game I ever want to see be reviewed is Hatoful Kareshi.
That shit is crazy and depressing
Then I’m going to hold out hope that maybe one day I’ll be able to read a BroCon BB review by you! XD Although I can understand why the force skipping would be a huge turn off. I kind of expected it to be a basic re-do of the 1st game plot since that is how the books are, but then why did they have the excessive delays in releasing it?
Did you watch the BroCon anime at all? I loved it but it felt like they really favored certain characters over others. (Poor Masaomi had like 10 lines in all 12 episodes.)
BTW I loved reading your reviews of the Dot Kareshi Series since you understood all the old timey RPG gaming references in it! Yay for turning off effects and going on “important” quests that don’t mean anything!
I double-checked the official website before I replied and yeah… only Shiki and Miyaji’s haven’t been released. The last update was Hoshizuki’s which was late last year O_O. Maybe they don’t sell too well since they’re not voiced? You could be right, though, it’s very possible the official website has been slack with updates. I couldn’t find it on Google, iTunes Japan, Australia or America. Also, it’s such a letdown they aren’t voiced! Yeah, the Summer boys totally rock! 😀
wait I’m so sure they released every single guy’s soine kareshi app O_O Check again? The fact that the apps weren’t voiced though was huge turnoff for me so I never bothered with it :X My favorite is Homare-senpai x3
And I hope you enjoy Hatsukare!! Also you are right after playing More Blood I’m hnnggging all over the place in KamiAso lol
I definitely can see where you’re coming from! I love darker, depressing themes, but I think there should be more balance on the market. I’m always thankful for comedies and fluffy games after a marathon of utsuge! I find that I enjoy and value them even more after playing games where pretty much everyone awesome dies or gets screwed over. So as per your recommendation, Hatsukare Renai Debut Sengen has been added to my list! 😀 It sounds adorable.
You’re so very right, how could I even forget moneybee would NEVER let go, no matter what? *Facepalm* I didn’t even remember that Starry Sky characters are in SH! I think it was supposed to be Suzuya and Kanata. Why them, I wonder? I could swear that Tsubasa and Miyaji are more popular… maybe the Japanese tastes are different… Ah, whatevs. The only other SS mumbo-jumbo I was interested in was the Soine Kareshi app, but for some reason, they didn’t release Miyaji-kun’s one! What a letdown.
New Years Resolution: Try not to buy shitty games, the resolution I fail to keep every year 😆
I’m thinking about trying Yodobashi Camera maybe? They have a 10% point system which makes them a little cheaper than amazon and they consolidate all orders in 1 box so I wouldn’t have to pay repacking fees to my fwding service.
And lol I guess curiosity gets you to read the whole post xD My reviews Aren’t THAT detailed though so even if you read the post there’s still stuff I don’t mention that would be “new” had you played it yourself. I think most of my spoilers are probably anything ending related rather than the meat of the route. I dunno about WOF I was able to get through it even with the annoying system cause I loved the characters that much. I’d say give it a shot if you can find it cheap or used someplace, it can’t be that expensive since it’s pretty old.
And thanks – I like to decorate my blog to fit the season!
Yea I feel like the delays aren’t going away anytime soon though I know certain delays have made me not buy certain games lol.
I’m interested in -8 as well but I’ll probably stay away from their other games. I’m kinda tired of the “kyah abusive husbandos” trope. I end up sitting like ( ´_ゝ｀) the whole time waiting for this to end so I can write my review and move on. I’d rather stick to games that make me きゅん(ﾉ´∀｀*) lol
Honeybee will never move from starry sky. They had 2 of the starry sky characters IN Seishun and now they’re release some play buttons with more ss character voices. I think Colorful Step is probably the first “move away” from SS since at least the artist is different.
Thank you 😀
I don’t disagree that the story of Getsuei is probably great but yea for me once that landmine comes it ruins everything lol. (Like being slapped in the face with shit and then being told to enjoy a gorgeous dinner lol)
I don’t have a PS4 though and my TV is in a totally different room than my computer so if stuff does go to Vita I probably wouldn’t be able to broadcast…which is a shame as I really enjoy some of the chats we have in there.
