For those who may be curious, here is another character. She is Sophia, the sister of Raphael. She’s been known to give her brother a helping hand during tense…negotiations.
http://orig09.deviantart.net/fb21/f/2016/314/4/6/sophia_by_lysanderxen-danygxf.jpg
Here are some of my personal favorites:
Magical Diary - Very cute. Did you ever want to romance Severus Snape? Now you can. Technically, you can treat this game like the Harry Potter fanfiction you’ve always wanted to write or read. But even on it’s own, it’s a solid feel-good game (largely depending on your choices) with a charming cast of characters. Also, there are some sneaky secrets here and there which you probably won’t discover in your first playthrough.
Halloween Otome - Free. The premise is ridiculous, but it’s handled really well during the game. Good fun.
Backstage Pass - Ace romance option! Also one of the more interesting MCs I’ve seen, but I may relate a little too much to her anxiety issues. Ace romance aside, the guys are not really my cup of tea, but I love the fact that there are different career paths, friendship routes, and even a female romance option.
Nameless - I think this is Cheritz’s best game so far. The dolls’ backstories are interesting, then there’s the MC’s friendship with Soi and Shinbi (who shoud’ve both been romance options or at least a couple, damn it!), and the first traces of what seems later to have become the social media concept for Mystic Messenger.
C14 Dating - On my list alone for an ace romance option written by an ace writer (afaik). And there’s more than one disabled character! I think the game uses its setting very well and the interactions with the characters feel genuine and lively. That said, I still think there was some untapped potential here as I had the feeling that the whole field trip scenario could have amounted to something more.
Lucky Rabbit Reflex! - Well-written game in the vein of Tokimeki Memorial. Romance routes, friendship routes, even duel endings. Warning: R-word in some instances.
Honorable mentions: The Mass Effect and Dagon Age franchises.
Patrick Weekes, one of the writers for Dragon Age: Inquisition and other Bioware titles conveniently put it like that:
To me, Dragon Age: Origins has probably the most enjoyable romance mechanics of all the games. The companion banter alone gives so much insight into the characters and their relationship with you, it’s simply amazing. (I’ll never forget an Alistair/Oghren banter in which Oghren asked Alistair about his and my Aeducan warden’s sex life.) That said, I probably feel most connected to my Mass Effect romances, mainly my Shep’s best friend and partner in crime, Garrus Vakarian.
Nusantara Reksa’s route is great. Though there is a self harm, suicide, abuse trigger warning for Rama (the blond one).
Cotton and Cream is ok. I haven’t played the updated version.
Fool’s helper is short and funny. It comes with friendship and romance routes and it’s perfect.
I LOVED Nusantara, kill me. It suffers from a few typos because the author is Indonesian but is otherwise rewarding, comprehensible and enjoyable. I own properly ripped high quality CGs from the original that the Ren’py version just doesn’t have.
Rama isn’t blind. For Rama, with the blue eyes and broken wings, there is a self-harm, suicide, abortion mention, miscarriage mention, murder and mental illness/breakdown warning, self-immolation as well as some threatening scenes. There is also a passing rape mention.
For Mitra, with brown wings and hair, there is a notable rape mention, not pertaining to the character himself. Pressured/forced kiss warning, some people think of that as sexual assault no matter the context.
For Reksa, the tattooed boy, there are misogynistic comments, lightly implied rape and rape mention in dialogue with mention pertaining to the main character via an enemy, sexual themes of a consensual nature, nothing explicit, and there’s also a pretty graphic scene possible where a character is crushed by a tree.
Typical otome fare. What’s notable about this is the main character has previously survived attempted rape by her uncle, this is why it comes up in the routes.
Call me vanilla extract but I liked Mitra’s route best. ;.; I’m so alone in this ballpark.
I liked Reksa the most partially because his route didn’t bug out on me. On my first play through I managed to somehow get a half Rama half More a route where Rama lives, but I still got the kissing scene and Mitra’s ending. I didn’t know what was going on, so I chose to just go back home at the end. I forgot about all those trigger warnings and I ment to say blond not blind, but autocorrect hates me.
I feel like I should spread the word about this wonderful piece of work I found not too long ago: Eldet
It’s a BxB game with such a beautiful art style and I really love the suble change in the characters’ expressions throughout the demo.
The demo is short and the kickstarter is already over, but the author posts updates at the start of every month on his kickstarter page.
The author also has a page on tumblr where he says the game will probably be released on September, 2017 (and I really can’t for it 
)
This is more of a dating sim than an otome since you can choose to play as a girl or not and you can romance anyone. It’s an episodic cheesy teen romance about college. I think it’s pretty light hearted, but there are some trigger warnings suicide, maybe a hint at abuse depending on how you interpret the situation.
College Days App by GX Studio.
Seven Kingdoms: The Princess Problem has an updated demo out now.
Yep. We’ve a whole thread where we discuss it.
Oh wow, thanks. I’d just been following this thread and hadn’t seen it mentioned.
I like the premise of the genre but the fact that nearly every game out there is riddled doormat protagonists kinda bums me out. I like romance and that includes the occasional sappy kind, but sometimes I find myself wishing the guys didn’t act like they were under some kind of spell and my character had a bit more spirit in her.
