"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

[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.