Dear Otome

So, the Shall We Date? people did a combined app similar to Love 365. Well, kind of. It doesn't have all their games, but it does have a lot of them and basically you use it to switch between apps (and can delete the standalone apps once you've imported everything). So, yeah, not really like Love 365 at all except for making it more of a one-stop shop. Kudos to them: they made it a SUPER simple process to set up without having to put in codes or whatnot. Just click and done. And it has cleaned up my phone since I was playing 3 of the games pretty regularly (Ninja Shadow, Love Tangle, and Blood & Roses). The other games in Dear Otome are Wizardess Heart, Lost Alice, and Guard Me Sherlock, all of which I had tried and stopped playing.

Caesar's got a lot going on here.

I'll be honest. I previously pretty much totally detested Wizardess Heart when I tried it. But, somehow, with the combined thing, I found myself trying it out again. Some people on reddit had said the later stuff was better too (when she's no longer new to the magic school but has become a prefect and had a hand in solving all the problems that pop up). So I'm trying out the latest new release (Caesar -- Prince of the Filthy World (er...what????!@£!? Huh?)...a dude with a curse and lotsa secrets and any time anyone kisses him...he turns into a pig. Honestly, the whole thing was just so out there I thought I'd give it a go.

I am a bit weirded out that he looks like a girl. He reminds me of Kashima from Monthly Girls Nozaki-kun, the princely girl character. What's up the bellybutton, man? I guess he's just drawn that way... Big hands, bellybutton..eh, whatever. I'm down with androgynous characters but how he acts doesn't really match his look. He's kinda dodgy.

Anyway, it is better than the routes I'd tried before. I'd still say that I'm not impressed with it in general and I'm not sure why I'm bothering to play it. I did like that this route starts off with him confessing after they've already known each other a long time so there wasn't all the dilly-dallying about. But...yeah, I think I'm too old for the teenage hijinks in this one in general. Even if I do write for teens.

Anyway, I picked up Lost Alice and Sherlock again too. Trying out Aldo (newest release) in Lost Alice and it is also better than the original route I'd tried (which was, I think, one of their first). Like, the writing actually makes sense whereas it really didn't before. The art is still lovely. The MC is relatively plucky and proactive. So I might stick with it. It's a bit of a grind-y pain though as it is hard to earn the in-game coins to progress. Sherlock...well, the MC is okay, which is what I thought before, but there's something about most of the art that really turns me off. Sherlock and Mycroft are just...er...kinda hideous.

So...to sum up...as this is rambling all over the place...their combined app does make the games easier to play, was easy to set up, and accomplished what they wanted (I'm now playing more of their games). Though it also serves to highlight the imbalance in some of their games. Love Tangle, which still annoys me, but is also the easiest game by far to progress in -- easy to earn in-game coins, more dresser space than you can throw a stick at or some other clichéd saying that makes more sense...it's why I haven't stopped playing it. I contrast that with Ninja Shadow where I am always out of dresser space and Lost Alice, where it's going to take me days to earn enough coins to unlock the next bit. I do spend money on these games sometimes, but I won't do it until I'm sure I'm going to play it awhile and I want to support the particular game, and I'm still deciding on Lost Alice. Is that bad? Like, I won't spend money on Love Tangle but I will on Ninja Shadow? Ah, well. That's me.