Otome Game Review: Gensou Manege -Dream Carousel-

Our heroine Emma supposedly drowned in a lake in Paris at the age of 10 and lost all her memories after being rescued. Her father had already been dead due to a prior accident, and her mother then died from an illness so she was adopted by the Vansan family. They moved away from Paris to live with just Arnaud and his mother Alice, and the father, Daniel an army general, was left working in Paris. So basically Arnaud is like her childhood friend she was raised with for the last 7 years. Turns out that Emma is actually witch as well, but she lost her magical powers after the accident. One day she stumbles upon a traveling amusement park called Reve and when she goes there she meets the owner named Hugo who knows that she’s a witch. He tells her that everyone in there including himself is trapped inside and can’t get out without a powerful magic spell, and so he asks Emma to save them. And so Emma becomes an employee of the park, trying to awaken her magic to free everyone in there.

Serge – Serge is like Mr. Serious who plays the piano and handles the accounting for the park. Emma really tries to break his cold exterior and eventually he warms up to her and allows her to be his direct assistant. Turns out many years ago Serge was hit by a horse carriage and pretty much near death. Hyugo found him and dragged him into the park and revived him by creating a mechanical arm and heart for him. So that’s why Serge is loyal to Hyugo because he literally saved his life. Additionally the mechanical parts are powered by magic powers so if Serge leaves the park, in about 3-4 hours his heart will stop beating and he would die. After this he has her help him oil his arm even though he’s really embarrassed at first. (n*´ω`*n) Serge also helped divert the army’s eyes away from Reve because there was a rumor going around that they are the reason for the “Hameln Incidents” – incidents where whatever town Reve visits, a lot of people die afterwards. Turns out the murders are caused by someone or something else, and Reve just allows the souls to enjoy the park before they go to heaven. So then suddenly Reve gets an arrest warrant from the French police and has to leave town, leaving Emma behind. Before she goes, Serge gives her a bouquet of 3 red roses not realizing this means “I love you”. So after the amusement park leaves, Emma is then arrested for being a “staff” there because one of the policemen is Gil, a former friend and traitor of Serge. Just as she’s about to be taken away, Serge escapes from Reve and rescues her.

After this his heart starts to slow down but thanks to Emma training her magic powers she’s able to restore it to run properly again. So it turns out they were using the amusement park as an excuse to actually capture and kill the remaining witches in France (which is what the Hameln incidents referred to). Unfortunately thereafter Serge gets captured by Gil and his men, and while Emma is able to run away, Serge gets tortured demanded to know where Reve is hiding. Unfortunately she gets captured anyway and while she’s in the cell with Serge, she uses her magic powers to make his machine arm stronger so he’s able to defeat the guards to help them break out. Hyugo and co then help Serge and Emma escape as well back to the park. After this Emma uses her powers to ‘save’ Reve and frees everyone but everyone except Serge and Crier – who are real humans. Everyone else was just a soul trapped inside of the amusement park. Serge has to basically rely on Emma to continue living though as she’s the only one who can keep his heart running. It’s okay though since they are both in love with each other and confess their feelings. Three months later, Emma and Serge open an automail shop using both of their skills to help others. In the after story Serge rambles that Emma’s not in bed with him when he wakes up and ends up cuddling her when she comes back. In the Reve ending, Serge and Emma run away and hide from everyone and never return to Reve. A few days later Reve is discovered and arrested (supposedly executed though like most of them are already dead) and Serge feels awful for letting this happen. He tells Emma to return to Bramble and leave him to die. She refuses and instead asks if she can be by his side if he dies by not giving him magic to keep his heart running. And so he dies a couple hours later laying in her lap on a random street.

