Backstage Pass

So I bought Backstage Pass for myself for my birthday. It's the first proper otome game I've purchased (meaning, on my laptop vs. being a mobile game...which are generally F2P). It's a bit of a stat raising one, which is interesting but also a tiny bit annoying as I think it would be nearly impossible to play without walkthroughs unless you played it over and over and over again to figure out the things you're supposed to do (which stats go with which player, how to unlock locations, who likes which movie or cupcake or whatever and what gifts to buy people). I certainly don't have time for that. Maybe when I was in college and would sit and play Civ for hours and hours...yeah. Not at that time in my life anymore. Casual gamer now.

Possibly the reason that I bought this game is that this
is one of the images on the store page and some guy
wrote the comment "OMG I think I just turned gay"
which I thought was hilarious.
Though the picture...geez, Matthew.

That said, it's pretty fun. The main character is a girl named Sian who is a college student but with excellent makeup artist skills due to her mother being a professional makeup artist. She thinks she's in for a relaxing time during her first year of college but after a family crisis, realises she needs to step it up and work, not just study. Her close childhood friend Adam (trope alert!!) is also attending the same school and happens to be a budding pop star. Through him and through her skills she meets a number of people: John (actor/Adam's manager--which makes no sense, why would he be managing Adam??--who's got a horrible fake English accent...probably good enough if you're American but I live in England and it makes me cringe every time he speaks...consequently, dunno if I can ever do his routes...), Lloyd (a producer/director type), Matthew (a super shy but super hot model), Alvin (a TA at the school), Benito (a very random addition as he's only 15 and is a street magician), Nicole (Matthew's sister who is pretending to be his girlfriend at the start because he's so painfully shy around people), and I think there might be another one or two. Adam, John, Matthew, Lloyd and Benito are the main ones though. Am I kind of weirded out that two of them are really too old for her and one is too young? Yeah, a bit.

That's probably why I was most interested in trying out the Adam and Matthew routes and probably Alvin at some point in the future. The Adam romance route was actually quite sweet. I liked it. They seemed like a good match and very compatible and I didn't even mind the stereotypical childhood friend thing. Though, weirdly, perhaps, I liked the Matthew one more. I don't normally like super model-y types (especially blondes) but he was really, really sweet and shy. As the MC is also prone to panic attacks when she is in a crowded situation, it was nice to see them helping each other along. And elf Matthew at the Ren Faire! Ha!

You can also play it as just a stat raising kind of challenge and not even attempt to go for romance or friendship. The standard scenes are a bit repetitive though so I'm not sure how many times I will play it through. Maybe something I will just pick up every now and then casually. Still, it's a nice solid game and quite sweet. I like the main character as she's both strong and weak in believable ways and is a nice person.

Only big complaints would be that you never get any of her internal thoughts so it can actually feel like the romance comes out of left field when it does happen (especially Matthew's as opposed to Adam's as the Matthew one really doesn't happen until the very, very end while with Adam you at least become his girlfriend halfway through the year). Also that the dates you have to go on are incredibly repetitive. And the art wavers between really quite good to pretty sketchy (especially weirdly angled profile shots). But overall I think it's a keeper.

And, you know, Matthew's ridiculous abs and hair.