Operation Backlog Completion 2025

Aksys Showcase: Only One Otome, but Other Exciting Announcements

 Video games  2 Responses »  Tagged with: , ,
Jul 042025
 

As we discussed, Aksys held its Anime Expo showcase yesterday, with the promise of new announcements.

Now, let’s get it out of the way, they only announced one new otome game. That was a little disappointing.

But they had some other interesting announcements as well, so let’s take a look.

Although they didn’t stream their showcase, some people who were there in person were sharing updates as it went, so I kept track of the news that way. The first piece of information was the one I’d been anticipating, a release date for Mistonia no Kibou. With the official English title of Mistonia’s Hope: The Lost Delight, it will be out on November 13.

They also announced Path of Mystery: A Brush with Death, a murder mystery game that looks right up my alley.

The next few announcements didn’t interest me as much. There was Q Collection, a collection of three drawing-based puzzle games, Tristia: Chronicles, a bundle of two town/shop management games, and C.A.R.D.S. RPG: The Misty Battlefield, a card-based RPG. They also announced a Metroidvania called The Good Old Days that could be interesting.

Next up was the sole otome announcement, Otome Daoshi -Fighting for Love-, and while it sounds decently interesting, the reception to this one in Japan was pretty poor. It’s due out in 2026, but this is one I’ll probably wait on.

All right, so it’s rather frustrating that they had only a single new otome game announcement and it’s not a well-received title. I’ve seen a lot of fans wondering why they picked that one. (Maybe it’s because Idea Factory secretly has a huge lineup planned, but since they only announced two last time and one of those got delayed to 2026, I don’t know…)

Anyway, they finished with one final announcement, and… it’s one I’ve been following ever since it was announced three years ago, but I didn’t expect it to show up at an Aksys showcase! They’ll be handling the console release of Project Code M, the new game from the developer of The House in Fata Morgana.

(Judging by Novect’s follow-up posts, it’s still coming to PC as well.)

I was not expecting that at all, but it was a nice surprise to see Project Code M! It makes up for the disappointment of only getting a single otome announcement…

Which games from Aksys’s showcase stood out to you the most?

Last Week for Dark Fantasy Otome Volontés Localization on Kickstarter

 Video games  No Responses »  Tagged with: , ,
Jun 232025
 

About a year ago, I backed a Kickstarter campaign for a dark fantasy otome game called Volontés.

I don’t back crowd-funding campaigns quite as often as I did for a while there, but every now and then there’s still one that catches my eye enough for me to back it. This was one of those games.

Unfortunately, the campaign failed, so although the developers were still able to refocus their efforts and release the game in Japan, English localization wasn’t possible.

Now it’s out in Japan, and there’s a new Kickstarter campaign for its localization. It’s a Switch game, although there is a potential Steam port if the campaign makes its stretch goal.

Volontés is about a young woman whose village is attacked and destroyed, but she’s rescued by a mysterious figure who proclaims her to be the Moon Witch. It sounds like an intriguing story, and the art is also beautiful.

I haven’t seen too many reviews of it since it’s only out in Japan, but what I have seen is positive. I really like the looks of it, and I hope it can get localized. At the time that I’m writing this post, the campaign is almost at 80% of its funding goal, with 6 days left to go. I’ve got my fingers crossed.

Update: It looks like they got an extension, so there’s now an additional week to reach the goal!

So if a dark fantasy otome game sounds interesting to you, head over to the Volontés Kickstarter page and take a look!

Celebrating All Things Mysterious: 7’scarlet

 Celebrating All Things Mysterious, Reviews, Video games  8 Responses »  Tagged with: ,
May 232025
 

I never played the otome game 7’scarlet on the Vita or PC, so when Aksys announced that the Switch version would be coming west, I decided to keep it in mind.

As luck would have it, it released in the middle of May and it’s another mystery, so I decided to play 7’scarlet as part of our mystery game celebration.

7’scarlet is an otome game about a young woman named Ichiko whose brother disappeared after visiting a small town. When her best friend gets an opportunity to go there to meet with a club of supernatural enthusiasts, she goes with him to investigate her brother’s disappearance.

After they arrive, mysterious deaths begin cropping up, which soon leads to the concern that there might be a murderer on the loose. Add in supernatural elements that get more prominent as you play, and it sets up quite an intriguing mystery.

The first thing that stood out to me when I started playing 7’scarlet is how good it looks. While most of its presentation is typical for a visual novel, it has a handful of animated sections near the start that took me by surprise.

Now, the game follows the typical structure where you make choices in the common route to determine whose route you end up on, but it’s a bit more restricted than usual. This is a mystery, and it wants you to experience plot events in a particular order. Only two routes are accessible from the start. Once you complete one of those, you unlock the next route, and so on, so that you slowly learn more pieces of the puzzle.

In terms of romance, it’s… fine. Many of the routes are cute, even if development of the relationships feel a bit rushed and the writers were a bit too attached to the “they actually met years ago as children” trope. A few also have the problem where you have to make favorable choices toward the love interest to get his good ending regardless of common sense.

Click for 7'scarlet spoilers
When Isora went yandere and had Ichiko locked up and isolated, the correct choice being “blindly trust him” is actually kind of hilarious.

When it comes to the mystery, each route gives you certain pieces of information so you don’t have all the answers until the end. Some of the early routes feel frustrating from how little you actually learn, as a result. My favorite route in terms of handling the mystery was Sosuke’s, where it culminated in a confrontation that had the characters (and player) corner the culprit by actually thinking through which character’s actions were contradictory.

By the time I finished the true route, I felt pretty satisfied with the answers I’d gotten. The true route was sadder than I like in a romance game, but just about everything had been wrapped up. All that remained was one last secret route to answer the remaining questions…

…and partway through, I found myself thinking the story made more sense to me before I read it.

Maybe that’s an exaggeration. Maybe. The secret route is shorter than the others, mostly focused on exposition, and completely insane. I finished it asking myself what in the world I’d just played.

Click for major 7'scarlet spoilers
I expected Ichiko’s brother to play some role in the mystery and I considered he might be a revenant… but I didn’t expect him to turn out to be an ancient revenant that grew fond of Ichiko when she was a child and brainwashed her and everyone around her to make them believe he was her brother and then fell in love with her. And even after all that, I still didn’t expect Ichiko to decide she also had romantic feelings for him in the 5 minutes since learning he wasn’t actually her brother. What??? And then he gets set on fire and dies and she loses all her memories of him, so it gets to be tragic as well as insane.

On the other hand, I loved the extended version of Yuzuki’s normal ending that unlocks after the true route. That’s the sort of tragedy I’m here for if it has to be a tragic end.

7’scarlet is a mixed bag for me. I enjoyed several of the love interests, but the romantic development felt rushed. The mystery was interesting, but the plot eventually went off the rails. Overall, I’m happy I played 7’scarlet… but it’s one of those games I can only recommend with the caveat that it has noticeable flaws.

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