And yea I totally feel you on QR. Now I just 🙄 at any of their new announcements. Did you see the one about a new Alice games where they gut renovated everyone’s personalities? Wtf?
And lol yea I finally reached the homo in KamiAso…there’s the “love end” and “destiny end” and the only destiny is ホモォ┌（┌ ^o^）┐. Its amazing how the heroine just……vanishes. Though at least in those ends she doesn’t end up with the guy, it almost feels like some weird AU compared to the romantic endings lol.
seems legit
Thanks and I hope so too 😛 I think CD Japan’s staff is idiotic as I’ve never been hit with fees until this one dumb staff came to me and told me they have handling fees. I get the feeling they’re just targeting random users to try and reach their year end sales goals maybe? I can’t think of any other reason.
And sure I’ll add your link! Though honestly I think you should use wordpress for blogging cause tumblr sucks (for reasons like terrible categorization and a terrible community)! Also dayum I love your artwork /hides my chicken scratches in shame lol
Yea this might be the longest site I’ve run that I haven’t abandoned/shut down lol
Regarding BroCon BB I haven’t fully counted it out so maybe eventually I will play it but it’s nowhere in my priority list I’m afraid. The fact that I have to force skip a lot of content as it is puts it in a negative light for me lol.
Congrats on 5 years of blogging! It’s quite an accomplishment! (I know from experience that is a looong time to keep a website running -_-) Don’t worry about FFXIV taking all your attention, we can simply signup for the email updates so we know when you post about your latest Otome adventure. As a long time lurker, I can definitely say IT IS WORTH WAITING FOR!
Although I am totally bummed you aren’t going to review Brothers Conflict Brilliant Blue. Natsume and Azusa get no love?? I got desperate and read some reviews of it on other websites, and it was soooo boring (like reading a wikipedia article) so I was really looking forward to you reviewing it with your usual style and point out all the lol and wtf scenes in it. But I can understand not wanting to play the same plot all over again. (I’m still bummed though.)
Happy anniversary! I hope you’d get to play better games next year!! And find better places to buy your games. CDJapan has been fine for me so I don’t know what’s gotten into them to charge ridiculously for shipping… but it’s sad if I have to give them up because I like the variety they offered…..
BTW I’d love to exchange links with you! Although it’s the first time I’ve done this with someone so I’d only have your link XD
にょ。Their homoge are overseen by an 8 year old cateared girl who loves yaoi. にょ。Kyo x Iori doujinshi.
Awwww I actually really like Getsuei….yeah it’s brutal, but the context makes sense and the issues are real and it’s a lot like Japanese ‘literature’ novels in that regard. If ‘bullying’ is your landmine, though, it’s your landmine. I have mine, and I know it’s weird that way.
Sony seems to be pushing for a lot of sharing/LP-related features with the PS4, so there’s a chance that they might add some of those to the Vita, too, considering that they seem to be playing up the Vita as the PS4’s companion handheld. If that happens, you wouldn’t need to hack to stream your LP. IF it happens, though.
It’s amazing how Quinrose has gone from ‘Oh! New Quinrose series! Am excited!’ to ‘Bleh, Quinrose…..whatever man, whatever’ in a remarkably short time frame…
Also : IKR Broccoli. Come on guys, there’s a market for that sort of stuff in the dirty-dirty land too. It is EXTREMELY ANNOYING to get a homo ship pushed into your face and bam! He ends up with the vaporous heroine for no definable reason. DON’T HALF-ASS YOUR SHIPS.
Happy 5th Anniversary ^キラリーン(@ ^ ^)/。・:*:・°’★,。・:*:・°’☆ Congratulations！・:*:・° and I really enjoy reading your reviews ^-^
Congratulations! I bet 5 years of maintaining a consistently updated blog is no easy feat!
2013 has certainly been a hot and cold year for otome gaming… the delays really didn’t help.
2014 seems to have more interesting games coming out- I’m interested in Rejet’s interpretation of Alice in Wonderland, and -8 (“unique” art and all) sounds like it’d be a nice, light-hearted comedy. Bad Medicine is giving me some “Gekka Ryouran Romance” vibes, which is a good thing, seeing as I enjoyed GRR. I’m also willing to take my chances with a few R18+ games coming out next year by new companies. The production values seem much better with recent R18+ games so hopefully this means better plots and characters.
