Obey Me

Huh, not sure how I managed to not blog about this one as I've been playing it for some months now. Two? Three? So I guess we can say right off the bat that it's been engaging enough to play long term-ish. It's an NTT Solmare title (i.e. the Shall We Date people) which was, let's be honest, a bit of a strike against it. They're very hit and miss. But this one is quite a departure from their other titles. It's also another one that isn't an otome in the strictest sense, though it has a lot of the elements of one.

So. Let's see. In this one, you are magically kidnapped to the Devildom because you have been chosen to be one of two human students at a school. The leader of, er. hell, I suppose...Diavolo, has a plan to improve relations between humans, demons, and angels. So there are also two angel students (Simeon and Luke). The other human is Solomon, who has become quite a wizard.

Everyone else is a demon. In particular, there are seven demon "brothers" who are fallen angels and represent the Seven Deadly Sins. There's Lucifer, the Avatar of Pride, then Mammon (Greed), Satan (Anger), Beelzebub "Beel" (Gluttony), Belphegor "Belphie" (Sloth), Leviathan (Envy), Asmodeus "Asmo" (Lust). I probably didn't get them in the right order, but the only important part to remember there is that Lucifer is the oldest and the one in charge (and he's Diavolo's right hand man). You might sense a theme with the names...

You wind up living with the 7 brothers (of course) in the House of Lamentation. Another important thing to know is that you can form a pact with a demon (which is one way that Solomon has accrued power). Through reasons, you wind up in a pact with Mammon almost immediately. He may be greed incarnate, but he's also not the sharpest tool in the shed. And it's a case of He doth protest too much -- he's obviously got a crush on you pretty much immediately.

Anyway, I don't want to give away the storyline, as it's interesting and fairly engaging. So let's talk about the mechanics a bit.

There are story missions and "dance off" missions during wish you earn items in order to rank up your cards. Yes, this is another card collecting game similar to Mr. Love. There are also phone calls and chats/texts that get unlocked as you play along. The Japanese voice actors are all good. You can also unlock little side stories by collecting the cards.

You also earn affection/hearts with the boys in various ways -- working jobs (that also earn you in-game gold), making correct choices in the story sections, etc. There are a LOT of special events which are usually extra stories that have nothing to do with the main storyline and wherein your choices don't make a difference, so you can be as crazy as you want. Those are actually a problem; sometimes they overlap and they don't leave enough time in between them. On the one hand, they're nice in that it gives anyone caught up in the chapters extra content. But I do wish they'd space them out a little more.

The best part is that the MC is feisty as heck and very funny. I don't think you could play this as the typical wilting violet even if you wanted to. I adore that about it. And the boys, while stereotypes...I mean, hey, they are the avatars of the Seven Deadly Sins...all have a lot of personality. I surprisingly quite like the gluttonous Beel, who is super sweet (but also not terribly smart) and loyal as well as Satan, who is mostly only ever angry at Lucifer and is the most intelligent/bookish of them all. Asmo is a bit too over the top for me, but he's good comic relief. Lucifer himself is also quite charming and smitten, though he has a hard time showing anything "nice" in front of any other character. Even Mammon, as stupid as he is, is charming in his own way. Levi is the otaku, and I have a soft spot for that. Belphie is probably my least fav, even though I like his character design, but that's probably more to do with the storyline/plot than the character.

Plot/story-wise...I'm currently through chapter 17 out of 20. So I'm going slowly through it and mostly doing events at the moment because I hate to be all caught up. It's fairly predictable (I guessed the "twist" a LONG time ago) but very engaging. And compared to most of Solmare's other stuff, it's really good. Actually, I'd venture to say it's the best thing I've seen from them.

Not sure how much long term playability it has yet. There are daily missions, etc. but if you're all caught up, it's easy to see slacking off and not bothering to open it daily. And the side stories have been hit and miss; some good, some meh. And, as there's really no way so far to "choose" a character, the romance is minimal. It's more funny than anything. But, still, I'm enjoying it.