Crier – Crier is my favorite template of tsundere chara voiced by Shimono Hiro and he’s also one of the few who can come and go from the park as needed. He’s often sent out to do errands like buying food/essential needs for the park staff. His twin sister Clara also works at the amusement park and immediately becomes friends with Emma. The reason Crier started working at Reve is because Clara got trapped at Reve 3 years prior, and he didn’t want to abandon her. Apparently she had a heart condition and wasn’t supposed to go outside but Crier took her to the amusement park because she seemed like she was feeling better. After they left though she fell into a coma and her soul got trapped by the park. So now Crier thought it’s “his fault” that his sister “died” and has become a worker there only so that her “spirit” could enjoy her time there. She thinks that he’s doing it because he likes to perform tricks in front of an audience but the reality is he’s just guilt stricken. So when he’s telling Emma about all of this, Clara overhears it and gets pissed saying he’s too stuck on her and can’t move on with his life. She wants Emma to free her spirit so she can either die peacefully OR possibly recover from her coma, and in order to have Crier get over her, she’s decided to try and distance herself away from him at Reve. Clara suggests that he and Emma should get together that way he has a reason to work at Reve other than his guilt for Clara. Crier turns as red as tomato and rambles that he’ll agree even though Emma knows for now it’s just “pretend” for Clara to be satisfied.

Despite the pretending though both of them have an obvious crush on each other and Crier even braids Emma’s hair and gives her a hair accessory that he bought just for her. So yeah after this Emma falls in love with him and is sad that once the park disappears she’ll have no connection to him. Before the park vanishes Clara tells the 2 of them to get together and become a couple already. 😌 After Rave vanishes only Serge appears and says his goodbye to them (prolly going off to die alone). Crier then tells Emma he wants her by his side not just as his performance assistant. He also tells her his job is very freelance and he might not give her a great future ahead. Emma says it’s all good and that she’ll be his girlfriend lol -but not even a real kiss CG! 😩 In the epilogue Emma and Crier travel around the country performing for the sick at various hospitals. Turns out Clara miraculously recovers and wakes up from her 3 year coma thanks to some new advanced medicine. The twins then make a bet on whether Clara will be released from the hospital first or Crier and Emma get married lol. In the bad end, Crier and Emma visit Clara’s grave because she didn’t make it. He gets so depressed he quits performing, and just sits in his room all day not eating. Eventually he gets tired of living like this and asks Emma to use her magic to make him forget about his sister. It works and the next day he feels much better and returns to his performances… But only Emma knows the truth. In the omake they bake an apple pie together. I loved Crier but seriously he was kind of a siscon lmao.

Lyon – Lyon always wears his rabbit suit and never takes it off when when it’s not time to perform. He’s 2 years younger than Emma but still feels a bit immature probably because his real self never really got to grow up due to always being hospitalised. Lyon has no memories and just found himself at Reve one day only remembering his name. Hugo told him he can stay as long as he likes while working there. One evening she finds Lyon finally without his rabbit suit on but not realizing it’s him, he runs off before she can talk to him. The next day she hangs out with Lyon and they stay together until night time and Lyon transforms into his not rabbit suit self. He explains that during the day he becomes a rabbit suit rather than a person inside one. At night is the only time he can be his normal self and nobody else knows this secret except Hugo. So then Emma remembers she once read a book called “Dream Carousel” and in it the mascot rabbit looked just like Lyon and said the same lines he does. When she inquires Hugo about this he says Reve already existed before he got there. After finding the book, Lyon looks at it and remembers that his name was Lyon Orange and he was born in Chelsea.

He then thinks the author, Melissa Orange is his mother. He starts to slowly remember his past and says he was often sick and would be in the hospital. His dream is to be a picture book author just like his mother. A few days later Hugo explains that everyone at Reve is just a soul and that their real body is elsewhere. He says that Lyon’s mother might freak out if he sends her a letter since it’s likely he’s probably in a coma at a hospital somewhere. Unfortunately it’s too late and he sends the letter anyway…and he receives an angry response from his mother saying that Lyon died 3 years ago. Arnaud confirms the death via newspaper article interview with his mother Melissa and Emma is in despair… realizing that by freeing everyone from Reve, Lyon would truly die. She hesitates to do it but Lyon tells her to get on with it and that he’s accepted his fate. As a parting gift, Emma recreates his picture book world for him in the park. The next day Emma visits Melissa saying she “was” Lyon’s friend. She gives Melissa the “picture book” that Lyon made at the park and as she gets to the end she starts to cry. She then brings a photo of Lyon that was taken when her book, Dream Carousel was published. Melissa tells her to keep the photo of Lyon and the next day Emma returns to the park telling him what happened. Lyon starts crying so Emma decides to try and see if she can use her magic to bring him back from the dead. The cost is her memory loss and Hugo warns it could cost her to become a vegetable.