Just a quick note about Seishun Hajimemashita!, friend of mine mentioned that you can get a patch to fix its critical bugs. I haven’t heard of how much it helps, though. Even so, it’s nice to see honeybee finally move on from Starry Sky. Starry Sky is fun and pretty, but it’s so overhyped and overrated.
Keep up the great work- I appreciate your reviews! 🙂 Hopefully 2014 will be kinder to you and bring you many fun otome games to play.
Congrats on your 5th Anniversary! Having a post like this is really fun because it’s kind of like an end-of-the-year analysis/looking towards the new year type of thing. It’s like the New Years resolution otome game post, haha.
So it looks like you’ve decided for sure to change from CdJapan…who are you planning to purchase from now?
I haven’t tried forwarding services myself yet, but if I stay in this community I feel like there will be no way to avoid it in the future. And your post about buying games was very helpful indeed. I used it to try and figure out all that proxy/forwarding stuff in case I ever need to employ those methods.
I’m still holding off on the Vita as well. I can see why they chose Hakuouki and Amnesia to port but they should just leave them be already. New games would have more appeal. It seems like a method to try and bring new fans instead of trying to bring current fans over, which kind of feels like a strange marketing strategy. I could be wrong though. Business was never my strong point (which would make sense since I never learned anything about business at all…)
I got into otome gaming this year so it’s been an interesting journey and it’s always fun to read your thoughts about the games before I play them/decide whether they’re worth the buy. I think I’ve given up avoiding spoilers, though I appreciate that you give an overview and then final thoughts section if I ever want to try again. I’ve simply decided to read the whole review and then maybe play the games after I mostly forget the storyline and characters xD
I plan to look into the games on your awesome list that I didn’t play/haven’t heard of. For some reason I only know the ones on your shit list. It must be because your reviews for them are hilarious. And it could also be because a lot of the recent games that came out this year seem to be in that category.
Wand of Fortune is a series I’m still contemplating because a lot of people discuss the great characters but shit system and I don’t know if I can get through the shit system for the sake of the characters.
Also, nice snowflake background. It’s always fun to see your seasonal changes in the blog wallpaper.
I totally have a disclaimer in my FAQ! I’ve had one there for like a year or something but nobody actually reads that or my posts I think.
From what I saw most of the complainers
1) never played the game themselves and are angry I’m stomping on their headcanons
2) angry that I didn’t like their favorite abusive husbando
3) only read reviews of all the terrible games I play and completely ignore the ones where I’m like (;´Д｀)ﾊｧﾊｧ！！ lol
Oh well can’t be helped so I’ve decided there’s no point in wasting effort/energy giving a crap about such things xD
And yea CD Japan was my primary ordering spot too, so this really pisses me off. It’s like maybe they hired some stupid new intern idk, this has never happened to me before, what a shame honestly :/.
and the less games I buy the better I think xD I’m starting to run out of shelf room so maybe I’ll sell a few to book off or something!
I was curious about Alice but probably going to avoid bad medicine. I don’t think I want to be near any dude who has access to drugs and needles and is mentally insane in the head ∑(ﾟДﾟ)ｶﾞｰﾝ
I kinda miss Rejet’s wacky games like RenAi Bancho and Vitamin series
Has it only been 5 years? It feels longer than that.
Happy 5th anniversary! Glad to see your reviews are still around despite all the drama. I don’t always agree with you myself but it’s a personal blog (maybe you need a disclaimer if you don’t already have one www) so blog away. Sorry about the CDJapan news, I order almost everything from there so I feel your pain.
Next year’s gonna be slow in otome games for me too. There’s nothing I want anymore ( ´_ゝ｀) but I hope you find something you enjoy and have fun with!
