My new land

No matter which Quinrose game I choose to try, I really can’t take them seriously; even when they’re not that bad, I can’t erase completely a feeling of “wtf am I playing?!”.

I admit it, sometimes I just take a look and decide to play one of them because it seems trashy and I want to laugh about it, so I can’t complain that much.

If you’re reading this review, you probably know that already, so… let’s talk about the plot first.

This was supposed to be an otoge version of the Mermaid fairy tale, or something like that: in fact, the plot kind of reminds of the original, even if there are new characters and many differences.

The heroine is the mermaid princess, who lives trapped in a cage, because she made a huge mistake: she saved a young boy from drowning, by giving him blood.

Apparently, if humans drink mermaid’s blood become immortal and don’t even age anymore, but it was a huge secret that shouldn’t have been revealed.

Since that day, the sea became black and everyone started to blame the mermaid princess: everyone thinks that humans are just trying to capture all the mermaids to drink their blood; the only hope left to survive, is killing the prince.

The King offered to the princess a chance to redeem herself: she has to be the one who goes to the human’s world and save them all, so she can be free again and also be forgiven.

She obviously accepts, and she goes alone out of the sea, looking like a human, to kill the prince.

I know, this has nothing to to with the original plot, but believe me, it gets even weirder later.

For example, we get to know that people close to death can see a normal blue sea, which seems completely random, but ok.

The heroine was badass and funny: that’s something I’m always glad about in Quinrose games, I usually enjoy the heroine and Lydia was no exception.

Her sister was… creepy? I mean, she seemed to be really in love with her, like a yandere or something like that…. I don’t even know if it was funny or just weird.

My favorite route was Loki’s.

He’s supposed to have the role of Ursula in the fairytale, but here he’s a boy with pink hair instead. He helped her to become human, but she refused to give away her voice and they made a different deal: she couldn’t say any romantic words.

Basically, she couldn’t confess to anyone.

It wasn’t a great problem anyway; if the boy confessed, she just kissed him and everything was settled immediately!

I’ll be honest, he’s so crazy that I was just expecting a funny route, but it was actually quite sad and there was an interesting plot: I think it was the only one really worth playing, because even the writing was good.

There’s no need to talk about other individual routes this time, there were even too many playable characters without a real plot… I’ll just talk about the prince, because he was obviously the main character and the route with the real ending.

He’s the boy she saved from drowning, giving him blood and making him immortal; but he had nothing to do with the black sea, he was just looking for her because he wanted to go back being a normal human again.

That’s something which really bothered me: every time there was the big revelation, when Lydia admitted to be the mermaid who saved him, he wasn’t surprised at all… he was really calm, like it was nothing! He didn’t even want proofs, he just answered: “I’m glad I can meet you again, I’ve been looking for you!” and it seemed so awkward!

I guess I’m just expecting too much from a troll game like this, everything seemed just made to entertain and not to be taken seriously.

Do I recommend this?

I guess “play it for the LOLs”?

It’s not a serious game, but it’s enjoyable if you are just looking for entertainment.

The characters are crazy, the plot is absurd, the heroine is funny and the CGs are so many; even if the quality is not great, I don’t think it’s bad either.

Some of the dialogues are so weird that I was laughing and facepalming the whole time, at least I was never bored.

Sometimes I’m sad that QuinRose has closed, those trashy moments are sadly over now.

After my bad experience with More Blood, I decided to give up Diabolik Lovers for a while: I didn’t play Vandead Carnival and it was a good idea, probably, because the reviews are terrible.

When Dark Fate was announced, I wasn’t very interested; but then the curiosity to try the new characters won over rationality, and I’ve bought this game too.

I’ve realized immediately that it’s very different from More Blood: there’s less violence and the characters seem to care about Yui as a person, finally.

Overall, the psychological and physical abuse decreased, because they act less sadistic and selfish; well, almost everyone.

This time, I’ve decided to start from Laito.

I can’t believe he stopped calling her “bitch chan”, it was about time to use her real name!

Also, I’m glad to see that this route was coherent with More Blood’s endings, I couldn’t stand to go back to the old times, when he kept thinking about Cordelia and thought all women were toys.

