I'm back from the dead! Yes, this might as well be an April Fool's joke since last I saw, I posted way back in April 2013. My interest in otome games was re-ignited when I saw
Pyrite Heart, voiced, clean art, and best of all- free! It started with stumbling on
Guardian's Spell, a WIP by Winged-Cloud on Kickstarter.
Review
The game itself is really short with an hour max for each of the two available guys featured on the cover (depending how fast you read). I missed the hype train before the game without voiceovers came out, so I'm not struck down with disappointment. However, do not play this game thinking it's the next
Hakuouki,
Tokimeki,
Hiiro no Kakera, or whatever big name otome game you fancy. The art is very pretty and clean, sure, but it doesn't save the cookie-cutter plot. The premise is very simple, you play as Ahri Remono, princess to whatever European-style royalty family there is in Japan, who challenges her brother to a survival contest outside of her palace for one week. The two guys you can pick are the loyal servant Kenta or the school president Ryuu. I think the team must have placed most of their time and resources into the art and voiceovers because the story is painfully short given the designated time and simplistic plot devices. You get the cosplay, doing-an-activity-thus-bringing-intimacy-together, accidentally hitting someone or getting hit yourself, and other plot devices. There's no greater conflict other than Ahri getting by for one week without the comfort of her servants or palace (and that conflict quickly slams on her 2/3rds of the way into the story). Kenta's story was kind of cheesy, because it takes on the master-servant relationship plot down to the tee, including implied reprecussions of breaking the taboo at the ending. Ryuu's story was a big more refreshing to Kenta's with a resolved ending. It pains me to admit that Ahri is a nice change of pace to the passive, Mary Sue heroines in many otome games, but at the cost of being a stuck-up, clueless bitch given her background. The music fits, but nothing sticks out. Speaking of audio, while I appreciate the voiceovers, the volume was very inconsistent. Not only was there no speech volume adjustment, but I had to deal with constantly adjusting the volume when one character spoke too loud and another spoke too low. I have to give a hand at the female voice actor for making Ahri
REALLY sound like a stuck-up bitch, but she kind of reminded me of Amanda Lee or other NA-based (or otherwise English) female voice actors. Overall, I'd say give this game a whirl if you're craving for an otome VN fix that's free, in English, and killing time for a short story.
