Seduction is enticing someone into doing what they secretly want to do already.”
-Benjamin T. Russell
I am going to beg, that as you read this review, don’t judge me too harshly. We all have our guilty pleasures, and one of mine happens to be dating simulators, or dating sims as they are called sometimes. I’ve played good and bad dating sims, and I picked up Seduce Me the Otome in the steam store because it was free! And free is always good. Because it was free, I didn’t expect much out of it. I was, in some ways, pleasantly surprised. First, let me explain what an Otome is. Otome literally means “maiden game.” These games are typically geared towards the female market, where a female character can form relationships with several other male characters. The opposite of an Otome is a Bishojo game, where it would be a male character with several women. I like to play both…
Seduce Me the Otome is a visual novel written by Michaela Laws, and brought to you by Seraphim Entertainment. It has recieved greatly positive reviews on Steam and Itch.io.
Source: Steam Store
In Seduce Me, you play as Mika Anderson, the granddaughter of Harold Anderson, CEO and founder of Anderson toy company. Sadly, Mika’s grandfather has just passed away. At the reading of the will, Mika is surprised to find that her grandfather left her his entire estate and all its contents. Mika’s father is upset over this, but says its best if she moves there immediately so she can prepare to go to business college. Mika’s father and her grandfather never had a good relationship, and her father is visibly upset that her grandfather did not name him the next CEO of the company. When Mika moves out of her parents’ home into her grandfather’s manor, she is shocked to find 5 boys collapsed in the lobby. These 5 boys turn out to be Incubi who are on the run from a Devil who means them harm and sought shelter in the manor. Mika is in shock and doesn’t believe them. After one of the boys proves that they aren’t lying, Mika faints. In the morning, Mika awakes and starts to learn about the strange boys who were found in her grandfather’s manor…
Mika also has trouble at school, but her two best friends, Naomi and Suzu, have her back no matter what. Naomi and Suzu may not always agree completely, but they’re as close as friends can be. I was surprised to find that Naomi and Suzu were also love interests in the story. However, it was also nice to have some extra variety in pairings.
Source: Itch.io
The five boys are, admittedly, a little cliché. But, let’s be honest… most games and tv shows have those clichés. We have James, the eldest and the brains with his cute glasses and tie. There’s Sam, the rough and tumble smart ass. Damian is the quiet, mysterious guy. Matthew, the childish and innocent of the bunch. Last, there’s Erik, the insufferable flirt. Although their personalities are the typical anime clichés, each of them has a different reason for leaving the demon world to start anew in the human world. I won’t spoil those.
Now that we’ve discussed story and characters, let’s talk the game itself. The game plays like a visual novel, as many Otome do. The graphics are like an anime, and are, mostly, pleasing to the eye. Some angles have a weird appearance at times, like when you wake up and Diane is standing over you. Although as such an angle it would be hard to appear flattering. The colors are bright and pleasing to the eye as well. The soundtrack isn’t terrible, although it can get repetitive, and you can sometimes hear where it breaks to loop again. Some of the piano tracks are actually very pretty.
There are some minor issues I have with the dialogue, I did spot a spelling error or two. There was also a time when Diane asked us which boy we were talking about and Mika replies with the boys age, “The oldest…”, “The third…”, etc. However, this was never discussed between Mika and the boys before this scene(unless I missed something), so Mika wouldn’t have actually known. I thought Matthew was the youngest, until I found out it was actually Damian. They were small instances, but caught my eye a lot as I replayed the game about 40 times to get all the endings.
Source: Anime2Mira
I’ve gotten all of the endings except for 4, but I’m still working on it. Some of the dialogue can get repetitive, as some passages are the same, save a name change. This is particularly true for Suzu and Naomi. Leading up to their confessions, the exchanges are almost identical. It may also take a couple tried to get everyone’s “true” ending. You can get a happy ending, but each character has a special ending that you are rewarded with for making the correct choices and raising that particular person’s affection to the max. This may seem monotonous, but after you get through the game once, you get the options to do a rapid text skip through the parts of the game that don’t change. So that makes it more palatable.
I can’t complain too much, as Seduce me the Otome is free for download on Steam. The game is good for what it is. Otome and Bishojo aren’t to everyone’s liking, but I do really enjoy them and the visual novel style. For free, though, why not give it a shot?
P.S. There is a Seduce Me 2: The Demon War that I plan to pick up as well!
Happy Gaming, Friends!
Bell
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