WOWZA this one really surprised me!!! I LOVED it. I have a quite a few small gripes with it (mostly about the story structure/writing, localization/language barrier issues, and the lackluster extra content), but those aren’t enough to take away from the fact that this game seriously has the BEST characters. First, the voice acting is incredible. This game gave me some serious laughs and awwwwws, AND it gets extra points cause it’s the first Otome game to ever make me cry!!! And I mean CRY, not just tear up. It was towards the end of Mozu’s route which for me was extremely personal, and I think that’s one of the great things about this game is that I think most people can find something they relate to in at least one of the routes. This game tackles SO many issues: past regrets, revenge, being unsure of one’s identity, the importance of family, body image, shame, drug addiction and recovery, death of loved ones, trauma, deception, you name it. With that said, I would definitely offer a trigger warning if you are highly sensitive to any of these topics, particularly violence. I also have to give a lot of credit to the devs and writers for the protagonist, Teuta. She is seriously one of the best protagonists I’ve encountered so far. First of all, she’s VOICED!! Which is amazing, I didn’t know how much a voiced protagonist REALLY ups the immersion and I really hope that becomes the norm in the future. But more importantly, this woman is no pushover. To me she’s the epitome of a “modern” 21st century woman. She knows what she wants for the most part, she views herself as equal to men, and she’s confident, silly, and perfectly imperfect. I loved her.
Lastly, it wouldn’t be a great Otome game without great romance. I do think that BUSTAFELLOWS intentionally leans more into story than romance, but the romance it did have was really nice and felt VERY natural. This game was also a first for me in that I actually liked ALL of the routes. Normally there’s at least one I don’t like or am at least indifferent to; not the case here, they really were all great. My #1 ended up being Shu which shocked me cause he’s definitely not your typical sweetheart. However, I think he really made me fall for him because he is probably one of the most straightforward LIs I’ve ever seen in Japanese media, and if you know anything about [romantic] Japanese media, you know these types of guys are one in a million, or more like a billion lmao. It was so refreshing and just straight up satisfying. Like, “I love you, you love me, let’s kiss and date, also yes I’d like to have sex with you eventually” chef’s kiss
ALSO REAL QUICK: The music in this game absolutely SLAPS