If you really want to get your furry freak flying then why don’t you try Hatoful Boyfriend, which is a dating simulation game involving a young girl flirting with pigeons. I’m talking a flesh and blood girl going after feathered birds. There’s no actual sexual activity going on, so it’s pretty harmless. Be sure to check out the Video Game Characters we wanted to Romance but couldn't!: ready to get their digita. Roam the halls and find love in between classes as a sophomore student at the world’s greatest pigeon high school. Finding happiness won’t be easy, but it’s not all academic - there’s always time for a little romance in this delightful remake of Hato Moa’s popular visual novel / avian dating.
Translations of each of the characters' prologue gameplay videos in PS4 dating simulator LoveR, by Photo Kano, Reco Love's Ichirou Sugiyama.
Kadokawa Games and Sweet One revealed new information for their PS4 dating sim LoveR. As a reminder, the game mixes dating sim elements and photography, just like Ichirou Sugiyama’s past games: Photo Kano and Reco Love. The biggest new feature in LoveR is the voice recognition system, usable during some of the game’s discussions and during photo shoots. LoveR also has character designs by Taro Minoboshi, the character designer of LovePlus, Root Letter and God Wars.
The new information includes two new characters, new gameplay videos showing the girls’ respective stories’ prologues, a sample of the game’s ending songs and multiple screenshots.
First off we’ve got Ryusei Toujima, voiced by Tomokazu Sugita. Ryusei is a second-year high school student and part of Class A like the protagonist. He always has an intimidating look, so people tend to get scared of him and he’s always alone. He’s into photography so he decided to join the photography club, but the other members are scared of him and never go to the clubroom. He’s actually a good guy and kinda feels responsible for the situation and the club falling over, so he decides to get new members. Seeing the protagonist with a camera, he forcibly makes him join the club.
Ryusei is the first male character revealed in LoveR besides the protagonist. He’s the kind of character you traditionally find in dating sims, a male character who becomes the male protagonist’s friend and helps them around.
Next, we’ve got Himari Saiki, voiced by Sakura Tange. She teaches Chemistry and Biology, and she’s also the teacher in charge of the protagonist and Ryusei’s class, class 2-A. She brilliantly graduated from the most prestigious university in Japan and decided to become a teacher at Takamura Liele as she previously attended the school. She’s a serious and cute teacher loved by everyone at school. Though besides her passion for teaching, she’s also really into certain experiments she conducts in secret and is often looking for subjects to test them.
Sadly, Kadokawa Games and Sweet One already mentioned we won’t be able to take pictures of Ryusei and Himari.
As we previously detailed, every day once school ends, players will have multiple activities available to them, one of these is taking part-time jobs. Like in many dating-sims, money is important here, as you’ll need some if you invite a girl to hang out after school or buy presents. During his shifts, the protagonist may also encounter some of the girls.
Next, all the prologue videos for each of the girls’ stories have been released. The very beginning of the story has the protagonist getting a camera from his dad and starting to carry it around at school. And in LoveR, like in most dating sims, each of the girls has different events to trigger and to go through, with certain events only unlocking when you’ve cleared other particular events. At the beginning of the game, you’ll first have to trigger the first event for each girl to start their routes, and that’s what those prologue videos are showing. Here are some quick summaries of what’s happening in each one of them.
First off we have Lilia Takamura, voiced by Reina Kondo. Lilia is one year older than the protagonist and also the granddaughter of Takamura Liele’s director. Lilia’s story starts as the protagonist catches her training her rhythmic gymnastic late after school in the gymnasium. As he absent-mindedly starts taking pictures, she notices him and realizes he’s not part of the newspaper club, taking pictures without her authorization. After gently berating the protagonist, Lilia introduces herself and seems to be displeased that obviously, everyone at school, the protagonist included, already knows about her. As such, she decides she should learn more about the protagonist as well.