Reminds me… I should visit your broadcasts more often… They are so funny. xDD
I actually came to like smutty scenes in Otoge or Drama CD’s, but I don’t like abuse. I don’t know what makes those companies think, we’d like to get abused… WTF NO! Give me my randy scenes, but please keep in mind that girls are still girls in their hearts. They love fluffy stuff!!! And no one wants to be raped… ;w; GDI…
Ahahahaha… Rejet did a pretty good job this year… They even produced a funny game like Dot Kareshi…, despite of being a dark-theme company lover. But looking at their 2014 releases… I’m not sure what to think about it… Their games will be so crazy with Alice=Alice or Bad Medicine… I don’t even know… Hopefully they’ll come back to the reality trip. LOL
Haha it’s been lively with you in the broadcasts, too bad our timezones are so far apart!
I somehow doubt we won’t see anymore crappy games but hopefully I can somehow learn to try to weed out the terrible games from the good ones. With Otomate you never now they are so much hit or miss it’s ridiculous 😆 Worst part of course is they always hide the writers until you buy the game and see the ending credit roll 😡
Haha that’s okay even if you come out once a year to say something nice it puts a smile on my face
I love interacting with my readers (even if it means both of us raging at how terrible the game is :lol:)
i should really stop buying games based on pretty art & seiyuus but that’s a huge selling point since you’ll never know what the story will be like even if you know the “premise” of the game 😦 I guess due to this they almost trick you into getting and the end result is “well you bought it for the reasons we put effort into it”
my final thoughts are just for that purpose so definitely scroll fast 😀
I think I’ve gotten a lot slower cause I’ve been derping around FFXIV too much but now I’m starting to run out of things to do there so hopefully I can pick up my otome gaming pace lol
hoping for a nice 2014 as well 🙂
haha I’m glad you find them useful & entertaining 😀
Unfortunately I don’t have quick suggestions but I hope this post can help you in your journey:
https://breadmasterlee.com/2012/02/10/special-otome-game-recommendations/
Congratulations! ^-^
I’ve been a lurker for about 1 year and a half and only really got to show myself a month or two ago to the broadcasts, but I’m really glad I did since it’s a lot of fun. I still remember when I was still getting into otome games when I found your review of amnesia and I laughed my ass off reading it XD After that, I pretty much stalked this blog like a hawk. And because of you and my mediocre japanese, I got to play some really awesome games that I probably would have never found if you hadn’t reviewed them, so I thank you for that. I can see it was a pretty bad year with shirapooyu no kai/shitratsuyu no kai and Diabolik Lovers More Fanfiction/More Bullsh*t/ Pokenames: Collect the nicknames, I just hope we won’t see any of those again.
I’m looking forward to next year! 😀
It’s a short game. I’ll be looking forward to your review of it when you do get to it. I can understand those backlogs becoming huge. I haven’t played an Otome Game, but I will use your reviews as reference for where I should begin. Do you have any quick suggestions?
Congratulations on your 5th anniversary! (I’ve been a long time lurker here but I don’t comment much cause I’m as lazy as a jiji LOL) Anyway, I’ll still be looking forward for your reviews (even if you decided sooner or later to stop playing otome games anymore) since I really like your reviewing style and you really do say what you feel about the game xD.
I do agree with what the heck the companies have been dishing out these past few months, as usual artworks are great but why do most of them have crappy stories and wtf endings (and even yaoi undertones jfc it’s an otome game not a bl game) (╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻
Hopefully if ever the next games that you’ll play wouldn’t be as bad as the ones that you have played LOL xD
Hello 🙂
I just started playing otome game this year and your blog was really useful when looking for recommendations. Though, I mostly scroll down to your final thoughts to avoid spoilers, I always go back and read your thoughts on the routes that I cleared, just like the case with Wand of Fortune XD Your speed to finish otome games never ceases to amaze me. I hope I can read Japanese as fast as you can (still in the process of learning lol)
Anyway, just stopping by to say congratulations on your 5tn blog anniversary and I hope next year will be a good year for you, both in gaming and in real life 😀
Happy 5th blogging anniversary! Your reviews are always really fun to read, especially since I can’t understand Japanese and play most otome games myself. XD
Ohh, i actually haven’t played any of the mobage. Well, I tried one but as you said, 5-6 super short chapters per day wasn’t interesting. I meant free doujin games on PC. If you don’t mind the lack of voicing, there are a handful of really good ones out there. (For otome, if you have the time, I highly recommend 非日常クアルテット by [Watercolors]. Pretty art, three substantial and well-written routes, and heroine with awesome spunky proactive personality.)
