Langrisser

Langrisser is an app reboot of the classic strategy/role play game of the same name.

I had never even HEARD of this game before I was flipping through recommended apps on Google Play and it appeared. I saw the app icon and hit download, no questions asked. I knew it was an SRPG, and I enjoy Fire Emblem Heroes and FGO, so I thought, with a face like that→  how can I say no?

Mr Love: Queen’s Choice

Today we’re going to be reviewing a new type of Otome game (at least for me).

Mr Love: Queen’s Choice, also known as Love and Producer or 恋与制作人 , is a free-to-play otome game that features lots of side games, a gacha, and a very active event roster.

As you play, you interact with four love interests and bring up intimacy via texting, calling, and dates while also keeping your production company afloat. After a certain point in the game, you select a route and continue gameplay just like you would with any other otome.

Man in-game features are fully voiced, but you can choose if you want your guys speaking in Japanese or the English dub (which is not as bad as the average dub, but I recommend the Japanese).

Hiiro no Kakera: Fragments of the Past 💚 Kuso no Mikoto💚

Hiiro no Kakera, (at least this particular one) can be downloaded as a free-to-play otome from Google play. Most of the Hiiro no Kakera franchise are pay-to-play only, so consider this game a teaser for what the paid games can offer.

💚Kuso-no-Mikoto is the first otome route I ever played.💚

I had watched the Hiiro no Kakera anime and saw the game while browsing through Google Play.

(Be warned, before starting Hiiro no Kakera, the game is time intensive. It takes a while to get through the game, and the extra story-tickets are hard to come by without paying for them with real money )

Hiiro no Kakera always starts the same way: MC is the cursed Tamayori Princess, charged with guarding the power that can destroy the world. In the case of Fragments of the Past, MC stumbles upon an injured fox god and takes him back to her home to heal him. Thus begins a struggle to protect the world, etc. etc.

Best and Worst Free-to-Play Otome Games

Lots of the good lists of Otome games are for individual routes or for pay-to-play games like Hakuouki and Code Realize.

For those of us who don’t want to spend money on our romance hobbies, here’s a list of the best and worst free-to-play otome games out there right now. I’ve put links to the download pages on Google Play for each game, so if you want to try them out, just click their name.

Let’s get to it!

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly…we’re looking at them all.

Wizardess Heart: ✨Elias Goldstein✨

I finally decided to play a route from the most infamous free to play Otome game ever.

Wizardess Heart came out in 2014 and is many an otome gamer’s first otome experience. As a result it has a massive fandom and a slew of opinions about how good or bad a game it is.

So to put these questions to rest, I decided to give it a whirl. My sister had already played through Luca’s route, so I selected Elias and went to business

Obey Me

One of the newest games to come out from the infamous “Shall We Date?” franchise, Obey Me dropped in December of 2019.

Obey Me has an interesting synopsis where the MC has been selected to participated in an exchange program between the worlds of Angels, Demons, and Humans. Specifically, MC is one of two humans that have to attend an academy in the Devildom for an entire year.

Or, if you’d rather, it’s the love-child of Mystic Messenger and Dance with Devils that got adopted and raised by Uta No Prince Sama.

Mystic Messenger

Mystic Messenger was the king of otome when I first started gaming. It has had an enormous impact on the genre, spawning numerous spin-offs and solidifying a new way of doing otome.

It’s taken me a LOOOONG time to finally get around to downloading Mystic Messenger, but here I am; finally giving it a shot. (It’s hard to review just one route for this game, so this is going to cover the ENTIRE game)

Mystic Messenger is both the easiest and hardest otome game I have ever played -_-;

Food Fantasy

Food Fantasy is a free-to-play gacha game from Elex, featuring world-famous voice-actors and artists. Instead of your usual cast of heroes, you summon different types of “food souls” to help you protect the world and run your new restaurant.

This game is NOT for everyone, most people give it either 5-4 stars or 1-2 stars, there are very few in-between rankings for this game. You will either love it or hate it.

Ikemen Sengoku: Hideyoshi Toyotomi

Ikemen Sengoku is a historical-themed otome that takes place in the the Sengoku era. This particular game is one of many “Ikemen” otome games by Cybrid, and the first Cybrid game I ever tried. After hearing mixed reviews about the game, I decided to jump in and give it a shot myself.

Ikemen Sengoku is a time-travel romance where MC is transported to the Sengoku era.

After she unknowingly prevents the assassination of Oda Nobunaga, she is trapped in an alternate version of the past. MC can return to her time after three months, with the help of a worm-hole, but feelings tend to be a problem in Otome games, so that return trip is up in the air.

(Please note that this game is intended for older audiences. It’s neither graphic nor gratuitous, but I think the recommended age is 17+)

Ikemen Vampire: Leonardo Da Vinci

Ikemen Vampire is a hot-topic game for CYBIRD right now. The massively popular game is finally being translated into English, and the otome community has a new set of ikemen to drool over. The game is still very new on GooglePlay, with Leonardo Da Vinci having just been released back in June.

Please note that the game has a rating of 17+ 

Since the game isn’t fully translated/released, only three out of the possible twelve routes were available for play when I started. While I wanted to do Saint Germaine, he’s probably going to be the last route released, so I settled on Da Vinci instead.