Nanatsu Higadera, voiced by Kanae Itou ( who also voiced Haruka in Photo Kano and is used to Sugiyama’s games). Nanatsu and the protagonist already know each other, as they’re childhood friends. While greeting him one morning, she berates him for being so out of shape, while he answers she just too strong, as she’s one of the best members of the swimming club. The protagonist used to do baseball and she wishes he’d pick up a sport again. As he starts complaining about how his dad handed him over his used camera, Nanatsu tells him his dad is actually worried about him and wants to see how he’s faring at school. So he should at least take a picture of her to show his dad he has a good friend, but the protagonist is pretty reluctant to shoot Nanatsu, until she rattles his head into submission.
Crista Kasumi Ikuno, voiced by Manaka Iwami. The girl with a Russo Canadian mother and who used to live in Canada. She’s really into cameras and photography, so when the protagonist takes her picture without prior notice, she’s interested in his camera rather than reacting angrily about it. While its the first time they properly speak to each other, the protagonist already knows Crista as she’s pretty famous around school because of her mixed origins. For some reasons, she only takes pictures in monochrome. She tells the protagonist to talk to her anytime, as long as it’s to chat about photography.
Romi Nakaza, voiced by Yuki Takada. Part of the dance club and also works as an idol. She can do any dance from baton twirling to hip hop and is very confident in her abilities. Though she ends up getting irritated as the protagonist keeps staring at her rehearsing a role instead of actually taking pictures. She tells him to take some and get it over with. Like Lilia, she initially misunderstood the protagonist as one of the newspaper club’s members, and she’s pretty disappointed when she learns an article about her exploits won’t be on the school’s site following this small photoshoot. She’s basically a school idol and does concerts every day at school once classes ended, and despite her seemingly haughty personality, she actually wants to cheer up people and its the reason why she’s so much into dancing.
Rinze Himenogi, voiced by Yui Ishikawa. Rinze’s the only girl not in high school, as she’s in 5th year of elementary, meaning she’s 11 years old. Takamura Lilie is an elevator school, with students from elementary to high school, and some of the characters, like the protagonist and Nanatsu, have been attending since elementary. As I already reported, Rinze’s character is nearly identical to Rinze Himeragi from Reco love who was also voiced by Yui Ishikawa. However, Sugiyama already said her story in LoveR will be different. To avoid weird implications, Reco Love‘s Rinze story ended with her promising to marry the player when she gets older, so they’ll probably do something similar in LoveR. Though, in the first place, the fact that you can take screenshots of underage characters in swimsuits including Rinze will probably gross out most people from LoveR.
During their first meeting, the protagonist asks if he can take a photo, but Rinze refuses. As he asks why she’s playing with soap bubbles, she says that rather liking them, she’s envious of the bubbles, how they can fly graciously and disappear. In short, one of the reasons Rinze doesn’t like cameras is how she’s part of the gymnastic club, and how a lot of cameramans take pictures with a dirty mind rather than for the beauty of the sport itself. As the protagonist assures her he’s not interested that way, and as she wants to show how awesome gymnastics is, she tells him she’ll ask her coach if he can assist to training sessions some of these days.
The last girl is Yumina, whose prologue was already covered in the previous article.
Otome games, or romance games aimed at a female audience, may have originated in Japan, but their appeal is finally reaching international audiences. In the past few years, more and more games have been released in English, allowing players worldwide to date their share of handsome men. With interest in romance visual novels at an all-time high due to the widespread success of games like Dream Daddy in 2017, I wanted to dispel some misconceptions about the otome game genre and recommend my top 10 favorite titles.
The term “otome” comes from the Japanese word for maiden or young lady, indicating the target audience of the genre. The origins of the genre date back at least to Angelique, which was released for Super Famicom in 1994 and is widely considered the first otome game. Angelique was developed by a team of women at KOEI known as Ruby Party who wanted to make more games that would appeal to girls.
