8 years of otome gaming……

This month, I proudly reach my 8^th year of otome gaming; is this long enough to make me a veteran player? Probably yes.

I still remember vividly my 2013 Christmas holidays, when I first started approaching this new world which seemed so unbelievably attracting to me; “do you mean I can really date anime characters? Can they fall in love with me? Will they confess to me?!” Too good to be true.

I was into idols at that time, but after years of fanwars, scandals, and feelings of betrayal when my favorite idols randomly left their group, I really needed an healing hobby, something that would not disappoint me. Otome games were all I needed at that time.

Whenever I turned on my PSP, those ikemen were welcoming me, saying cheesy lines, without judging me. They are not real after all, they aren’t pretending to like me while in reality they laugh behind my back; they can’t judge me. Silly as it seems, it felt comforting.

The fandom was really small back then, since most of the games were in Japanese only; it was a small, but welcoming family. In 2014 my twitter changed completely, erasing any trace of idols to become only dedicated to otome games; only my old name, KyuMyMiracle, still remains to remind me of those ancient times.

Some of the people I talked to at the beginning are still my friends, or at least I always consider them special even if we barely talk these days; but whenever I see them on my TL, I feel reassured to see they are still here.

Now localisations brought many new people to this genre, which is obviosuly good, but there are also negative aspects of this too: sometimes I open Twitter just to see fandom wars and people arguing, which is something that I could never imagine seeing 8 years ago.

Well, everything changes, it’s normal.

I still remember how I used to be happy but also sad, when PSP new games stopped being released, and everything new was for PsVita; it felt like the end of an era.

I could never expect, that the amount of sales and releases would have decreased dramatically, from that moment on. Just look at the amount of the new releases now, and their sales numbers… it’s so depressing. People who play localised games are happy, since they feel like it’s the golden age of this genre; but the sad reality, if you look at Japan, is that console otome games will probably stop existing in a few years.

Those good times are over, when we had like 4/5 or even more releases every month, and I had to choose carefully which one to buy, because I wanted them all but it was impossible to keep up.

Now there’s barely 1 release per month and if I’m not interested it’s over, I just need to dig up my backlog; that’s the reason why I still play on PsVita, until there’s still old stuff worth playing. Sad.

I really miss those times.

On Tuesday I’ll receive my copy of Brothers Conflict for Switch: I wanted to celebrate going back to my roots, where it all started, to fill my nostalgic void. Will it make me happy or sad? Probably mixed feelings, the same as I’m feeling now while I’m writing this post.

But I wanted to share these emotions with someone who maybe relates, to feel a bit less alone.

Someone answered in my last survey that they come here mostly for this kind of content, since they enjoy my discussion posts more than reviews; it surprised me, but it’s good, knowing my readers’ opinion was the porpuse after all, so thanks!

I’ll do my best to write more of this kind of reflections and to share more of my experience and feelings; see you in a few days!