Be my Princess: Wilfred

Oh, don't you look like a princely prince.

So...I try to do all the free routes that Voltage posts in Love 365 because...well, they're free. And free is for me. Also, it gives me a chance to try out stories that I might not have otherwise even attempted. I've been on a "realistic" (if you can call ANY otome game realistic...) kick lately so I haven't really dipped into their fantasy offerings at all.

The latest free stuff is from Be My Princess and Be My Princess 2. I tried out the Prince Wilfred from the Kingdom of Phillip route. Why do most of the kingdoms have names that are more like normal names than the princes? I don't know. I don't know a lot of things. Like why this prince has the rudest effing butler (Claude) ever.

But let me start at the beginning...(warning, all the rest of this'll be spoiler-y, as are, to be fair, all of my reviews...because I write them for myself so I can remember things.)

Okay, so you are, apparently, an exchange student newly arrived in some foreign country. It never says (and you NEVER actually go to school or mention that you are a student again once you get out of the first chapter) whether it's a university or high school student, but I'm going to hope it's a university one. Though, given how passive the MC is, she might as well be in middle school. This is one of Voltage's Extremely Clueless Heroines. Anyway, so here you are, an exchange student in a new place enjoying wandering around and oohing and ahhing. You come across an old man who looks like some kind of crazy purple-robed wizard and are nice to him. So he gives you his card and says to call him if you need any help. Then you somehow proceed to run into not one, but two princes and get yourself covered in mud. Not that you realise that they are princes, even though you feel like you've seen them before in the news and they are wearing RIDICULOUSLY PRINCELY CLOTHING. Because you are useless and stupid.

One of the princes, who you still don't realise is a prince, invites you to a ball and arranges for a dress for you. Good thing, since you're covered in mud.

So, you go to this ball.  A BALL. Which is at a castle. And meet, like, four or five (I lost count) more princes AND STILL YOU DO NOT REALISE THAT ANY OF THEM ARE ROYALTY EVEN THOUGH YOU ARE IN AN EFFING CASTLE. Ahem. Seriously, this MC gives stupid a bad name. So, blah, blah, blah, you dance with Wilfred, who is strangely kind to you when apparently he's usually totally rude to everyone. You finally realise that they are ALL royalty once they are announced. Then you go home and BOOM your apartment building is on fire and burns to the ground (though none of the other surrounding buildings are affected at all). Oh no. Gasp. All of your things are gone. You are alone in a strange country far away from your family. Woe.

So...you call the old dude you just met. Remember him? The wizard guy? And he sends someone to pick you up and sends you to...another castle. The one Wilfred lives at. Because, apparently, even though he too lives in a castle with more rooms than you can shake a stick at, he'd rather ask some random King & Queen to take you in. Because reasons.

Then it gets kind of weird(er). The butler (Claude) wavers between borderline psychotic hatefulness towards you and being helpful and wakes you up every morning hovering over your bed like some kind of Edward Cullen stalker with tea that I kept imagining was probably dosed with drugs because what else would explain how docile this heroine is?. And he doesn't let you leave the castle (except later, when he's being passive aggressive and only lets you leave if you dress up in a maid outfit and run his errands, which you do because YOU ARE SO GULLIBLE and PLIABLE. This MC is like putty.).

You apparently never attempt to go to school ever again or call your parents but instead content yourself with wandering around the palace taking care of plants and running into Wilfred. (Note to Voltage: if you're going to bother giving your MC some backstory, shouldn't it, like, actually be used within the story? Why say she's a student if it's never mentioned again?) Like, she just accepts the situation and even keeps thinking oh, how nice is Claude, I'm so glad I can help him out even as he is saying horrible things to her. And I mean, horrible. He doesn't even seem to think of her as a person. Actually, he kind of literally says that.

Anyway, the only saving grace of this story is that Wilfred isn't bad. Rather than being this tsundere type, which you might have thought from how everyone else describes him, he pretty much seems to like the MC right away. Why? I don't know. Really. She can't even get a complete sentence out of her mouth. All of her lines of dialogue end with  ...?

But he has a problem. You know, a fiancé. That's in love with his older brother (who is also in love with her). And parents that want him to be next in line for the throne (maybe) even though they raised his brother for the job.

Anyway, that's really all there is to say. It works out in the end. TA-da! The problem is resolved with very little fuss. Claude never gets any comeuppance for being a total ass, though Wilfred does tell him off a bit (not that it seems to stop him). You are apparently on track to be the next queen.

I pity the country.

But apparently it survives your rule because Be My Princess 2 (remember that there were two free stories this time?) includes Wilfred's GRANDSON. Your progeny! Who is supposed to be just like his grandfather!

Hopefully he isn't like his grandmother.

I haven't read it. Not sure if I will before it comes down because I don't think I can do another heroine that stupid right after this one and I'm guessing the new MC will be just as bad. But maybe not. Maybe I'll do just the prologue and see if it if is any better. But I don't think I'll attempt another one in Be My Princess because the MC is so mind numbingly dumb. For me to really like a story, I've got to like both the MC and the LI and this one only had half the equation for me, though it seems like other people must really like it as Google turns up fan fiction for Wilfred.

Sorry. I'm picky. Stupid MCs are my achilles heel.

EDIT: After hearing some feedback on reddit, I decided to give Be My Princess 2 a shot.

The genes are strong in this family...
or Voltage decided to re-use the artwork from the original game...

Okay. It was a LOT better than Be My Princess all the way around. Hayden is, indeed, the spitting image of his grandfather Wilfred. It was actually a little disconcerting, having just come off of Wilfred's route. I hadn't changed the MC's name either so it was really weird at first.

The character write up makes it appear that there's going to be some huge plot thing related to his grandfather, but there really wasn't. Who in Voltage writes these things? Have the read the story or do they just make it up based on the picture?

Anyway, this time you play an MC with a career and goals. She's a pastry chef in training and she actually has a backbone (I took a peek at the free chapters in some of the other routes and she even --gasp--turns down one of the princes at first). She's delivering some flour to the castle during an event and winds up meeting some princes and gets roped into helping out with the baking as well since they are shorthanded. But this isn't any normal event -- it's one where the princes are all gathered to choose some potential brides. She catches Wilfred's---er, Hayden's eye...er, stomach...with her cake and then later winds up getting his bouquet toss to the head (kind of a random way to choose a potential bride, but, okay, I'll roll with it because the image of a prince lobbing a bunch of flowers at the back of her retreating head appeals to me). The next day, one of the ubiquitous men in black (i.e. butlers) shows up to say she's been selected for a marriage interview. Whut?

Things progress from there, though she overhears Hayden proclaiming he doesn't want to get married and the interview was just a sham. But, methinks he doth protest too much because he keeps on finding excuses to bring her to the castle (bake some cakes here, bake some cakes there, etc. etc.).

Things I liked: the MC was SO much better. She's got goals and dedication and loyalty and...a brain. Their relationship is more gradual and built a bit more on mutual respect. The plot was more interesting too, with a lot of intrigue (though, at the same time, it's fairly predictable). Hayden's fairly believable, though his character arc is almost too similar to Wilfred's.

Oh, and the butler, Loyd, was great. I didn't want to kill him. He was actually integral to the plot. I liked the glimpses of two of the other princes too (Seig and Oliver). I might even go back and do one of their stories some time.