Angelique was slightly different from the “choose-your-own-adventure” visual novel style common to many otome games today. Rather, Angelique leaned heavily on a simulation system that had players raising various stats to appeal to the man of their dreams. Simulation gameplay was common for romance games at the time, such as Konami's Tokimeki Memorial series aimed at male players, which also came out in 1994. These simulation elements lead to the term “dating sim game” (romance simulation game). Many players still refer to romance games as dating sims, despite the fact that many have moved towards a more visual novel-style format. Game pigeon word hunt scoring.
Today, otome games encompass such a wide range of themes that it's difficult to distill them into a few simple characteristics. You certainly don't have to be a young lady to enjoy what otome games have to offer! However, since the genre originated as romance games for women and took many stylistic queues from shōjo manga, the protagonists are women, and the romance options are nearly always men. (There are some instances of otome games with female romance options, such as the Japan-only Gekka Ryouran Romance, or OZMAFIA!! and Mystic Messenger.)
The single unifying aspect of all otome games is romance. Whether you're racing to stop a coup d'etat in a steampunk version of England or uncovering the mysteries of a bizarre world populated by talking pigeons, all otome games revolve around the protagonist eventually falling in love. For the most part, otome games are intended to be played multiple times, so that over the course of each character's story (or 'route'), you'll see the whole story start to piece together. Often, there are even secret characters who won't unlock until you've played everyone else's route!
There are many otome games that offer intricate storylines in addition to juicy romance, but there's also plenty of silly fluff out there. There's an otome game out there for nearly every interest! Just five years ago, I would've been hard-pressed to come up with 10 otome games available legally in English, but now I can curate a list of only the best to recommend. Here are 10 of my personal favorites to get you started:
Hakuōki: Kyoto Winds
The Hakuōki series gets the award for being the first major Japanese otome game franchise to be localized into English. Hakuōki is wildly popular in Japan for good reason: the historical members of the shinsengumi have been transformed into handsome men and infused with some demonic intrigue for action-packed (albeit tragic) romance. While numerous versions of the game have been localized into English for a plethora of systems, Hakuōki: Kyoto Winds is the most recent iteration for PS Vita and PC. It includes new character routes as well as improved graphics, making it the definitive version of Hakuōki. However, the game has been split into two parts, meaning it ends on a cliffhanger: you'll have to purchase Hakuōki: Edo Blossoms when it comes out this spring to see the complete story. Consider grabbing Hakuoki: Demon of the Fleeting Blossom for PSP or Hakuōki for iOS/Android if you want the full experience right away, minus the new routes.
OZMAFIA!!
It's the ultimate mashup of fairytale and literary characters, from The Wizard of Oz to Puss in Boots. The twist on these classic characters comes from the title – they're all members of warring mafia groups that the protagonist unwittingly finds herself caught between. This game's a roller coaster that goes from not taking itself seriously at all to being surprisingly dark in its many routes. There's even one girl option, though it's light on potential romance. While some routes will definitely not be for everyone (the brothel and love triangle routes in particular), the story is not the strong point of this game, so you won't you'll feel like you're missing out if you don't complete all of them. Even so, it's still worth playing for its gorgeous art, witty English localization, and quirky cast of characters. OZMAFIA!! is available for PC.
Period Cube: Shackles of Amadeus
Period Cube can most easily be described as Sword Art Online: The Otome Game, only this time the protagonist is not a long-time MMO player, but a girl who ventures into an MMO along with her childhood friend when her brother is rumored to have gone missing inside it. As she uncovers the mysteries of the MMO, she comes in contact with a number of different players. Period Cube stands out for not only having very good romance routes, but also a great cast of supporting characters. If you can, go into Period Cube with as little knowledge about the characters as possible – it's even more fun when their real-world personalities are a surprise! Period Cube: Shackles of Amadeus is available for PS Vita.
Dating Game Killer
Mystic Messenger
Out of all the games on this list, Mystic Messenger may be the most widely-known. As the first iOS/Android otome game developed by the Korean studio Cheritz, it utilizes the mobile phone platform to simulate an actual app where you play by interacting with characters in chat rooms and receiving simulated phone calls. Though Cheritz's previous PC-only titles Dandelion and Nameless ~The One Thing You Must Recall~ are both perfectly good otome game recommendations, Mystic Messenger presents an extremely effective immersive experience along with its great cast of characters, including a female romance option.