Emma gives up and that night Lyon confesses that he loves her and asks her to be his girlfriend for the week before the park and his soul is gone. She agrees of course and they kiss near his book collection. However right at the end Emma decides to try to use the revival magic after all but instead her magic just goes out of control.  Hugo then tells Emma to channel her powers into freeing Reve and Lyon tells her he was happy to just have spent time with her. He says he didn’t want to be brought back to life because it would make his initial death meaningless. After this Emma passes out for a few days but when she awakens she has all her memories intact. After this she continues to visit their old “picture book spot” on the hill and 1 year later she runs into someone who looks like Lyon. Turns out it’s Lyon but he doesn’t know who Emma is because his real self has never met her…but the soul from the park is in him so he still remembers his promise to meet someone there. They watch the stars together and make a wish on a shooting star. In the omake it explains that Lyon just moved to Emma’s town with his mother and he’s never had health issues like the previous Lyon. He also starts drawing on the same book that his former self did and when Emma sees it she smiles. He eventually develops a crush on her after spending many nights watching the stars together. In the bad end Emma goes into a coma forever dreaming about herself and Lyon living together forever happily at Reve.

Luciole – Luciole barely shows up in any of the routes so I didn’t know much about him at first. His job is to repair the robot staff and machinery in the park. When Hugo asks Emma to help him with his work he gets really angry because he hates witches and doesn’t want Reve to be “freed”. Turns out he’s a massive tsundere and once Emma starts cooking for him he slowly starts to warm up to her.😏 They find they have the shut in thing in common since Emma was pretty much only at home until she got this part time job. One day Luciole tells Emma he hates magic because his mother was a witch, and hid this fact before marrying his father and having a child. Once the dad found out he left them and told the whole town the truth about them. The whole town then rejected them, threw stones at them and then the mom couldn’t stand it anymore so she killed herself when he was 12. After this Luciole lived in an orphanage far from his birth town and when he turned 18 he got a job as a mechanic to support himself. But he didn’t last long because of his PTSD until the was picked up by Hugo to work at the park. Hearing this Emma starts to cry and she still she’s only had “good” memories of her parents despite her father also being a human who married a witch.

So Emma continues her magic training but it doesn’t seem to be improving so Luciole suggests that they take Reve to Paruge, his hometown where a witch who was a friend of his mother’s lives. After convincing Arnaud, he allowes Emma to go with them as well. They find the witch Margo, and ask her to teach Emma magic. Margo says she helped bring food to Luciole and his mother but didn’t take them in because the mom didn’t want her to get involved in their troubles. The next day before they leave Emma and Crier go to get some supplies but because of some drunk idiot, Emma uses her magic to save a store owner from getting trampled by boxes. Because of this all the dumb villagers start yelling to burn the witch and Emma and Crier get violently attacked. Crier manages to escape with her but Emma then lays unconscious in bed at Reve. She wakes up to a crying Luciole next to her, while he blames himself for bringing her to this shitty town. As Emma recovers Luciole constantly spends time in her tent taking care of her. Once she recovers they decide to do the freeing ceremony there instead of going back to Bramble first. Before that, Luciole confesses his feelings for Emma and she says she feels the same. However he kisses her in the cheek saying that he’ll save the rest after Reve is freed. Unfortunately they are interrupted by angry villagers attacking and protesting at the gate. As people start throwing rocks Luciole gets in front and says he’s the son of a witch and that all witches have only ever used magic to help people.

They back off when they promise to leave the area soon and after Emma performs the ceremony she’s shocked to find out Luciole was just a wandering soul. She returns to Bramble thanks to Margo, and 3 months pass while she cries and waits for Luciole. But then he just comes back without any explanation of what happened to him which was kinda underwhelming. 😔 In the bad end Luciole gets terrified by all the villagers and goes yandere so after Emma frees everyone from Reve, the only ones left there are her and Luciole. So now they get to be there together forever and ever cause her soul is now trapped inside there too 😏😂. In the after story they talk about going back to Paruge to visit his mom’s grave. Still disappointed that we get absolutely no context on what actually happened to him before and after Reve. I still don’t know what Paruju refers to? Palje? Prague? I tried to look it up on google but couldn’t find anything. I still wish we got more context on what was going on with Luciole. The game just made it seem like he was some neet living alone in his room and just died from not eating (or was on his death bed) and being depressed from PTSD. I mean I guess it’s a legitimate reason but I still wish there was something like how Emma got to visit Hugo at the hospital, I kinda wish she could have done the same for Luciole. Just having him magically appear in front of her kinda killed the mood for me.