Even Kanato’s attitude improved in this game, I finally could enjoy his route: he never told Yui that she should die, that’s a miracle! Somehow he grew up a bit and stopped acting always like a spoiled brat.

I was glad to play my tsundere Subaru again, all the random anger that made him so violent in the previous game almost disappeared; I appreciated to know more about the relationship with his mother, even if the ending made me really sad.

His route was very good, there was everything: romanticism, sadness, emotions, tragedy… everything I needed!

Reiji had a good character development too: he finally got rid of his inferiority complex and realized that his father didn’t love Shu more than him.

But what about Beatrix? We know everything about Cordelia, and also about Christa. I don’t get why there are so little information about her, I’m interested!

Instead, I unfortunately met Cordelia in Ayato’s route.

She was way better in this game, and I’m glad that she acted like a mother at least once, but… I don’t care anymore about her tbh.

At least, Ayato was not violent and sadistic as in More Blood, or I swear I would have dropped his route this time, for real.

Yuma’s route was perfect, I loved every single moment! He finally discovered the truth about his past, and it made me really emotional… he’s such a good boy, he deserves to be happy.

I can’t believe that finally Rejet gave him a truly happy ending, it felt too good to be true.

Ruki’s route was disappointing.

I was hoping to see some kind of strategic battle, but it was mostly angst and his feelings of guilt towards Karlheintz. This is understandable, Ruki carries an heavy responsibility and he doesn’t want to betray his benefactor, but it was quite boring.

Suddenly, he completely changed his mind and decided that he wanted to be honest with his feelings and admit his love for Yui… I don’t know, the writing had some problems here.

Azusa’s route had the opposite problem: too many things happening so fast, and some of them were unexpected and shocking! It was nice to see him actually doing something, instead of just being a do-m and watching his brothers do everything; but his attitude changed too much, he seemed like a different person! It was probably for Yui’s sake, to protect her, but still creepy.

Finally, I decided to give a try to the new characters.

Shin was less violent than I imagined, his route wasn’t that bad; of course, he doesn’t have any feeling towards Yui in the beginning, so he acts too rudely (I even had some kind of More blood flashbacks).

His relationship with his brother was interesting, there were so many mixed feelings that I couldn’t help but wonder what he’s actually thinking about him. Hate? Respect? Revenge? I’m still not sure.

Carla was disappointing and quite rage inducing.

I was waiting for some great revelations, but his route was just random violence… I got really bored. It made me remember Ayato’s route in More Blood, and that’s the worse I can think of in otoge’s history! (well, maybe not… but you get the idea)

I liked the Tsukinami’s background, but the routes seemed almost useless to me… I think it’s a big waste, they could be very interesting!

I left Kou and Shu for last, because they are my favorites and I had great expectations.

Kou’s route was probably the best of the game, everything was perfect! There was the right amount of angst, regret, pain… and finally, happiness.

I think Kou has the saddest past of them all, that’s why seeing him happy makes me feel good too!

I only have a complaint: in the good ending, everything gets solved too easily, and the Tsukinami seem to disappear without any battle… why?! This happened in many routes, not just in Kou’s.

Deus ex machina, anyone?

Shu’s route was nice, but nothing compared to the first game.

I’m not disappointed, but not even satisfied: it feels like the writers didn’t put too much effort because he’s already popular enough.

Well, at least they didn’t ruin him, maybe I should just be happy about it!

Do I recommend this?

For those who love Diabolik Lovers, yes!

If you survived More Blood, (and even Vandead Carnival) this will be a really nice game: the writing really improved, the violence decreased and the plot was interesting in almost every route.

Sometimes I feel like Karlheintz is the real main character of the series: he planned and predicted every move, and he seems to be like some kind of god.

I can’t hate him after all, you can clearly see his love for the Mukami and for his sons too.

Kou and Subaru got the best routes, but Yuma’s got the best ending for sure!

Shin was an interesting surprise, Azusa’s route was shocking and Carla was the biggest disappointment of the game.

I won’t review Lunatic Parade: it was just a mediocre FD, I don’t even know what I should write about it. But I’m going to buy Lost Eden for sure!