See as far as BroCon when I played the game it didn’t feel like there was a guy who was better than all others. The anime made it seem otherwise but I also heard the anime is based on the light novels rather than the game. Personally I prefer the game as it’s pretty much equal opportunity shipping 😆
I haven’t TOTALLY counted out Brilliant Blue but it’s definitely somewhere in the back pits of my backlog and who knows when/if I’ll ever get to it.
And yea no idea why it’s so cheap. Here I’m paying $80 for limited editions while the limited english additions are barely $30 :s
I got the new Arcana Game sitting on my desk and yes Dante looks so much hotter now so I’m actually hoping for a decent route out of him xDDD
Thanks for reading! 🙂
Happy 5th Blogging Anniversary! I have to admit I’m one of the fans who was brought here by the anime releases this year, wondering how the games unfolded (BroCon I found it hard to believe they could make her go with anyone other than Natsumi since he seemed to have so much more affinities with her than the other brothers, and DiaLovers I was just LOL in front of my TV I had to know what happened in the games this was just too hilarious to believe XDDD) Anyway like some others I was looking forward to your review of BroCon BB but you explained pretty well here why you wouldn’t do it and I totally agree with you. Seriously I can’t believe they copy/pasted everything!o_O
But anyways thanks to you I’m fully into otome gaming now, though as you pointed out, the releases in english are so much more affordable (Hakuouki I got for 10$ brand new, no kidding) I’m not understanding it. You’d think they charge extra for the translation, right? Good for us english fans, but my logic is puzzled.
Consider me a devoted fan now–getting through all your review has to be one of the funniest and most entertaining hobbies I ever had (my latest favorite: “the room full of people who cares'” for Dante in Arcana Famiglia Phantom Ship–OMG SO FUNNY XDDD–though for the new game they have him hair and he doesn’t look half bad now…still remains an old man though…XD)
I understand though that playing so many games they become similar at some point…but if you decide to continue, one game per month is still pretty awesome for us readers! =D Looking forward to read what will 2014 bring 😉
Aww haha I’m glad to hear that my reviews are entertaining enough that you can enjoy them without being an otome game fan 😆 Thanks for reading all this time (๑￫ܫ￩๑)
Congratulations on your fifth anniversary! I confess, I’m not even that interested in playing otome games, but I came across your blog one day and couldn’t stop reading your reviews. I hope you keep having fun playing and writing, no matter what genre you’re drawn to!
Oh happy belated birthday then! 誕生日ヽ(*´∀｀)ﾉｵﾒﾃﾞﾄ─ｯ♪
And yep that’s Klaus from Danzai no Maria, he’s such a cutiepie （*´▽｀*）♡
Ren and Tokiya’s were like the only ones I could actually finish with S rank. I gave up with Otoya, Masato and Sho =_=
Thank you! And sure I’ll add your link right away 😀
Good luck with your backlog!
Glad you got into otome games 😀
yea CD Japan’s shipping is crazy. they charge $50 EMS shipping for 1 issue of B’s log wtf?? Even Amazon Japan’s shipping isn’t this terrible anymore…what a shame honestly.
Wand of Fortune is a great game with great characters but a really draggy system. So those who say it’s crappy probably never made it through the system or something. Once you know how it works though, it’s pretty easy and I found it to be enjoyable. To each their own I guess.
Thank you for reading!! 🙂
yeaa honestly if it wasn’t for my broadcast & blog here I might have ragequit lol. its all you guys who keep me trekking through all these crap games orz
and lol yea I played R-18 games years ago before I had a PSP but now I try to stay away. if ppl wanna play their BDSM rape games they can have fun to each their own I guess! I’ll kindly pass! Diabolik Lovers MB didn’t have much rape but it made me realize how much I’d rather have cute fluffy stuff than shitty pointless abuse. (This is why KamiAso actually feels like a decent game lol)
Dialovers anime is so retarded since it doesn’t seem to cover anything and keeps pushing the plot towards Ayato as Mr. Poster Boy so you can always watch it for the lulz.
