I’m quite surprised to hear all of this. The demo blew me away, but now I’m considering not buying it, and waiting for a friend to get it, and play it on their laptop.
Thank you for the review, we should do more reviews here for people to consider buying games.
No problem! =) The demo blew me away too, which is why I was so sad that the closer I got to the ending, the more underwhelming it became. Maybe the creators had to rush it due to time constraints; if that is the case it certainly shows.
You have really heartwarming CG’s and then you have incredibly lackluster ones. You have an amazing story, but then you only get such a small glimpse into the world the characters live in. You have incredible real characters (Kea is one of my favourite characters out of every visual novel I have ever played, Japanese ones included), but they are held back due to us never getting to know them outside of the adventure that our cast experiences. You have great plotpoints, but then they get recycled once or twice and you are wondering why the hell someone got kidnapped again or why we have to bring up the problem of food rationing every time the characters actually sit down to eat something. You have witty and wonderful writing, but then you get so many spelling errors the further it drags on that Piper suddenly says intimate instead of intimidate and you sit there cringing because she’s talking about something serious. You have an incredibly unique premise, but at the end you don’t even see a glimpse into the future that Buffalo Seer has with their significant other.
It’s just so sad because I could feel throughout the whole game how much heartwarming emotion and love has been put into this game. How much thought about how the characters act, how they aren’t just stereotypes, how they have real weaknesses and character flaws and how they are so varied and wonderful that you want to learn so much more about them. I was incredibly excited and I can honestly say that I love all of the characters very, very much. It’s just so sad that the rest of the game wasn’t up to par to make me go “WOAH, everyone NEEDS to play this!”.
Edit: I counted the CG’s up, and what we have, out of the 17 of 24 that I have, is (please keep in mind that some of these have mild alternative changes, like a character looking in a different direction, that isn’t mentioned here):
Sonnet009 has released the first route for her game Wilder today! Has anyone else played it yet? I am… needing to gush with someone.
Ran’s story is out!? Wooshes away to buy it~
Gosh, I’m so excited already! I loved the demo for Wilder!
It is! I totally did not stalk her tumblr for two weeks straight so that I could download the link when it was released in the wee hours of the morning! Haha! Ha!
Here is the link for the lazy.
Ahh, thank you! I shall play now and hopefully we can both discuss the game after I’m done playing. =D
I was originally a bit worried about how this game was going to handle the issue of consent, since I’ve seen an otome that had slaves and was, for me at least, very uncomfortable.
I really liked how Ran’s arc, emphasized entirely that you absolutely had to stress his ability to make his own choices to successfully romance him. Prior to the demo, I was very concerned we wouldn’t be able to, but I am glad I was proven wrong. I hope Bahadur and Jamal’s routes stress this too. I am so pumped for Royo’s route after meeting her, too.
Dude, let’s be honest. How often is the topic of slavery in the romance genre handled maturely? 
I almost can’t bring myself to punch in the choices that deflate his worth-- like the one where we don’t give him all the money. Idk, I want to see what it does because so far the route has been quite linear and I’d like to see some different content… but also no??? I don’t think I can???
I don’t even want to try looking at it since I don’t like playing evil characters, but I do wish there was a bit more variety in the scenes. It really is linear and it cuts down on playability once you play the two main personalities. I was a bit bummed to see that some of the comments that Ran made to my sweet and kind character, like saying she’s naive, was said about all possible versions of the main character. It’s something I missed from playing Aloners.
With that said, I love the variety in the route choices and the setting seems quite interesting and fun. I’d love to see more about it.
Cinderella Phenomenon was fully released last Tuesday. I highly recommend it. It’s free but very worth paying for, no matter how little you can afford. I think they certainty deserve it.
AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH IT WAS SO GOOD.
…yet disappointing.
Good but not as much as I expect from Sonnet? 
I guess I thought character personality would have impact…but it didn’t. Le sigh.
@Tiffany_Bracken: I really loved Walt and …erm what’s his name. Beauty? Egh, but their routes are great.
I still wanted a more badass MC though…sigh.
Yeah, I’m playing Cinderella Phenomenon now and like… it’s okay? But I want to punch the protag in the nose. STOP WHINING. You can’t go around sneering at everyone on the planet and talking about how they’re unworthy to lick your shoes and then cry about “what did I ever do to be hated”. PICK ONE.
…ahem.
The art’s really nice though!
chuckles I lurk this thread more than I should.
Just want to bring up a question- did anyone else confuse Karma’s route in Cinderella Phenomenon as being Sleeping Beauty instead of what it actually is? And aherm, get a bad ending consequently? I’m still trying to find the red flag I tripped on that one. >.<
I’ve got three games to recommend - they’re fairly well-known, but I thought I’d put them out anyways, just in case someone entirely new to visual novels stumbles across this thread.
The first one - which isn’t technically free - is Fate/Stay Night. Fate Stay Night is a Japanese game which follows a young man named Shirou, who due to happenstance is dragged into a secret Underworld of mages. Sounds a bit like Harry Potter, except these mages also happen to be currently involved in a battle royale for the ultimate wish-granting device ever created - the Holy Grail. To cut a long story short, the Holy Grail is summoned using the spirits of seven dead heroes, and accessing its powers requires the sacrifice of all seven spirits, each of which are summoned by seven different mages. Problem is, the Grail’s only granting one wish for all seven people. Instead of talking it out like reasonable individuals, the obvious solution that the mages take is to start the Holy Grail War, using their summoned spirits (servants) to kill the servants summoned by others.