It took me a while, before playing Re:birthday song: Satoi’s art attracted me so much, but I was afraid that the sad story would made me desperately cry in the end.

Anyway, I won over my fears, and I finally started it.

The beginning of the game seemed quite nice, even funny: the heroine failed her exams, and she got assigned to another class, where she met all the main characters.

Then she had to do a lot of silly works with them, like taking care of animals, which made this everything but a nakige! But obviously, it couldn’t last forever.

I’ve started playing from Kairi, who looked like the nicest out of all: in fact, he was a very sweet guy, and he kept taking care of the heroine.

Also, he said a line I personally appreciated, that was something like “I want you to be confident, you should love yourself like I do”. It really got me, it’s a simple yet wonderful line, I think I’ve never heard it anywhere else and it felt good!

His past was very sad, as expected; also, the heroine had many problems to become shinigami at first, because she couldn’t stand people dying. I can understand this, but…….. once you know what a shinigami is, you must be prepared! It doesn’t make sense, if you say it’s a cool job, then you can’t do it properly when your time comes.

It was nice to see Kairi recovering from his traumatic past, discovering the reality behind his death and finally send his father to heaven. I enjoyed both the Happy ending and the Shinigami ending equally, the most important thing for me was to see Kairi smiling happily, after all that pain in his childhood!

Ame was nice to play, I loved his soothing personality.

The overall plot was too similar to Kairi’s route, but as you will see in the real ending all the characters were connected to the heroine in the real world, that’s why she met them again in the underworld and could reborn with them.

His secret felt a bit weird and out of place, compared to the realism of Kairi’s tragic past, but it also fit his character really well, so I’m not complaining.

But why no kiss CG?? their relationship was really cute, but they looked more like brother and sister instead of lovers.

Shun’s route was the most tragic to me: I hated his mother at first, but so many terrible things happened… I couldn’t help to feel sorry for her too.

In the beginning it was a bit boring, because he just skipped all the lessons and the poor heroine had also to take punishments; but then it’s tsundere side came out, and he was really cute.

Yoru was my favorite!

He was very serious and strict, but also caring and supporting, when he helped the heroine to study; the sudden kiss scene was very unexpected and gorgeous, I loved it! His past wasn’t even sad, so this route had no boring and overdramatic issue to solve, it focused more on their relationship.

Also, the resurrection ending was really cute, I loved them together!

Nami sensei’s route was a bit boring at first: I had to pair up with Yuyu, and at that point his childish voice really annoyed me, I couldn’t stand him anymore.

Many people seemed to hate Nami, but I had no problems with him… or maybe it’s just because I’m used to yandere and I think they are interesting most of the time; I’ve played way worse routes, this wasn’t disturbing at all!

My only complain were the endings: they were good for the character himself, but since this was the last route, which revealed all the secrets behind the school, I was also hoping for a great ending that involved equally all the characters.

All those flashbacks in the epilogue were not satisfying at all!

I would have loved to see the heroine standing on her own, without choosing anyone of them… but I guess this is impossible.

Do I recommend this game?

Well…. I don’t thinks so.

It’s not bad, don’t give me wrong! But I think there are too many lacking points:

• Too much copy pasta

  Once you’re done with the first route, you can easily predict what will happen in the others.

  And this is boring as hell, because the only thing left to know is the reason why they died, and it’s always sad or rage inducing.

• Too many slow scenes

  Some dialogues felt useless and pretty boring; I couldn’t even pay attention and got easily distracted.

• The CGs felt inconsistent

  This is very painful to see, because I love Satoi, but some CGs have weird angles or wrong timing. I don’t think it’s her fault, she probably draw what honeybee requested her, but someone here made huge mistakes! When CGs are needed, you only see a white screen; then, you see useless CG when there’s no need at all.

That said, this is not a kusoge at all: the overall plot is interesting, some scenes made me cry, and I loved the characters; Yoru most of all, was a really nice boy.

I will probably play Un:birthday too, because it looks more interesting and I’m curious about the older Shinigami; but I won’t get my expectations too high, because it may have the same problems as this.

Since I really loved the first Diabolik Lovers game, obviously I had to play the sequel too!