Hugo – Hugo is of course the leader of the park and trapped via chain because the park has captured his soul first. He created a bunch of machinery and picked up the others as stray souls to work there as well. He was originally an electrician and made various blue prints for the park. Apparently this takes place in olden days so a lot of countryside folk don’t know about electricity outside of Paris. After they put on the light show Emma has a flashback of her 10 year old self and 18 year old Hugo and how they were friends in the past. Emma’s parents told her to hide her powers but she ended up showing them to Hugo who said it’s not bad at all. Emma also remembers she wants to do the Starlight’s ceremony in Paris like she promised Hugo years ago so they move the whole park there. While they are moving Emma accidentally discovers a photo of her younger self with her father and Hugo. She calls Hugo out on it and he admits he knew her father but won’t tell her anything further because it would get in the way of her freeing Reve. He gets angry and smashes the music box that looks like the Reve carousel saying the one who made it was him, not her father. He says she doesn’t need to remember anything and should just focus on what she came here to do. When they arrive in Paris, Emma runs into Arnaud and he tells her that he found Hugo in a coma at a hospital in Paris for the past 7 years. He was shot by a soldier and has been in this coma ever since. Arnaud confronts Hugo saying that Hugo has relied on magic for everything and that it wasn’t “electricity” at his light show. Hugo admits that he’s just a wandering soul and once Reve is disbanded with magic, he will just die – because technically he already died 7 years ago but right before that his soul was trapped by Reve.

Hugo tells Emma he didn’t want to tell her this because knowing that everyone will die she might not want to free Reve after all. Emma promises to do what she’s asked and so Hugo tells her the truth about the past. Emma’s father Florance was an amusement park owner and out of all his staff, Hugo was the most loner type who always worked on automata’s by himself. He really liked Hugo  and then eventually introduced him to his daughter Emma hoping that would make him more sociable lol. Emma really liked to play with Hugo’s tools while he worked so he built a Carousel in the image of Emma’s favorite book “Dream Carousel”. The photo she found of the 3 of them was taken the day the carousel was completed. He also made a small music box version of it at the same time and put the photo inside for safe keeping. Upon receiving the gift, Emma revealed to Hugo that she was a witch. So then the French army came saying they were gonna destroy the park for scrap metal to make weapons. Hugo protested against this and was shot and killed. This is kinda wild like French army just shot civilians like this instead of just arresting them?? 🤔 Just then Emma got in the way to protect Hugo and the bullet hit and broke her magic necklace that she had used to control her powers with. Thanks to it though it had saved her life. Hugo then doesn’t know what happened but he was then standing alone in front of the Reve theme park all by himself. He then noticed he had a chain on his neck realizing he cannot leave the carousel. The army came back to break it down but the strong magic power kept them away and they eventually gave up. Probably then he was taken to the hospital and been laying there in a coma while his soul was at the park. He had heard rumors about Florance dying but had not heard anything about Emma until they met again at Reve. Emma blames herself for trapping everyone in Reve but Hugo says it was an accident because she tried to save him.

After this Arnaud feels bad for uncovering the truth and leaves the park. Emma then goes into Hugo’s tent, confesses her feelings and tells him she’s gonna try to save him in real life. He then admits that he had always seen her as a cute little girl who liked his creations but meeting with her again 7 years later he fell in love. Even more so because despite not having her memories she was willing to make his dream come true with freeing him and the starlight ceremony. They end up cuddling in his tent that night but he says he’s gonna hold back till he gets his real body back. 😏 After the starlight ceremony he apologizes for breaking her music box carousel and ends up fixing it and even adding the starlight features to it. After this Emma uses her magic to disband the Reve she created as a child and the only thing left behind is the old carousel. Just then her old necklace from her mother appears in her hands and she realizes the necklace was the park itself. She then immediately runs to the Saint Michael hospital to see Hugo and save him from death as his soul returns to his body. She saves him but in exchange she loses all her magic powers. 3 months later Hugo is working on trying to walk again since he’s been bed ridden for 7 years. He then tells Emma he plans to travel the world with her to study various amusement parks so he can make that his career. In the bad end Emma’s magic fails and she gets trapped in Reve along with only Hugo. The two of them continue to run Reve together as they travel the world. In the omake they go to see the ferris wheels in America and then ichaicha at the hotel together. I didn’t really realize this until after Arnaud’s route but the time Hugo spent in Reve really changed his personality. He was really introverted and closed off when he was alive but becoming the park master he really opened up and got more confident in a 180 personality flip.