Hatoful Boyfriend
This is a game where instead of dating human boys, you date pigeons. It starts off with a whole lot of silliness, poking at visual novel conventions, but there are hints of something more sinister under the surface. While OZMAFIA!!/escape-game-pigeon-forge-groupon.html. is the kind of game where it's no big deal if you skip a few routes, Hatoful Boyfriend absolutely must be played until you get the true ending. Get ready for a game that's a whole lot more than just a few bird puns! Hatoful Boyfriend is available for PC, Mac, Linux, PS4, PS Vita, and iOS/Android. There's also a fan disc (an add-on to the original game that's not quite a full sequel) titled Hatoful Boyfriend: Holiday Star.
Otome games tend to be criticized for having bland protagonists who don't take a active role in their narratives, despite being the central player character. While a less-defined protagonist may be easier for players to imagine themselves as, many players prefer protagonists with their own personalities, motivations, and character growth. Here are a few otome games with standout heroines:
Pigeon Dating Game Ps4 Bundle
Nightshade
If you liked the historical setting of Hakuōki, Nightshade might also be for you. Like Hakuōki, it features some historical characters and events, but it's centered around two warring ninja clans rather than the shinsengumi. The protagonist Enju is the daughter of the head of one of these clans, and she's determined to become a full-fledged ninja despite her village's insistence against it. With five male romance options, an action-packed plot, and lovely visuals, Nightshade deserves a spot in every otome game fan's library. You can find Nightshade for PC on Steam.
Pigeon Dating Game Ps4 Controller
Collar X Malice
In this game, Tokyo is stricken by a terrorist organization called Adonis, who conduct a series of murders related to a countdown to the mysterious X-Day. Protagonist Officer Hoshino is on patrol in Shinjuku when she's attacked and fitted with a locked collar filled with poison around her neck. The suspense-filled plot follows her quest to uncover the truth behind the collar and X-Day, along with the help of five former police officers. Unfortunately, the localization could have used some more editing, but Collar X Malice is still a great otome game choice for PS Vita if you're looking for a darker story and stronger female protagonist.
Sweet Fuse: At Your Side
You play as Saki, the fictional niece to Megaman creator Keiji Iwafune. (No, really.) Saki finds herself in a sticky situation when she attends the unveiling of Iwafune's brand new amusement park, only to be trapped by a psychotic pig that wants her and the other attendees to participate in a dangerous game. Saki is one of my favorite otome game protagonists because she isn't afraid to speak her mind, even if it means telling her male suitors off! Sweet Fuse also stands out for being hilarious and having a great cast of characters who are more than just the usual clichés. Sweet Fuse is only available for PSP, but the PSN version can be played on a PS Vita. Trust me, it's worth the trouble!
Rose of Winter
Pillowfight is one of many non-Japanese developers dipping their toe in the otome game genre. While Rose of Winter isn't explicitly labeled as an otome game, it ticks all the boxes otome game fans are looking for. The protagonist, Rosemary, is an adorable mercenary who needs to make some dough by escorting one of four princes across a treacherous mountain. Choose a prince and get ready for some super cute interactions between Rose and her suitor in this short but sweet otome game that will leave you feeling all warm and fuzzy inside.
Code:Realize – Guardian of Rebirth
This has all the makings of a great otome game: kickass protagonist, lovable cast of guys to date, intriguing storyline, gorgeous visuals, and memorable music. The heroine Cardia is stricken with a deadly poison that causes anything her skin touches to melt, so she's instructed by her father to stay away from people. While she initially seems like another damsel waiting for man to save her, Cardia takes matters into her own hands and learns to kick butt alongside her male suitors (who are all modeled after famous literary and historical figures). Code:Realize – Guardian of Rebirth is currently only available for PS Vita, but a PS4 port and fan disc will be debuting in English on March 30th.
What are your favorite otome games? Share them with us in the forums!
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