Since Charade Maniacs has been loved a lot by Japanese players, my expectations when I started playing were really great: a futuristic setting, a mystery to solve, a traitor to find… that sounds like a possible masterpiece to me, if well handled!

I was afraid it would take me a lot of time to remember all the characters, since they are so many, but their personalities are really different and it wasn’t a problem; but memorizing their names wasn’t a joke, I swear! For a long time, in my mind they went like: tsundere childhood friend, nice gray hair boy, suspicious gray hair boy…. and so on. You can’t blame me.

So, let’s talk briefly about the plot.

Our main characters (all good looking males, except for the heroine…what a lucky girl), get randomly kidnapped on the streets, without realizing what the hell happened; they find themselves in another place, forced to live with strangers while acting random drama scenes from time to time; if they’ll refuse, they will die. Or disappear, or something like that.

Ok, I’m awful at resuming stuff, so I’ll leave this to better reviewers.

But the main point here is that you must suspect everyone around you, cause there’s a traitor in the group: he’s pretending to be all innocent and scared like the others, but he’s actually the mastermind behind it all. I guess he’s probably laughing a lot behind their backs too.

Games like this are really my kind of stuff, as an Agatha Christie/Sherlock Holmes fan I love mysteries to solve! Doubting everyone is my cup of tea.

In my reviews, I usually talk about each route separately, but since I don’t want to spoil or give hints without even realizing it, I’ll just write my general opinions and feelings about the whole game.

The common route was really long, to give you some time to get used to the setting and know a bit better all the characters: there’s no help it, when you go for 9 characters, you really have to keep the individual routes kinda short.

Most of the choices that you make at first are based on locations, like “go to the park” or stuff like that, which is something I always dislike a lot, when it happens: I prefer to make useful decisions, which can actually change something and give a personality to the heroine. But I guess this is something the writers avoided on purpose, since their idea of heroine was well defined… sadly.

I’m that kind of player who always tries to justify the heroine, even if she doesn’t contribute that much and she just waits for a prince charming to come and save her: not every girl can be physically strong and independent, being able to fight is not necessary to be useful when there’s a problem; sometimes, a sweet and supportive heroine can be a saving grace of the situation.

I tried my best here, too, but there’s really nothing nice I can say about Hiyori.

I want to admit it clearly, she was annoying most of the time, playing as her made me frustrated; I completely disagreed with most of her actions and opinions, which I found too innocent or just dumb. These guys deserved better.

I can’t go into details to avoid even the slightest spoiler, but her innocence and stupid decisions made her irritating, even if she’s still young.

I’ve been told by many friends on twitter that they even dropped the game or put it on hold because of her, and I really can’t blame them. She was almost decent in some routes tho, so I suggest you to endure the pain and give her more chances, you can make it! Do it for the guys!

Anyway, the decisive choices you can make are just a few, at the very end of each route: that’s where a small mistake can take you immediately to a bad ending; or so I guess, since every character has just 1 proper ending, the “return” one. There aren’t many different endings, with CG or at least something interesting to play. Only a couple characters, the most important ones, have an alternative “bad ending”. I don’t really get why, maybe the game was too long already? I like multiple endings which make sense, even if there’s just tragedy.

I have another huge complaint, which is really important since, after all, otome games are visual novel and the CGs have a huge impact.

We all know how beautiful Teita’s art can be, my expectations were really high; so, can you tell me why so many CGs feel like mobage-quality?

I don’t mean they look bad, I mean they are mostly:

  • there’s only the guy acting cool

  • guy’s face close up

  • guy hugging the heroine (so you only see her back)

  • guy close to the heroine or kissing her (so you only see her head).

At least, there are a few others which look beautiful, I’ll just look at those forever.

After reading my long list of complains, I guess you are thinking that I didn’t enjoy this game at all and I don’t recommend it… which is absolutely false, since despite its flaws, I actually enjoyed Charade Maniacs a lot! Why?

My worst fears, when I started this game, was to get bored after 3 or 4 routes, because at that point it was already obvious who the culprit was and his motives. Gladly, that wasn’t the case, at all.

Each character is hiding a secret, some are really huge, while others are still forgivable: twisted personalities, trauma of the past, family issues… everything possible and even beyond your imagination. The true ending is the craziest. You really can’t trust anyone.

As you reveal a mystery, you discover there’s something else you still don’t know and you can’t explain at all. And that’s really great, that’s was I was expecting from this game!

Honestly, it seems more an adventure game, since the romantic parts are mostly shoved to the very end; I admit I don’t really know when and how some characters fell in love with the heroine, it was kinda forced. So if you play it, don’t expect many fluff or sexy scenes.

I can’t really choose a favorite character, I mostly fell in love with the setting and the concept of the game; I don’t think it’s possible to have a sequel or fandisk, but if it was, I’d gladly play another Charade Maniacs with a completely different cast, just keeping the concept.

Sadly, I think it will be just a dream.

If you enjoy playing plot-centered otome games, with interesting characters and a lot of mysteries, I’m sure you’ll love Charade Maniacs as I did!