And omg I can’t believe I forgot Rejet. I guess I was only thinking of all the terrible companies lolol
Thank you and thanks for always reading 😀
Thanks! I’ve never heard of that game but my otome backlog is so massive I don’t think I can fit it anywhere into my backlog anytime soon!
Thank you! No idea if it’s this year or maybe after 5 years my patience for crap is really low xDD I thought about getting a Vita for Project Diva F2nd since I love the PD series games but other than that none of the otome offerings really tempt me :S
And lol good luck with Urakata, I avoided that like the plague and glad I did 😡
lol your comment put a smile on my face
Thank you for understanding my feelings with all these games.
I don’t always rage…but when I do, I flip the galaxy (someone should meme this ww)
I kinda got burned out from mobile games. Waiting every day to read 5-6 chapters got boring after a while. I want to get back into it but the stories in those are even worse than the PSP stuff so I’m having a hard time convincing myself to click on all those apps I installed on my phone ;-;
And I think maybe the consistency in the individual routes like Akito or NatsuhiYOko (XD) was great which is why I liked the game so much. The overall storyline was swiss cheese though haha
Thank you! And yea I guess companies are trying to keep up with the demand but due to this too much rushing and half assed releases.
I’m not sure about Vita yet either, like you said, the current games they are releasing aren’t convincing enough. Well if this was 3 years ago I might have gone for that Hakuoki SSL but since it’s not Yone’s art it feels so fake and tracey to me lmao
hah congrats on 1st 😛
yes let’s hope 2014 is better though seems like my best reviews come from the worst games 😆
Woot! Congrats on your anniv! Didn’t know that it is the day after my bday /o/
OMG that pic under The 2D Mans who Made my 2013 Awesome is from Danzai no Maria right? Gaaah makes me want to play it >.> And yay, another positive feedback to LGS. That’s on my list, after CZ. XDD
Lol yea, Utapri Music 2 is too damn hard at some point that if it isn’t for Ren or Tokiya, I wouldn’t be able to finish their songs!
Congrats again! ^_^
Happy 5th Blogging Anniversary!ヽ(〃’▽’〃)ノ☆゜’・:*☆オメデトォ♪
I’ve read through your list of Games that were Awesome and I’m glad that most of them are on my to-play-list-after-Norn9.ヾ(*´∀｀*)ﾉ Gah, I should really speed up… orz
Just wondering, can we exchange blog links? I update my blog at least once per month. I’ll be very happy you can accept my request! (>人<)
Have a nice day! ( *´艸`)ｸｽｯ♪ Cheers ❤
Happy 5th anniversary! 😀
I love this post |o|
I started playing otome games last year, before I was only a BL gamer XD and your blog was the 1st one I found in the internet ^-^
I didn’t play many as you, but I’ll do my best from now on XD
Omg, I hate CDJapan too >< the fee to my country is really REALLY high, yeah, I gave up on CDJapan too
School Wars and Tokyo Yamanote Boys Dark Cherry are in my list to play *^*
Wand of Fortune I never tried, everyone keeps saying it's a crap game ^^'
"go play the game instead!" yep, I keep saying this to all my friends who love the animes adaptations. They don't understand how crap the animes are =.='
I also think Broccoli should make a BL game too XD since UtaPri is almost one XDD
Happy 5th anniversary!!! Thanks for always doing review in so many otome games! Really love your blog (o´〰`o)♡*✲ﾟ*｡
Happy 5th anniversary! It’s been a LOOOOOOOONG time, hasn’t it? 😀 😀
Well… I wonder what next year will bring… I’ve been pretty much loosing my otome mood thanks to “bad” games…. Having FF Dissidia doesn’t make the otome mood come back either…
Seems like many new established companies have jumped onto the R-18 dummyhead earporn waggon… I guess the R-18 Drama CD boom is at fault here. orz So there are so many uhm… weird and dark game releases out there like Yandere Heaven, Jooubachi no Oubou,…. Well, personally… I don’t dislike R-18 stuff, but since they tend to have a ridiculous amount of rape and abuse in it, it’s rather not appealing. Hahahaha… I’d be more delighted, if they’d have more fluffy, romantic and steamy R-18 plots though…