I read many reviews before starting, so I was mentally prepared: everybody was complaining about the increase of random violence, so I knew it could be quite harsh to sit through.

Since the beginning, I realized that was true, unfortunately.

Even Subaru, who was my dear tsundere, was quite difficult to tolerate, even in the prologue; for this reason, I’ve decided to start from Reiji, because he’s usually a less violent character.

It was a good idea! I admit that his route was the most boring to me, in the first game; I hated his relationship with Shu, and I couldn’t even pity him for his inferiority complex.

But in More Blood there were interesting flashbacks, which showed how and why that hate began, so I could understand him better and I even grew to like him, in the end.

The plot was not that interesting, but at least I discovered some positive sides of this character, so I felt satisfied.

I’ve played Ayato next, and…………… it was bad. Very bad.

The problem wasn’t just his sadistic attitude, but also the terrible writing: all the scenes were the same, with nonsense violence repeating… who wrote this?!

I swear I was about to drop this route, I was very angry and I couldn’t stand his behavior anymore!

Each scene basically went like this: he told Yui that she was only a prey, and her blood was the only thing he cared about; then he sucked her blood, without caring if she was fainting, and leaving her alone. This terrible plot was basically the whole route.

I’m not even kidding, I had to play hours of this……… needless to say, in the end I couldn’t even look at his face, nor hear his voice. To be honest, it took me a lot of time before I changed my opinion about him.

Randomly, the writer decided that Ayato could become a tsundere in the end, and ask Yui to marry him. Why?! He treated her like shit since a few moments before……… I can’t even describe my frustration.

I’ve played Subaru next, hoping that at least his route would be better and he could treat Yui as a person… and I was not disappointed, this time.

It was also interesting to know more about his mother, she was really crazy… poor boy, he had to suffer a lot in his childhood. His ending was better than the first game, I enjoyed it a lot!

At that point, I’ve decided to try one of the new characters.

Azusa was my first Mukami, and his route was quite shocking: I wasn’t prepared for his absurd masochism, it almost scared me! His childhood was so sad, I pitied him a lot… I wanted to help him, because this boy obviously had some serious mental issues.

It may seem weird to say, but I appreciated Laito’s route too.

In the first game, I didn’t appreciate the lack of development in his character: he didn’t understand the meaning of true love at all, and he obviously couldn’t love Yui.

But More blood gave him a real growth, I could feel him changing a lot: he discovered love, and he realized that relying on someone else is not that bad; he became a better person, and it wasn’t all random and sudden (like it happened in Ayato’s ending).

Kou was the real surprise of this game to me.

I wasn’t expecting to fall so hard for a Mukami, but it happened!

He wasn’t easy to handle, but after I knew about his past, I’ve realized that he wasn’t really a bad person: he just couldn’t trust nobody anymore, and needed more time to open up and show his true self. In the end, I’ve decided to forgive his bad side, I think he deserved it.

Kanato was difficult to play: I didn’t like him from the start, because he pierced my ears in the first game too. There’s not even a plot in this route, I can sum it up like this: Azusa randomly shows up and talks toYui; Kanato is jealous and screams at Azusa to go away and die, then screams at Yui that he hates her and she should die too, because she’s a betrayer and a liar; then he sucks her blood.

In the ending, he suddenly becomes nice, for no reason.

I don’t know if I’m the only one who noticed this, but………. don’t you think that this terrible scenario was written by the same person in charge of Ayato? Because the problem is the same, every scene keeps repeating in a never-ending predictable circle!

Yuma’s route was way better.

I had so many feelings for this character, and so many expectations!

I imagined the plot would be quite different, but I enjoyed it anyway, even if many important parts were not completely explained. And he’s such a tsundere, he acts like a rude boy, but you can see he really loves Yui in the end!

Ruki is like the boss in the Mukami’s family, that’s why I’ve played him last.

I’ll be honest, it was a bit disappointing; I didn’t dislike him, but he was too serious and even boring sometimes. He was less violent than the others, I felt safer, but… I wasn’t completely satisfied.

I’ve played Shu last, because he was my favorite in the first game.

And I loved everything in More blood, too! All the flashbacks about his childhood days and Edgar made me so emotional… it was really a nice route.

