Back in April, we learned that the Switch ports of Amnesia: Memories and Amnesia: Later x Crowd were being localized, and now we have a release date.
Idea Factory has announced that they’ll be out on September 20.
That’s interesting, because Aksys has the Piofiore sequel coming out on September 22. It looks like the end of the year will have some otome competition.
Judging by how they’ve done things in the past, Amnesia’s limited edition, which you can get with either one of the games or both together, will probably open up to preorders sometime in late August. Idea Factory seems to like opening up limited edition preorders around a month in advance.
Meanwhile, in other otome news, Aksys released the English trailer for Lover Pretend.
The trailer confirms its December 2022 release window, which I believe was shown at the Anime Expo showcase.
The months ahead are stacked with games I want, and my backlog is weeping. Meanwhile, let me go check for the thousandth time to see if I have a shipping notification for Xenoblade Chronicles 3 yet (I don’t).
Are you looking forward to Amnesia and Later x Crowd? What about Lover Pretend?
It took me a long time to get around to playing Collar x Malice, but I’m glad I finally did.
Collar x Malice is an otome visual novel set in Shinjuku, which has been quarantined due to a series of violent crimes counting down to what the anonymous criminals refer to as “X-Day.”
The protagonist is a policewoman who is attacked one night and finds that the X-Day criminals have placed a collar around her neck that contains a deadly poison. They task her with investigating the truth of the X-Day incidents and bring her into contact with a group of ex-cops investigating the incidents on their own.
So from the start, it has an exciting and tense premise.
Despite that, it actually took me longer to get into it than I expected. I think it’s because, due to the situation, there’s some mistrust and hostility between the protagonist and love interests at first. However, the common route is pretty short, and things pick up right away on the individual character routes.
Each route focuses on a different aspect of the X-Day investigation, with the character’s own story being explored at the same time. There’s some overlap between the events covered on each route, but not as much as you might expect.
The routes ended up being a mixed bag for me. Of the five love interests, there are two I absolutely loved, one I found cute but found the route less interesting, one where I loved the route but didn’t feel the chemistry between the characters, and one I where I kind of hated the love interest despite some cute moments. It seems there’s a style of tsundere I can’t stand. Sorry, Sasazuka.
Meanwhile, the overall story is very interesting. There were some pretty intense moments, especially in the final route. The mystery elements don’t play a big role aside from a few questions here and there, but at a certain critical point, it does make you correctly identify where the clues are leading, and I thought that moment was really well done.
Click for Collar x Malice implied spoilers
And it cracks me up that Enomoto’s route having such a weirdly anticlimactic conclusion to X-Day, which is one of the reasons I found it less interesting than the rest, actually makes perfect sense in retrospect. That wasn’t a rushed end, that was a huge red flag waving wildly in the air.
It might sound like I had more mixed feelings on the game than positive ones, but the parts I liked, I liked enough to overshadow the negatives. My favorite character (Shiraishi) could have carried this game almost on his own.
I do want to briefly mention the mistakes. I’m not too fussy about errors and can overlook little grammar issues pretty easily, but it was noticeable in Collar x Malice. Some routes seemed fine, but a couple had issues where the dialogue box mixed up who was speaking (or even had a line of dialogue instead of the character’s name) and other mistakes, with the most egregious one being a mistranslated choice that pushed me into a bad ending because (as I learned when I looked it up in confusion), the choice in question was actually pretty much the opposite of what was written.
Click for Collar x Malice spoilers
“He wanted to kill me” was actually meant to be “He wanted me to kill.” There’s a pretty significant difference there!
I wouldn’t say the mistakes are a huge knock against it, but they were noticeable enough that I wanted to mention them.
Anyway, I’m glad I played Collar x Malice. I may not have liked every part, but I enjoyed it enough that I’ll eventually pick up the fandisc. If the premise sounds interesting to you, I’d recommend Collar x Malice if you’re interested in otome games or mystery/thriller stories.
Over the weekend, our cluster of game showcases concluded with the panels at Anime Expo 2022.
Bandai Namco’s contained nothing new beyond the announcement that Ultra Kaiju Monster Rancher, which we discussed last week, will get an official release in the west.
That left Aksys and Spike Chunsoft, and both turned out to be well worth watching.
Aksys Games
Aksys Games did not stream their showcase, but a fan in attendance streamed it, so I was able to tune in and see the announcements live. I didn’t expect much to be announced, but I hoped we’d get either a new otome announcement or Shibito Magire localization news.
They began with an overview of their upcoming games (including the release date of Piofiore: Episodio 1926 being moved up from September 22 to September 8) and soundtrack CDs available with some of them.
Update: the September 8 release date was a mistake; it’s still set for September 22.
Then they got into the announcements. The first game shown was Pups & Purrs Pet Shop, which I thought had been already announced, but apparently this is a series and I was probably thinking of the previous Pups & Purrs game.
The second game announced was Inescapable, a “social thriller” coming to all major platforms next year. It seems to have a death game sort of premise, and I’ve seen it described as Danganronpa-inspired. So that’s definitely something I’m interested in.
Then it was otome time!
Norn9 is coming west for the Switch. I played Norn9 on the Vita and found it to be enjoyable, though I disliked the incomplete feel of the story and said I’d pick up its fandisc Last Era if it was ever released in English, since Last Era is supposed to fix a lot of those issues.
…and sure enough, yes, they followed the Norn9 trailer with a trailer for Norn9: Last Era, which is being translated at last.
Yes, they’re separate releases instead of a dual pack, but I’m just happy that we’re getting Last Era.
Then they showed another trailer, for another otome, Radiant Tale. This one is about a girl becoming the producer for a circus troupe in a fantasy world, and what stands out to me the most is how beautiful and colorful it looks.
The next game was also otome, one I’ve seen a lot of people hoping would be localized, Shuuen no Virche ~Error:Salvation, which is on the other end of the spectrum in that it appears to be about death and darkness and despair.
(I’m intrigued.)
Then the final trailer began, and when I saw “Shibito Magire” appear on the screen, I nearly screamed.
Yes, the third Spirit Hunter game is being localized under the title Spirit Hunter: Death Mark II. …Which I’m sure will cause no confusion whatsoever with the second game in the series, NG.
That was the last of the announcements, and they spent the rest of the showcase providing more details about the announced games. I went into it hoping for at least one otome or Shibito Magire, and I got four otome announcements AND Shibito Magire.
In short, 2023 is already packed for me with games to look forward to, and I’ll play NG soon.
Spike Chunsoft
Spike Chunsoft also didn’t stream their showcase, and again it was streamed by a fan who was there.
Their showcase also had one other announcement: Anonymous;Code localization. Yes, the newest entry in the Science Adventure series is coming west in 2023 for Switch, PS4, and PC.
I’m excited to play Chaos;Head Noah and Chaos; Child, and I’m looking forward to Anonymous;Code as well… although I still need to get Robotics;Notes in the meantime!
Miscellaneous
Apparently Sekai Project had a ton of visual novel announcements at Anime Expo, including Nekopara After and the Nekopara spin-off Inapura: Dog’s Paradise. Type-Moon was also there and confirmed that Witch on the Holy Night is not only getting an English translation (which we discussed) but also a western release on December 8.
And there were plenty of other announcements of visual novels I’m less familiar with. In short, as a visual novel fan, this was a crazy weekend for announcements. The upcoming lineup from Aksys alone already has my backlog crying out in pain.
What do you think of the games that were announced at Anime Expo 2022?
Back in April, we learned that the Switch ports of Amnesia: Memories and Amnesia: Later x Crowd were being localized, and now we have a release date.