I quite anticipate some upcoming games like “Yoiyo Mori no Hime” or “Yoshiwara Higanbana”, but I’m kind of afraid that those games will end up really mediocre… Well, it’s good that I don’t have so many anticipated titles, because my backlog is huge and I haven’t played any game this year… I didn’t even played an entire character route in any game, expect BWS LH and HaruToki 5 in the beginning of 2013… I’ve been more the Drama CD type lately… Maybe because I needed more fluff than dark stories as my real life became a real roller coaster after May…
Oh… and all those anime adaptions were pretty fun to watch. I haven’t watched DiaLovers and I’ll gladly stay away from it, but so far I liked BroCon the most. I mean, aside from the non-existant storyline… I have all my fave seiyuu assaulting my ears, crappy animations that made me roll on the floor like 100th times and freakin’ dancing characters in the ED. xDDD I don’t know… I found this series to be my personal crack anime for 2013. I laughed so much, I don’t even… xDDDD But I guess, that shouldn’t be a reason to like an anime??!! LOL
And why’s there no comment about Rejet in the company section, Hinano? xD
Congratulations on your 5th Anniversary!
It’s always a great pleasure to read your reviews and I look forward to anything of your writing in 2014.
Thank you again, for your hard work this past year and these past years.
Happy anniversary~!!!!!!!! Your reviews are funny! 5 years is a milestone for a blog. Have you played Juniper’s Knot? It’s not an outcome game but it is good.
Happy 5th Anniversary!! I do agree with the fact about the pile of shitty games seeing all the reviews you have, and I really think this year has been a really bad year. Well for the VITA issue, I’m starting on it soon this December since I’m getting one for Christmas for my own RPG purposes as well, probably only for Dialovers.
Well I’m actually glad with Norn9 in your good games list since the plot and shitty, but yet it was good. I’ll try out the games which were listed good on this post. Also, I bought Urakata Hakuouki even though I knew it was milking but there weren’t any english reviews for it so I’ll suffer for the people who still love Hakuouki yeah.
Really hope the industry will get better within the next year, cuz the industry isn’t going to get more fans if they don’t buck up.
omg I never saw that top Amnesia image before. Perfect. I’m really surprised you listed Norn9 in your “awesome” category, considering the effort you put to reconstruct a plot that still had holes in it. That IS remarkable if you can still like the characters despite bad plot. (Or maybe their routes had the most cohesive plot? I sat in while you broadcasted Natsuhiyoko. He rocks.)
I lurked for a long time before popping out a comment, and I admit it took time for me to warm to your blogging style, but the sheer amount of otome games you’ve played and reviewed never ceased to amaze me. Once I saw how formulaic they can be, though, I immediately realized why you mocked some and it immediately made sense. Now I enjoy anything you review. (Though I feel sorry for the deluge of 2013 shit on your head, the DiaLovers More Blood FU scale was great.)
I play(ed) tons of free doujin VNs over the years and I’ve been getting the burnout too. I’m amazed you kept up otome gaming this long, even. Happy 5 years and hopefully the otome gaming hobby still keeps up…provided the industry isn’t going to shit…
congrats on 5th anniversary! it’s always fun to read your anniversary awards lol. too bad this year has been a shitty storm for otome games. I didn’t play much this year but according to the reviews, just, no.
as for VITA, with my limited budget idk… I mean I want to try otome gaming at VITA (they better use that touch screen to the fullest use) but the first titles that appear are hakuoki, amnesia, and dialovers. so yeah maybe wait for another time?
once again congrats for 5 years and keep them coming! you did a great job reviewing even those kusoge and you deserve a cookie! good luck til next year as well \o/
First! Lol, i feel like such a kid. XD Congrats at reaching your 5th otome gaming anniversary! (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧
May 2014 offer better quality otome games and more funny reviews from you. ヽ(*´ー`*)ﾉ