Arnaud – Arnaud unfortunately has a slew of childhood friend templates going against him but he did redeem himself at the end. From the beginning there’s a scene of him hitting on Emma surprising her because she never thought of him that way in the past 7 years. Arnaud also works as a news reporter so he’s often out trying to get the latest scoop but in this route he tries to pick up Emma at the end of her shift. Since Emma is surrounded by ikemans at her job, Arnaud gets jealous and becomes that naggy childhood friend. 😒 He especially dislikes Hugo he’s basically been jealous of him the entire time he’s had a crush on Emma. Once the route reminded me that his father is in the army, I had a bad feeling about why his route was locked behind Hugo’s and sadly I was right. 😔 One day he catches Emma practicing her magic and gets angry that she’s using her powers without telling him. She explains to him about freeing Reve and apologizes for not telling him, but says she will not drop her mission. He also then finally confesses that he’s been in love with her the whole time but he’s held back the whole time so it wouldn’t ruin their relationship. But then he saw her with all the park ikemans and got so jealous he couldn’t hold good feelings back any longer. He tells her that he knows it’s one sided right now but asks for her to basically give him a chance to win her heart. When they get home he goes back to acting as usual but Emma can’t stop thinking about his love confession. His mom totally figures it out and says she knew he’s had a crush on her the whole time lol. 😂  Things take a bad turn when Emma finds a letter that Arnaud wrote to his father and rather than a family letter it sounds more like a status report about her magic powers.

When she inquires him what he writes in the letters to his father he lies to her saying it’s nothing special and feeling hurt and distanced she begins to reject him. A few days later, Arnaud’s father returns home and tells Emma she must now come with him to the army base where she will lb monitored because witches are “dangerous” to society. Emma is horrified and runs for it to Reve to escape. She runs inside telling Hugo and Serge that the army was after her because of her powers. Hugo already had a feeling this would happen and as I had guessed, the guy who shot him, was indeed Daniel – Arnaud’s father. Daniel then gives the digest of the things that were revealed in Hugo’s route about her, Hugo and the park. Hugo blames Daniel for everything, but he says he’s making up for it by taking care of Hugo’s comatose body at the army hospital and his family was taking care of Emma as she was growing up. Emma’s memories come back and she realizes that Daniel and his army killed her father as well during the whole incident. Just then Arnaud shows up and turns out he was just jealous of Hugo the whole time… So Daniel was like ok well I’ll just get rid of the amusement park for my purpose and Hugo so my son can have a chance with Emma. Because of this Arnaud constantly gave reports to Daniel about Emma and about the park. Emma is heartbroken that he’s lied to her all this time and then Daniel tells Arnaud to take Emma to the base with him. However since Daniel knows that Arnaud is hopelessly in love with Emma he lets her stay at the family home in Paris with both Arnaud and army soldiers stationed all over the house. As she stays there they treat her like a lab rat forcing her to perform various magic tests and checking her vitals.

She has so depressed she stops eating and then gets a shocker when Arnaud visits her wearing an army uniform. He says he’s temporary helping his father in the army and that he’s still a news reporter. He asks her to eat cause he’s legitimately worried about her well being and when she sees his face near tears she gives in and eats – all while another soldier monitors the 2 of them. Meanwhile his mother Alice is seriously concerned about both of them and the army won’t let her inside the house like she’s a stranger. Thanks to Gil, Emma is able to find out from Serge that Daniel’s army section is just a witch hunting group and Arnaud made a deal with his dad that if he finds a replacement witch for Emma, she’ll be freed.  He intentionally caused the incident 7 years ago to have an excuse to monitor another witch. Serge says they’re gonna try to stop the witch hunting by exposing the army and tells Emma to hang in there in the meantime. They create a plan with Gil acting like Emma used her necklace to push him off and allows her to escape back to Reve. Meanwhile Arnaud is at Paruge trying to find a replacement for Emma, so Emma runs there to stop him. She had read a letter he wrote to Daniel and he was basically trying to hide the fact that she was able to use magic so he was trying to protect her this whole time. Unfortunately when Emma arrives in Paruge an army guy harasses her causing her magic to go out of control. Arnaud finds her and calms her down and once the magic stops he tells her to run for it. While they’re hiding in the woods he tells Emma he first met her when he was 12 an she was 10, at the amusement park where she offered to show him around and he told her to go away lol. She insisted and showed him anyway and he instantly fell in love with her.

