Haruoki Otome's horribleness

[mitchhamilton]

This topic is gonna talk about spoilers about Harukoi Otome. So if you havent read it already then you shouldnt continue.

 

 

 

Theres a post on Fuwa that Eclipsed made where he requests a vn like Princess Evangile. I joking suggested Harukoi Otome https://vndb.org/v979a vn that came out about a year and a half ago, released by mangagamer. i remember downloading it when it first came out and completed 5 routes before deciding to quit it. now jump a year and a half later and people are still calling it a bad vn. i remember not liking it but im curious as to why others didnt like it. why did i start this topic you ask? well Harukoi came out loooong before i was a member of the forums and i wasnt able to talk about this vn when i finished it. also its sometimes fun to rally against something and we all gather in a circle together and beat the crap out of it, before years down the line we look back and wonder if what we did was right? if maybe it didnt deserve its harsh treatment and the guilt torments us until we snap and confess what we've done and bring us all down with him.

 

........Sorry about that. CSI is playing in the background. anywho, ill go first.

 

 

The first route i started was the kendo girls. not much to say about this one except her fiance is a douche but the moment that stood out the most is when she breaks up with the mc and later on, the mc goes to see her to talk and the option comes up to have sex with her. i cant remember what it said but my thought process was "Maybe if this woman had another taste of my manliness, maybe she'll change her mind and get back with me." but nope. you straight up rape her and get the bad end. i felt like shit after this. i couldnt go back until a few days later. i honestly thought that maybe if they made love, she would realize how much she missed him and would want to be with him. but no you rape her, you scarred her for life. WTF?!

 

next was the curly green haired girl, the lesbian. heres a fun fact: she voiced Kayakami Kazuko from Maji de watashi ni koishinasai, a much better vn. anyways, her character in this is a lesbian. she has the hots for a popular girl in the school. she confesses her feelings and they start going out. YAAAAAY! after this is a loooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooong point in the arc where the mc is growing more and more in love with her. i cant remember much except that the girl cheats on curly green haired girl with someone else. this pissed me off! whats worse is its with a woman who always talks crap to curly green haired girl (im just gonna call her CGHG from now on) at least have the girl look sad everytime she sees cghg. that way when we find out later why she was acting that way it would make sense. otherwise she might be looked at as a huge bitch. i remember there was a reason why she cheated on her but i dont remember what it was all i know is that it wasnt enough to make me go "Oh well, now that i know, i toooootally understand why you had to go and break cghg's heart." plus this route just takes forever. the mc and cghg had some good interactions with eachother but man does this route take forever before they are a couple. whatever. not the worst route. NEXT

 

next was the sisters route which i believe was required in order to do the childhood friends route. or the other way around. cant really remember much except this is the route that made me want to watch puppies frolicking in the park. just something that would take my mind away from how bleak this route got. in case you dont remember but the mc's sister goes to the same school as you and is a year below you. she, of course, likes her onii-chan and he starts to like her until eventually they get together and  everything turns out great. WRONG!! turns out the mc has been having dreams lately about his childhood and about his sister. after a series of events he finds out the the sister is not actually his sister but a little girl his parents adopted right when his sister was killed in a car accident. she just happens to look a lot like her. i felt so depressed about this revelation. the flash backs were always his actual little sister and how much fun they had together. then to find out she died? thats just depressing. theres some vns you know are gonna be heavy. some that you know are gonna have certain events thatll just tear at your heart, but this? i honestly did not expect this, based on the cover art.

 

thats my main problem with the vn. in the beginning it was light hearted and fun. the girls were cute (the art style might be your taste but i liked it) and they had really cute moments. only throw some really heavy stuff. what about the other two routes? i dont care.

 

what made you hate this vn? was there something i miss in my rant? i wanna hear it.

[Thomas]

This game is sooooooo depressing. It has 1 route that is remotely good and that is Kisayas (kendo girl)

the other ones just drove me nuts.

So yeah its not a very good game.

 

MY RECOMMENDATION: stay away

[Satsuki]

Go to MG website >>> check the game >>> check the CGs >>> check the H-CGs >>> drop the game.

This was the first VN ever I dropped because the H-CGs looked soooo bad and gave me absolutely zero "feel"

[TexasDice]

All of the routes stories had atleast some potential to be good, (they're common tropes after all,) but everything is told in the most pain inducing way(s) possible.

 

I complain a lot about pace and Harukoi Otome is one of the worst offenders in that department. Almost every single scene in the drama stretches is unnecessarily dragged out and nothing more than pointless filler. You can only have the protagonist go "*sigh*", attend homeroom and watch the drill hair girl ask about his bad mood so many times before it becomes tedious.

 

One hour in Harukoi Otome feels like five and I honestly think that's not much of an exaggeration. 

 

Another issue are the flawed scripts itself, with Umi's route especially to point my finger at.

You can't tell a story about two siblings facing their forbidden feelings for each other and then tell us they actually aren't related and that the real sister died years ago.

Both of these are two entirely different stories and interfer with each other. The serious and touching incest plot loses all of it's impact and purpose after the „oh, so it isn't incest and everything is fine!“-ending, while the dead sister plot doesn't connect, because we've already spent so much time (~5000 hours) establishing the relationship between these two characters.

A rare example of a properly setup and foreshadowed twist, which falls completely flat regardless, because it doesn't fit into the story.

[mitchhamilton]

i remember some parts being extremely long, like with cghg but i dont remember them being that long. im probably just not remembering it well. repressed memories can do that to a person.

 

also is that a pic of that guy from Red Letter Media?

[suikashoujo]

I didn't even make it through one route of this game before dropping it, so I commend you for getting through 5. I tried doing the little sister route, but I don't even think I made it to the drama, because the "comedy" was so boring. Not to mention how unattractive the art was. Yeah, I don't drop VNs very often, but this was a notable exception, and it looks like I made the right decision.

[atorq]

The two routes that at least in my opinion doesn't entirely suck would be the childhood friend and blue-hair senpai. But the childhood friend route does have really stupid moments and really stupid solutions to ridiculous problems like so many other visual novels. And everything takes so fucking long, why is it so long? I died 500 times out of boredom while reading.

[TheFantasm]

A bit of blood started leaking from my eyes after attempting to finish the little sister route.

[Soulless Watcher]

Well, I'm glad I managed to avoid this bag of fun.