"Please Recommend Me Something!" - Saturday

[magnuschase]

 Welcome, everyone, to our first "Rec Saturday"!

Here, you simply ask for what you're looking for in an otome game and hopefully someone will reply with a recommendation. Who knows, you may find your new favorite!

In case you don't want to be vague with your request, here are some examples of things you can ask yourself while requesting.

Are you after a certain genre of game? (example: one with RPG elements, something tragic, historical, etc)
Are you after a specific kind of character type? (example: tsundere, kuudere, happy-go-lucky, etc)
Is there anything you're NOT interested in, and may ruin the game/route for you entirely? (maybe you don't like bad endings, or you may have something that squicks you out that you'd rather not see. No need for reasons!)
Have you played one game, and now you're looking for something similar? (Maybe you played a game about a magical school, and now you want more magic.)
Is there a specific platform you want to play this game on? (Android, iOS, PC, Mac, PsVita...)

Good luck with your requests! Feel free to ask for recommendations all week---this post will be stickied until the next Rec Saturday, and this and all future posts will be tagged with "rec saturdays" so that you can look through past recommendations.

Comments

[alias_sqbr]

Guys who are younger, more submissive/shy etc than the girl. Not to the point where it feels like she's mistreating him or taking advantage, just a flip of the typical dynamics.

I have liked:
Matthew and Benito from Backstage Pass
Yeonho from Nameless (which I haven't finished yet)
Lads in Distress
Hayes from Hustle Cat (which I think I played as m/m lol. But it would have made for cute f/m too :))

[godhaunt]

whew, okay. i played one (1) otoge once, and i failed at the one (1) route i tried, and that's it. so i'd like to know: what are some good otoges for total beginners? preferably ones that fall on the shorter side.

i'd rather not have to deal to love interests that that are too much of a jerk, or too Domineering Alpha Male, but i understand that beggars can't be choosers.

i like sweet, shunshine-type boys (kinda like otoya from utapri?), and submissive boys, and shy boys, and tsunderes, and jerks with a heart of gold, and-- but i understand that beggars can't be choosers!

romanceable girls and enbies are one hell of a plus.

oh, and i'm pc-bound.

that's it.... thank you for listening.....

[magnuschase]

If you're PC bound, there are Android emulators such as Bluestacks and Nox Player that will let you play games, such as Lovestruck and The Arcana, which are both games I know of that have female and nonbinary love interests.

As for PC games...Cinderella Phenomenon is good! The love interests are all pretty nice, it's the protagonist who is a jerk and even she starts to warm up after a while. It's not too long either--about 10-30 (30 being all routes) hours according to VNDB. It's also free, so it's a good beginners choice!
https://dicesuki.itch.io/cinderella-phenomenon

Magical Diary by Hanako Games has male and female love interests, but plays more like a life simulation game. There's a demo available on their site, if you want to see if you'll like it. I never actually got the chance to play the full version myself, but the demo was pretty enjoyable so I imagine the full game should be too.
https://www.hanakogames.com/magical_diary.shtml


I definitely recommend using an android emulator to play Lovestruck and The Arcana, though. The Arcana has a he/him nonbinary love interest, a male love interest, and a female love interest. Lovestruck has multiple nonbinary love interests and multiple female love interests. There's also a love interest called "Cerberus" in the Astoria series line of Lovestruck who is definitely a sweet sunshine boy.

[godhaunt]

oh right, i've heard of the arcana! vaguely. i'll definitely try on these emulators once i've gotten properly familiarized with otoges and how they work. you got me 👀 interested in this boy cerberus.

both pc games got me excited! magical diary sounds quite unique, just the synopsis gave me that fantastical slice of life feeling. and an "evil" mc in cinderella phenomenon? i'm in!

thank you so much! i'm gonna have trouble deciding which game to play first, lol

[magnuschase]

Cerberus is pretty cute. He's literally, y'know, Cerberus, except he's like if you used a big, muscular puppy as a guardsman to Hell instead of a scary three-headed monster. Adores you, protective of you, has puppy eyes like woah, all of that stuff. I'd call him my summer child, but he's a grown man. Actually, I'm calling him my summer child anyway, he deserves it.


