1 review liked by rottenshortcake


Sword Art Otoge. Enjoy being patronized because, as a female, you clearly know nothing about "com-poo-ters" and need everything explained to you like you're 5, but also you're somehow "the chosen one" in this MMO or whatever. I understand that otoge are frequently played by non-gamers but the extent of which basic terminology is defined for the heroine feels excessive to the point of misogyny, and bogs down the common route.

Libera's route is the most interesting one to discuss for me since that one veers very close to queer subjects before jerking away. Libera's a "girl in game, guy IRL" but they still have several romantic scenes together in-game before Libera clarifies their IRL identity with this sapphic energy, and it actually had me going "are we really doing this?" for a moment before Libera explains they're totally a boy IRL and not experimenting with gender or anything. The Otomate brand is honestly pretty conservative and doesn't push the envelope so the joke's on me for getting my hopes up, but that's because the rest of this is so dire. Radius and Demento (surprisingly) are decently cute dudes, but Zain's and Astrum's routes are like watching a shiny new car get demolished by an oncoming train in slow motion with horrid writing decisions.

Shame that the bad routes outweigh the good ones, I really like Kuroyuki's artstyle and was prepared to keep an open mind even with a derivative premise.