I prefer it when there’s a good story acompanying it, when the characters have their own unique traits and personalities rather than defaulting to the stereotypical tsundere, stoic, shy and outgoing types, and that unconditional love was something you obtained through actions and time rather than simply given to you from the start.
If anyone can think of any otome games that fit this criteria, or close to it, then I’m all ears!
Code: Realize might fit that well. I don’t know if you have played it already. It’s a game for the PS Vita and the protagonist, a girl who melts everything she touches named Cardia, both has an interesting backstory as well as a compelling personality. She actually does things - and she does them well. The guys have their stereotypical flair, sure, but they are very interesting characters with their own faults and flaws. Every character in the game is flawed which works in the game’s favour. And you understand why every one of them falls for Cardia throughout their route.
A game that is completely free and gives you complete freedom over the personality of the protagonist is Aloners. It only features one guy (due to story reasons) but damn is he developed well. One of my favourite free games for sure with a really good plot, too. And you can be an asshat if you want to, haha.
If you like RPG’s with dating sim aspects then Rune Factory 4 on the 3DS could be something for you. While your protagonist is a bit shallow due to being an amnesiac hero they get a ton of compelling personality through how they interact with the other characters, especially Venti. You get to date the guys and gals before marriage, so you can dump someone or stick to a single person. There are dates, special events and adorable marriage events (my favourite character is Doug, who shouts that he loves your character from a rooftop) for the bachelors and bachelorettes. You can have a kid which will have special town events too. Overall the characters feel very real because the whole town interacts with one another. It’s in my top 5 list of my favourite games of all time.
Unfortunately I have neither a PS Vita nor a 3DS so both Code: Realize and Rune Factory are out of the question… which is a bummer. I was really eager to try the former too… 
I played Aloners but never finished it because my interest kind of wanned about halfway through (or what I assume is half the game).
I only have a PC and an android tablet so that’s what I’m limited to.
The Royal Trap is good if you’re looking for a protagonist who has a bit more vim and punchiness.
Aww, that’s a bummer. If you want to search a bit, I would recommend http://www.englishotomegames.net. They list all the new releases and there’s a rating system. It’s a really good site if you want to find something that is to your taste. A good free game with a protagonist with a good personality that I can think of from the top of my head is also The Blind Griffin, which features an interesting setting and some compelling characters, though I found the plot to be a bit boring sometimes. Definitely worth a playthrough, though.
I agree- englishotomegames.net is a brilliant site for finding games, as it covers a wide variety of them, not just the popular ones.
Also, Blind Griffin is a wonderful game! Got me very emotionally involved 
The Deep Unknown has a good, rich story too it. It only has a demo at the moment, but the characters are very compelling and it’s obvious a lot of work has gone into the world and lore.
The demo is out for Wilder, by Sonnet009, who also created Aloners (and so is a release schedule for the rest of the game). I haven’t played the demo yet, but I very much liked some of the techniques the writer used to handle personalities and relationships in Aloners. I’m looking forward to seeing how the story and mechanics are written with this new game.
Just finished playing the Wilder demo, and, must say it is looking fricking awesome!
Something I haven’t seen mentioned- Ebon Light by Underbliss!
http://underbliss.com/visual-novels/ebon-light/
This story looks awesome- unique story, MC is changeable in appearance and has three distinct personality routes to play around with, think you can end up romancing one of five guys (only het, sadly) and the art style is EPIC, all painty and stuff. ^^
Haven’t seen it mentioned here at all actually, found it while trolling Sonnet009s forum, I’m scanning it every day for updates.
Best thing- Ebon Light is supposed to be coming out for free.
Couple other games I’m looking forward too are Cinderella Phenomenon (Cinderella Phenomenon by Dicesuki) and Konbini Life (Konbini Life by 2Birds) mostly because both have epic art styles and interesting MCs. I think Konbini Life will be coming out for free, not too sure about CP, but both have free demos as of now.
Let me check my waiting list…
A Foretold Affair- (https://gbpatch.itch.io/a-foretold-affair-demo) unique MC with gender inclination of choice, and romance male/female/non-binary. A break on the classic romance style- you get to choose who you will romance from the get-go, and you’re stuck with it! Awesome demo, love the art style.
Beauty and the War- (https://poison-apple-tales.itch.io/beautyandthewardemo) Not so much a dating sim as a life simulator of a specific character who interacts with hot folk along the way. MC is a bit of a Mary Sue, but with a backstory that allows it, and I’d like to see more of her, how it fleshes her out. Think this one will be free too? 
I HOPE SO. And there are some politics and all that good stuff yay.
More on Wilder: Anyone else played the demo? Whose path are you looking forward to most? Personally, I’m excited for Ran and Amir- with Ran, I’d like to see how the hatred becomes affection, and with Amir, I’m looking forward to see how Sonnet handles the language barrier.
Question: 7KPP updated, yaay, um, I haven’t played it in ages, not since the original demo came out, how is it different?
The Arcana has three main ROs:
One nb.
One male.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CwxGjkaUQAAY-Aa.png
And one female.
There may also be more romance options in the future. You can choose your name and pronouns, and your character is never shown. The demo is out now for smart devices but the desktop version will be out later.
So you can conceivably make the mc (pretend to) be male? That’s at least more than most visual novels, particularly those not made by Winter Wolves offer.