In the years since Hakuoki: Demon of the Fleeting Blossom made its English debut in 2012, otome games have enjoyed a surge of popularity worldwide. The genre went from an unknown to one that received multiple releases on various platforms each year. Sony handhelds have long been a haven for such titles, with people who own a Vita enjoying the fruits of this bevy of releases.
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Each year, more and more visual novels find their way into our gaming libraries. Major Japanese games are localized and developers in other regions decide to dabble in the genre. This year, a few incredible tales from Japan were finally told in other regions, and we appreciated the opportunity to play these three in particular.
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There is a trend people may have noticed in Japanese games. It is a phenomenon known as red oni and blue oni. In Japanese folklore, there would always be two different kinds of oni, one who was red and one who was blue. Various elemental qualities and personalities became associated with the type, with the red oni being a fiery and passionate man of action and the blue oni being more calm, logical and stoic. The concept became pervasive, with such pairs appearing in all sorts of media. Collar x Malice, Aksys and Idea Factory’s latest visual novel, gives people one of the clearest examples of the red oni and blue oni dynamic.
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Bad ends are everywhere in Collar x Malice. Almost immediately after Adonis, the terrorist group, places the life-threatening collar around the heroine’s neck, you can run into one. She meets her superior in the police department, Masanobu Mochida, and has the option of hiding what happened or telling him everything. Choosing the latter causes Adonis to inject her with the lethal poison and the game to end. What a buzzkill, right?
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There are two kinds of otome games. The first are titles where the romance comes first, and the story exists to further the relationships. The second are ones where the tale a title tells takes priority, and the romance is an incidental that happens along the way. Amnesia: Memories is a good example of the former, while Hakuoki showcases the latter. Collar x Malice is another game where the narrative needs and gets the most attention. This doesn’t make the relationships between characters any less satisfying, but does mean the adventure might not be as appealing to some members of its audience.
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