Would I recommend this game?

I admit that most of the complaints you can read in every other review are true: there’s really more violence, and some routes suffer a bad writing and plotholes (or you can even say, there’s no plot at all). But there are also some positive points!

Personally, I enjoyed the new characters: they were interesting and most of their routes were well written; their past were really sad and made me emotional.

I even appreciated Karlheintz more, and I could understand better his relationship with his sons; maybe he’s not that bad, after all.

I think the people who enjoyed the first game should play More blood too, just be prepared: there are many issues here, and you may end up hating this series in the end (especially if you are a Kanato or Ayato fan).

Before playing this game, I was quite worried: many people complained about the difficult kanji, so I thought that buying it immediately instead of waiting for the english localization was a huge mistake.

But it wasn’t true! Obviously, this is not for beginners, but my japanese is not that good and still I had no problems.

Also, I was worried that an heavy plot could overshadow completely the romance part, making this game more like an action/detective game instead of an otoge…. that was wrong, too. Obviously, it depends on the route, but overall I didn’t feel a lack of romance at all.

I’ve played Mineo first, and I fell in love immediately: he was so awkward and shy, he could say the most embarrassing lines ever…. in one world, he was flawless. I couldn’t ask more from a character, there were so many funny scenes in his route, I just kept laughing at his reactions! And he was so cute when he was jealous… everything was perfect.

Also, his case was the most interesting to me, I could perfectly understand his sad feelings and his desire to give up… but in the end, he came back and he grew as a person, not only as a policeman.

His route felt complete, I really appreciated the writing too: serious and funny parts blended together very well and there weren’t boring moments at all. A really good start for this game!

Takeru’s route was completely different.

In the beginning, it was very serious and all about investigations; also, he was quite rude to the heroine, I even thought “Ichika, can’t you just chose another boy? Look around you, there are so many nice guys!”. But then, after accepting her as a partner, he became really nice, and I’ve started to like him.

The atmosphere felt overall heavier than Mineo’s route, there weren’t as many funny moments; but the cute scenes with Takeru made me fall in love with him really hard, he can be so nice and caring! The ending was perfect too, I was even screaming like crazy at the confession scene!

Kei interested me since the beginning, I fell in love immediately with his personality!

He was so caring towards the heroine, but at the same time really reliable and stoic with his job.

His constant research for a meaningful death made me really sad, I’m very glad that Ichika didn’t let it pass and got mad at him.

Somehow, this route felt longer than the others, probably because this case felt a bit boring to me, it didn’t get my interest as the previous routes; their relationship was also developing in an awkward way sometimes, they acted like lovers even before confessing, so it was a bit weird.

Anyway, the exciting ending made up for it, it was really cool! I just wished I could see more romantic moments.

Shiraishi’s route got me disappointed.

He was an interesting character for sure, I had great expectations and I was very curious about his secrets and his past… but I don’t think it was explained perfectly, I wanted to see more and understand better what happened in his childhood days.

Plus, his endings were really awful, I was not satisfied at all!

He couldn’t have a simple happy ending as the others, and that’s fine; but there were too many things happening in his route, at least I wished there was more focus on him instead of the case, because it just felt incomplete.

Yanagi’s route was obviously the most important, because it tied all the cases together and also unveiled the truth about the Xday.

It was awesome and shocking, I wasn’t expecting that person to be the real culprit and the mastermind behind everything! I had no idea, I was suspecting another person… the writing was amazing.

My favorite part was the last phrase in the end: “everyone has an invisible collar attached”,which got me really thinking…. it impressed me, I wasn’t expecting so many serious topics from an otoge.

Needless to say, this is my best otoge of the year.

I would recommend anyone to play it, absolutely! If you’re too afraid of difficult kanji, maybe wait for the english localization: I hope it will be good, because if it’s bad like the previous releases I’m going to be very angry this time.

Collar Malice deserves a perfect translation, because everyone has the rights to enjoy it as I did… people must not be condescending, this is a true masterpiece that can not be ruined by terrible memes or other random problems.

I don’t even know who is my favorite character, I enjoyed them all…. and I need a fandisk so badly, I hope Otomate will listen to our prayers soon!