Good luck!

[godhaunt]

oh my god..... ok lovestruck is going higher on the list

[alias_sqbr]

The game that hits the most of your buttons is Hustle Cat: Choose your pronouns (he/she/they), male and female love interests including a female tsundere, cute premise, not short but not SUPER long. https://datenighto.itch.io/hustle-cat

The otoge that got me into the genre was Magical Diary, it's basically "15 year old girl at Hogwarts" with Ginny, a combo of Fred and George, a science nerd girl, Snape, and a bad Boy Demon as love interests. It's not super short, and can be a little tricky without a walkthrough. https://www.hanakogames.com/magical_diary.shtml

For a short, fun free game with a submissive boy and a tsundere, Halloween Otome is fun. It has a sequel Valentine Otome which I also enjoyed, whose heroine is unusually sexually confident for the genre. https://synokoria.itch.io/halloween-otome

All of these are available for PC.

[godhaunt]

ooh thank you!

that's 2 recs for magical diary now, i really gotta try this one!

hustle cat looks so cuuuuuute! i tried the character demo and it looks so fun! i'm kinda in love with the long-haired girl finley already oops

halloween otome's mc's name is EMMA CEE. EMMA CEE. i can't tell if the devs did this to motivate people to change her name, or to NOT change it. and it's short and free, so it has priority hahahijdsfadsh

thank you guys so much! 😭 i had no idea how to even get started but you're throwing me games on top of games and now i have a whole stack waiting for me. thank you!!

[alias_sqbr]

Meanwhile I believe the default name for Magical Diary is Mary Sue :D Have fun! (And Finley is great)

[deborah_judge]

I loved Hakuoki and am looking for something similar - in particular, something historical with a big emphasis on history and politics and the routes have varying perspectives on historical events.

[alias_sqbr]

I've been pondering this, and the best I can come up with:

Look similar to Hakukoki genre-wise but I don't know a lot about them:
Nightshade／百花百狼 Protag is a ninja in training(!) during the Sengoku period of Japan. This looks pretty perfect, actually!
Destiny's Princess A Japanese Warring States Era princess has historical generals magically think they're men in her life (father, bff, brother etc) before slowly remembering who they are, I think? I played the start and found it interesting but the pseudo-incest squicked me, and I don't know how historically accurate it is. I got it for like $2 on sale.

Fit your description but it's a fantasy history and there are other caveats:
Dragon Age Origins (currently 75% off): an action RPG with heavy plot and romance arcs
7 Kingdoms the Princess Problem: a (reasonably satisfying and lengthy) demo
The Confines of the Crown: not SUPER deep, a bit cluelessly transphobic, but fun
Analogue: A Hate Story A future society based on historical Korea, very emotionally and morally complex. Two female love interests with very different points of view but the romances are understated.

Historical but not necessarily super INTO the history:
The Blind Griffin 1920s bootleggers with magic. I have not played this because a previous game from the same devs pissed me off, but people seem to like it.
Code Realize: same creators as Hakuoki, only on Playstation devices, set in 19th century England, have not played yet

[deborah_judge]

Thank you! These all look interesting, especially the first two.

[alias_sqbr]

I didn't remember the first two until I'd written up the others or I might have stopped there, they do seem like exactly what you want. I hope you find something you enjoy!

[deborah_judge]

I started playing Analogue and just got to the point where you meet *Mute. So far I'm liking it!

ETA: and now I've looked up some of the backstory...yep, definitely counts as historical, even though it's set in the future. Thank you for the rec, I'd never have found it and so far it's very much my kind of thing.

[alias_sqbr]

I'm really glad you're enjoying it! There's a sequel, Hate+, which is apparently also very good, but it sounded too depressing for me, also I heard the narrative made judgemental assumptions about players (not characters), which always rubs me the wrong way.

The writer, Christine Love, always does very interesting games, though Analogue is the only one that's appealed to me personally, and I think Analogue and Hate+ are the only two that deal with history.

[deborah_judge]

I finished the first one and am now on the sequel. Definitely having some feelings about it, and I'm not sure I'd recommend.