After this he was never able to talk to her cause she spent all her time with Hugo. Arnaud didn’t know how to get Emma to notice him say he asked his dad for love advice, but instead ended up blabbering about the park which Daniel wasn’t pleased with. That’s when he decided to dismantle the park so honestly it was pretty much all Daniel’s fault and Arnaud had nothing to do with intentionally causing the death of Hugo or Emma’s father. After this Daniel lied to Arnaud saying that Emma’s father died in an accident not knowing that Arnaud saw Daniel shooting him. He then starts crying and apologizing for everything that’s happened even though it’s not even his fault he was a victim of his piece of shit father. Anyway the two of them return back to the family house in Paris to try and talk to Daniel to get him to stop the witch hunting. He knows the army just wants to use witches powers to become stronger. The dad just rages that they don’t understand his feelings because his family was killed mercilessly and he’s basically doing the same thing. He says Emma is a weapon that he needs to sacrifice for the country because only “power can win”. Arnaud then pulls out his gun threatening everyone to not move and the dad is like lol you’re no different than me. 😒 Arnaud says he will report him for all his crimes including murder and witch hunting. Arnaud shoots into wall which is a signal for the army captain Meyer above Daniel to come here and arrest him. Additionally Arnaud wrote a newspaper article uncovering the truth about the witch hunting and captain Meyer says that Daniel is under arrest for murder from 7 years ago.

After Daniel is taken away his army witch hunting group is disbanded and Emma and Arnaud go to Reve to finally free it. Arnaud apologizes for accidentally getting Hugo and everyone else involved in the horrible incident and admits he was just jealous of him. Hugo tells him it’s alright and he’s done a lot including getting his own dad arrested and should just focus on not holding his feelings back. And so Emma frees Reve leaving only the carousel in its place. After this Emma and Arnaud return to living with Alice and she’s shocked to find out about Daniel cause she had absolutely no clue that her husband was a crazy witch hunting murderer 😩. Arnaud returns to his newsman job but despite them both knowing each other’s feelings they still act like childhood friends and Emma decides to change that. She goes to tell him she’s in love with him and he’s like yeah and we I’ve never stopped loving you btw 😘. In the epilogue Emma gets busy trying to build her own amusement park like her father, and Arnaud gets lonely without her so one night when they finally get time together to themselves he decides to get down to business in the bedroom. 😏👀 In the bad end, Daniel tries to shoot Arnaud and Emma protects him with her magic repeating the incident from 7 years ago. When she awakens she finds out that Daniel escaped and she’s lost her memories all the way back to when she was 10. Horrified that she’s forgotten about him again, Arnaud tries his best to hold back his emotions and reintroduces himself to her. After he leaves her room he blames himself further and bursts into tears. I’m really glad that they finally fucking arrested that shitbag Daniel because the whole time I was sitting there like “Why does this asshole just get away with killing multiple unarmed civilians for 7 years and nobody did ANYTHING about it!?” The only bummer is I wish Alice had divorced him lmao, the fact that he told her nothing all these years and left her in the dark is horrible.