If you ever wondered whether Hercules would beat Cu Chullain in a fight, or whether legendary Japanese Samurai could take on European knights - this is your kind of visual novel. The servant vs servant battles are pretty glorious, while in the background the mages try to figure out who opposing servants are to exploit their weak spots.
And Shirou just happened to get caught up in this war, because he summoned a servant himself. Saber, a young woman wielding a sword who is absolutely determined to win the War. Not going to spoil too much, but… Fate/ Stay Night constantly surprised me when I first played it, and you never really get a full picture of what was going on until you’ve played through every single route of the game. Each route kind of reveals what seemed to be whimsical decisions from other mages or servants at different points in the game, and while I won’t say it dispenses life changing wisdom or anything, it’s at least not too dumb for an otome game.
Now, going back to how it’s not technically free. It was a professional game released by a pretty big franchise in Japan. That said, it’s never been released outside of Japan officially, nor has it been officially translated. Dozens of fansites have English translations up and running, and unless you’re fluent in Japanese or tech-literate enough to mod an English translation into your Japanese copy of the game, chances are you’ll have to get the game off fansites. There’s also a problem in that the best graphics and animations were reserved for the most recent PS Vita release, and the only way you can get that version on a PC (as opposed to a PS Vita) is by downloading a modded version off English fansites. Or Japanese fansites. Getting your hands on a legitimate copy is not impossible - but it’s pretty difficult.
The second game which I’d like to recommend is much easier to access, and also completely free. It’s Narcissu. It’s another relatively old game, but was released in Linux, iOS, Windows, and even Android. The story follows a young man whose been diagnosed with a debilitating disease. His family, always more focused on work than on their only child, effectively gives up on him and sends him away to a hospital ward where they expect he will soon die.
What his family did not expect was that he would go full-on grand-theft-auto with his fellow walking corpse, steal his fathers’ prized car, and go on a road trip.
The story is quite short - less than an hour long - and it gets a little corny at times, but I found it highly enjoyable. There aren’t any choices you can make, but the narrative was surprisingly mature (and I don’t mean in a sexual way. It’s just the way it handles imminent death hanging over everyone’s heads all the time).
The third game I’d recommend is also technically not free - for much of the same reasons, but also possibly because no reputable English gaming or publishing company would even consider licensing it. Saya No Uta, better translated (IMO) as Song of Saya, is a short, but still rather disturbing visual novel that launched its writer into infamy amongst both western and Japanese V/N circles.
The story begins as we are introduced to Fuminori, a young man who lost his family in a tragic car accident that left him with seemingly slight brain trauma. What only he knows, however, is that the accident appears to have triggered some form of severe agnosia in him. He sees, hears, touches, smells, and even tastes the world very differently from everyone else. Former friends are transformed into sacks of writhing meat, voices of concern gibbering screeches that he can barely understand, and his clothes, his food, and even his house looks, feels, and smells to him as though they were the innards of some decaying monster. He keeps this a secret for a very reasonable fear of being locked up in an asylum. His frail grip on what remains of his sanity, however, is reinforced by a single pure thing in his warped world. A young homeless girl named Saya, who looks, acts, and speaks just like a normal pre-adolescent girl would have.
If you think the scenario already sounds messed up, the story gets a lot worse. Expect rape, paedophilia, kidnapping and torture, murder, induced insanity, cannibalism, gore (kind of duh to be honest, but I’ll put it in anyways), and literally the annihilation of the human race in gory detail.
Funny thing about the writer, by the way. Upon being interviewed on this visual novel, he reportedly said something along the lines of “I’m really happy because this is the first time I could write a genuine happy ending.” Said happy ending literally annihilated humanity. Not even kidding. was not happy at all. One issue with the game was that there was in fact no happy ending, or even a happy journey to a sad ending for that matter.
So, this was a really long post. Longer than I expected it to be. But I hope you like one, if not all, of these games.
@Wyrmspawn
You can tell someone is really passionate about their games when they decide write a wall of text explaining every detail about why they’re so great… I feel bad for bursting your bubble but unfortunately none of the games you mentioned fit the theme of the thread (even though Fate Night is a classic). We’re not talking about visual novels in general that include romance and / or erotic themes, we’re talking about otomes, as the title suggests.
In case you didn’t know, otome is a genre of its own where the MC is always a female, whose premise revolves around a bunch of individuals trying to date her (us) and may or may not include adult content. Sometimes they can have a bit more content to them but that is basically the gist of it. All the games you mentioned have a male protagonist being chased by women - the polar opposite. You could say its almost the same but to me personally I don’t like playing games (specially the romantic kind) where I’m stuck as a gender I don’t identify myself as, hence why otome games are popular among girls and women.
Aw man, this was my first VN, hahaha. Thirteen year old me was not prepared.
Like Ivory Owl said, you’re technically in the wrong place. I feel like we should open a Visual Novel thread, though, or change the title, because I myself am interested in the full range of these games!
I don’t know if it counts, but I’ve definitely got my eyes on Monster Prom. From what I can see in their updates on Kickstarter, it sounds like the games nearing release. All the protagonist choices are hella cute. You can also apparently customize their outfits which sounds pretty neat.
And so are the romance options:
/smooches all the boys, especially the werewolf/
@Lithophene Thanks for linking to this. I’m really intrigued by the Kickstarter page, kinda bummed I missed it. I saw that it was greenlit on Steam but I don’t see any mention of it on the parts of their website I can access on mobile. I assume it’ll be on Steam once it’s released?
If everything goes well, yup! 
When a game gets greenlit, Steam works with the developers to get the game available on the Steam market.
I backed it on Kickstarter, but yeah, they plan on having it on Steam when released, especially since it passed Greenlight.