My absolute favorite otome game is Hakuouki. In it you date fictionalized versions of the Shinsengumi, a Japanese militia on the losing side of a 19th century civil war. There are also non-Shinsengumi characters that you can date to see other sides of the story (and the war). It's slow-moving and has a lot to think about and works on a lot of levels. It's also very iddy, especially if pretty characters covered in blood are of interest to you. Oh and at a certain point most of the love interests turn into vampires. I'm not usually very into the vampire trope but these are done very well and make lots of thematic sense.
I'm also playing two mobile phone otomes set in the Japanese warring states period: Samurai Love Ballad and Ikemen Sengoku. Of the two, Samurai Love Ballad is more serious and thinky and Ikemen Sengoku is more fanservicey. (But they're both kind of fanservicey, honestly. I prefer Samurai Love Ballad.) They are both free to play, which means you get about 10 minutes of story every day for free and can get more if you pay for it. I've been playing both of them since October. It takes a while to play them since routes take about a month each if you don't pay money. What I like about them is that you see the warring states period from the perspective of each of the different warlords, depending on the route you choose, so the protagonist of one route is always the antagonist of another. A character who seems foolish or pointlessly violent as an antagonist can turn out to have a vision for the country that makes a lot of sense when your character is in love with him. This is more or less how I read stories in general, even with something like Guardian I'm always asking what the story looks like from Ye Zun's POV, or Zhao Xinci's, or Ya Qing's. So I like otome novels where different perspectives are part of the canon.
Two of my favorites recently got discontinued: Demon's Bond, which is a prequel to Hakuouki set in the warring states era, and Scarlet Fate, about a Heian era princess/priestess trying to save her city-state from an invasion.
I like Guardian a lot and it's fun to be in a fandom that has an active presence on Dreamwidth, and where I don't feel like I'm two generations older than everyone else in the room. It's kind of an odd fit for me in some ways, but it's a big canon so we'll see what I can do with it.
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2020-07-16 10:12 pm (UTC)I'm also playing two mobile phone otomes set in the Japanese warring states period: Samurai Love Ballad and Ikemen Sengoku. Of the two, Samurai Love Ballad is more serious and thinky and Ikemen Sengoku is more fanservicey. (But they're both kind of fanservicey, honestly. I prefer Samurai Love Ballad.) They are both free to play, which means you get about 10 minutes of story every day for free and can get more if you pay for it. I've been playing both of them since October. It takes a while to play them since routes take about a month each if you don't pay money. What I like about them is that you see the warring states period from the perspective of each of the different warlords, depending on the route you choose, so the protagonist of one route is always the antagonist of another. A character who seems foolish or pointlessly violent as an antagonist can turn out to have a vision for the country that makes a lot of sense when your character is in love with him. This is more or less how I read stories in general, even with something like Guardian I'm always asking what the story looks like from Ye Zun's POV, or Zhao Xinci's, or Ya Qing's. So I like otome novels where different perspectives are part of the canon.
Two of my favorites recently got discontinued: Demon's Bond, which is a prequel to Hakuouki set in the warring states era, and Scarlet Fate, about a Heian era princess/priestess trying to save her city-state from an invasion.
I like Guardian a lot and it's fun to be in a fandom that has an active presence on Dreamwidth, and where I don't feel like I'm two generations older than everyone else in the room. It's kind of an odd fit for me in some ways, but it's a big canon so we'll see what I can do with it.
Nice to see you here!