Grand Finale – This is a final time line style end showing Emma’s mother giving her the star necklace and teaching her magic up till her death when Emma was 6. At age 9 Emma’s father took them both to live in Paris as he became an amusement park owner. It basically goes chronologically through all the flashbacks in order when Emma met Hugo and Arnaud as a child, and watching Daniel kill Hugo and her father. It also shows that the reason Daniel shot Florance is because Florance tried to stop them from taking Emma because of her witch powers. They also go over the fact that the Hameln incidents are the name they gave to these witch hunts. It then jumps to where Emma is about to free everyone from Reve and she hears everyone’s individual stories of their previous lives before coming to Reve. After thinking it over, Emma consults with Arnaud and decides to rebuild Reve in reality following her father’s footsteps, so that everyone has a “place to return to”. Alice also gives Emma some savings to help her get started and offers to help her in any way she can to make up for all the bullshit Daniel put her through. Emma also finds a letter from her mother she left before she died asking Emma not to use her magic powers and to wear the star necklace which would suck in her magic powers so they wouldn’t go out of control. It also mentions that if Emma uses the powers of her and her mother’s necklace she could bring souls back to life with the cost of losing all her powers (like in Hugo’s route). And so Emma performance the ceremony and loses all her magic powers but proof that it works Serge says that his heart is still beating and he’s not dead. As they continue rebuilding the park, everyone starts to come back starting with Clara, then Luciole and Lyon. Finally Hugo comes back saying it took him a while because he couldn’t walk for some time. After this everyone works on rebuilding the park while Hugo and Arnaud and the other guys fight over Emma 😂. Harem end! 😏



For play order I recommend the following: Luciole→Crier→Serge→Lyon→Hugo→Arnaud. It’s not the order I played in personally but I feel like this route unravels the truth the most. Luciole’s was the most ???? for me without any explanations so I think it’s best to play him first even though I honestly liked him the most and normally would save “best for last” lol. Overall it was a cute game and much better than the previous game I reviewed on here. I liked how the heroine was also actively involved in the plot and wasn’t just there to tell the story or be the guys’ personal psychiatrist. The theme and feeling of the game was overall good but I had a few little things to pick at. First I had this bug that would constantly cause my game to go into a black screen of doom forcing me to basically completely close and restart the game. This seemed to happen every time I’d finish a route, go to load my save to get the bad end. I think there was a patch released for this last week though but I had finished the game before realizing this lol. The mini game was definitely meant for the touch screen mode, and since I played 90% of it on my TV, that was quite an annoyance. Fortunately, the game basically let you skip the mini game once you did it the first time and the only time I ended up doing it was just to intentionally fail to get the bad end anyway! It almost felt pointless? I guess they wanted to player to have something to do but I honestly felt like it was unnecessary. The game didn’t let you skip the end credits at the end of every route so that was a bit annoying. And one final thing was I couldn’t figure out what time period this game took place in.

I could have sworn at some point they said that only a few people outside of Paris knew about electricity but yet here’s Arnaud’s room at their Bramble house. That’s definitely an electric lamp and some very modern looking furniture. The only “old” thing is probably the feather pens? Also the amusement parks at the time had ferris wheels and carousels which obviously need electricity of some sort to run…..so when exactly did this game take place? Apparently the first ferris wheel in France was in 1900 so it couldn’t have been taking place before then? Obviously people still used horse carriages and didn’t have phones but aside that a lot of stuff felt kinda modern. Even Emma’s clothing didn’t feel that outdated lol. So honestly I’m not sure? Maybe it was 1900~1920 time period? Since there were mechanics who could make mechanic arms maybe it’s safe to assume it takes place in the same time period as Full Metal Alchemist ( ´∀` ).

With a stellar cast, and really cute characters with a happy/bittersweet story and pretty art I’d absolutely recommend this game to anyone. It might even be a good “starter” otome game for those just getting into the genre. Also god damn I missed hearing Abe Atsushi in an otome game. (´;ω;`)

 

Advertisement

6 thoughts on “Otome Game Review: Gensou Manege -Dream Carousel-”

  1. Ahh that’s great to hear. I always find your opinions very good though so that puts me at a lot of ease. Really looking forward to my game in the mail! Thank you so much!

  2. Well I often don’t have the same opinion as Japanese players and I honestly didn’t think it was bad? I felt like they explained all the story details and didn’t leave any loose ends? The only route that felt weak was Luciole, but everyone else was fine to me.

  3. This looks like a really cute game! I was trying to look up the Japanese reviews without spoiling anything but it looks like there aren’t that many and a lot of them didn’t seem to rate the story so well. Do you know what issues they had with the story? And if you thought it was really as much of a problem as they made it to be?

  4. You can adjust the font style and transparency of the text window that I think it’s honestly not that bad. it looks worse in the screenshots than on the actual game for some reason lol

  5. Yeah, after that disastrous game you just played this sounds like a godsend lol. But I’m glad it’s actually a decent game and the heroine does stuff. I think you mentioned the text on twitter? but I wasn’t too sure how difficult the font was to read.

Comments are closed.