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I think I asked mostly as a "what platform" question that in retrospect, I probably should have looked up on a search engine. (Released on Super Famicom. Also, apparently "A Game Boy Advance version was released on March 21, 2003. A full remake titled Angelique Retour (アンジェリーク ルトゥール) was released for PlayStation Portable and PlayStation Vita.") I too am interested in otome with more gameplay than just making choices. I do like interactive fiction and visual novels, but I also play more genres than just those, and I wonder why otome has trended towards being a visual novel without having any other genres.
I know people talk about how the manga about being transmigrated into an otome game don't reflect otome very well. But given the amount of manga with otome RPGs... part of me wishes it did reflect otome better so that I could have an otome RPG lol. I think Love and Deepspace is supposed to be like that, but the 3D models just don't resonate with me well. They feel weird and off, but not in the uncanny valley THIS IS CREEPY kind of way... I'm also deathly allergic to freemium.
Love and Deepspace doesn't have a guy who is my type, but I'm glad it doesn't because I would cry if a game that was so interactive and had my type in it existed but was a gacha. I hate gacha games. I don't even like blind bags. Someone needs to make these things illegal internationally. I don't read "otome" manga on principle, but it's funny they made up an idea of what otome games are and everyone has followed suit. I don't even read Villainess stuff, and after playing Angelique I feel even crazier seeing them because Rosalia, the rival character supposedly spawning the villainess phenomena, is nothing like that. ... More people who aren't Ruby Party should make otome RPGs though. Earnest ones with unique settings, no parodies or anything.
I may be talking out of my butt because I didn't consume that much shoujo content as a girl, I remember reading Shugo Chara! and Kitchen Princess, but I'd bet that the "villainess" phenomenon might come from the bullies seen in shoujo?
As for otome with gameplay, I just found this link with a ton, including a section for RPGs. I'll probably make a separate post for that in a few days. In a dream world I'd make an otome with this, in reality time constraints, my terribad fiction writing abilities (will there be spelling errors? No. Will it be fun to read and will I have any idea of where to take the plot? Also no), and my programmer-tier art (I was one of the "good artists"... in middle school) means this isn't happening. At best I program for someone else's otome game.
Don't mind me, just saving that link for later use 👀
They kind of fused Rosalia, various mean girls and bullies, and other rich girls from older manga (like from Aim for the Ace or Oniisama e or Glass Mask, who were sometimes bullies, sometimes rivals, sometimes role models and allies). Threw in the aesthetics of The Rose of Versailles and misc European nobility too. I think it's strange it presents itself as a parody of something that doesn't quite exist, but people really like those stories! I could be missing out, but I'm usually too focused on history to check out a lot of new things.
A lot of those games are on my backlog, but I have to get through all Ruby Party games first. Just doing that will knock out a lot of those, but there's other interesting games I'm excited for too. For example, Dear My Sun!! is a game where you have to raise twins while romancing men. Princess Debut is a rhythm otome that made it overseas, and I feel I missed out by not playing it when it was new. Back then the games I played were up to my parents' whims at the store, but now the gaming world is my oyster...
I totally forgot to add that I also don't like gacha games. I had more of a tolerance for it when I was younger, though I was still annoyed by it.
I am one of those people who really likes those villainess stories. They're entertaining!
I also notice that my gaming tastes spend more time looking back to pre-existing games (often I got there following a recommendation thread) than at new ones.
I tried Princess Debut and honestly, the rhythm aspects annoyed me a lot (it's really ironic that I'm a musician who doesn't really like rhythm games), and I did not like the game's rearranges of the classical music. That alone stopped me from replaying different routes.
Where do you find out about these games, just curious?
(Also, I hope I'm not annoying you: I really do like discussing this stuff, hence me making the community :) )
I don't mind! I like to talk a lot about the things I like, and have barely anything to say on anything else.
I want to write a blog post somewhere when I'm finished with Angelique about it, so I've been thinking about where I first heard about it. But I really don't remember. I can guess and say that after I played my first otome game in 2020, Hakuoki, I likely read about the subgenre and found out about Angelique that way, because that would be such a me thing to do. If someone asked how I found out about Hakuoki I would have no clue at all*, as I didn't know it had an anime or anything. Anyways, I know I had the game on hand for literal years. The first time I tried to play it the Japanese was too hard and I didn't make it past the opening tutorial. Same the second time. For some reason in May of this year I was compelled to try one more time... and after powering through the wordy tutorial, it was pretty easy to understand! Studying pays off! And as you can see, I've basically gone through the entire series in half a year because the first game was that intriguing. I hesitate to say "good" because if it was good enough to make me play the rest of the games so quickly someone might think it was amazing, but it wasn't. It just felt like it had the makings of something that COULD be amazing. And I was correct; after a few tries they made a games that were ALMOST. ALMOST 10/10s. Nothing's perfect, so I'm not upset or anything. I'm very happy with the time I spent! _
Between obsessively playing my games where I balance the affects of 9~18 emotionally unstable men, I would be on VNDB looking through the otome tag. Otome and RPG, Otome and SRPG, Otome and Sim, Otome and Map Movement, lots of things in hopes of finding more. And I looked at Ruby Party's list of games too, plus other games by other studios I found that I liked or thought sounded interesting... My backlog is huge. I'm eager to play them all, but I do wonder if I'm going to lose touch with the broader gaming community 😭 Oh well!
*Now that I'm thinking really hard about it, I think Steam recommended Hakuoki to me because I had played games with romance/dating in them and visual novels. I bought it nigh-instantly because Hijikata looked like my type, I like history, and I think anything with swords must be cool.
And to answer a question from earlier... I played Angelique (1994, SNES) and all PS1 games on my 3DS, the DS game on my DSi, and all other games on PS2 or Vita PC emulators. The Switch game will be played on my Switch.
I do wonder if I’m going to lose touch with the broader gaming community
Part of me wants to make the knee-jerk response that that is not so bad, but I do wonder if the broader gaming community brings you value. After all, I also like to know about good games I might like, and popular taste often aligns with mine. Lots of people liked the game, there is a good chance that I, also a person, will like it too.
I do like to read gaming news. Although I used to read gaming communities on the Fediverse and the account and instance I want to use for it is unreliable, unable to log in, and has lots of federation issues, and because I do like that instance so much anyways I do not want to change to something more reliable, so that is not great for getting gaming news or staying connected to the gaming mainstream.