![]() You could probably say that the characters look “traditional” now, as VNs start to edge towards more unique and quirky character designs, but they’re all believably romantic partners for the woman. Even by Otomate’s standards, as perhaps the most aesthetically driven of the otome developers, Amnesia stands out as some of the team’s best work. There are a couple of things about Amnesia that help it to stand out, all these years later. This one keeps things focused, and is quite interesting for it. Most of the “big” otome releases tack the romance on to some broader adventure that the protagonist is on. Again, it’s not always pretty, but there’s an earnestness and honestness in the way that Amnesia depicts romances – and the not-always-ideal surprises that come as you get to know your partner – and it’s incredibly appealing to read through. This is made pretty literal through Amnesia, and in doing so – even via the one love interest that goes some very creepy places – this game does come across as a more pure and focused take on romance. One of the things that make relationships so exciting is the joy of discovery – learning about your partner and, in the process, yourself. It is a bit of a contrivance, but as an analogy for relationships, it’s a pretty useful one. She needs to interact with these ultra-attractive men in order to slowly piece those memories together, remember her relationship with them, and ultimately, separate from the spirit again. You play as a young woman, who has lost all of her memories after a spirit collided with her (otome stories really do love their exotic contrivances). The basic flow of Amnesia works as follows: At the start of the game, you pick from one of four (later on, five) suits from a deck of cards (Clubs, Hearts, Spacers, Diamonds – Joker is the later, fifth option), and then from start to the ending (whether it be a good or bad one), the story remains locked to the character that the suit represents.Įach story follows a general arc. It’s not an uncomplicated kind of romance, and certainly the bad endings are not the endings that you want for the heroine, but uncomplicated and messy as the subject can be, Amnesia’s greatest strength is that it remains very fixated on telling stories of romance. For most of the rest, however, Amnesia comes across as a very romantic thing indeed, and therefore (weirdly) quaint for the genre. There’s one story route in Amnesia that tracks down this kind of narrative pathway too, and it’ll be the one that is the most polarising for players. The last thing you’d expect is to see the women beaten and broken, and you’d have to assume that what some of the women protagonists in these games go through would be difficult to call “romantic.” I know more than a few people that were utterly surprised by just how dark these games can get at times. After all, otome is often described as a romance genre, aimed at women… almost like the Harlequin novels of video games. As good as Piofiore, Olympia Soiree, and others can be (and indeed those two examples are), the fact that the heroine can very easily end up becoming a sex slave (or worse) can come across as being surprising to genre newcomers. In the years since we’ve seen the otome genre diverge in all kinds of directions, but many of the more noteworthy ones have taken on a hard edge indeed. That’s not a criticism of Amnesia, by any means, but the experience of reading through this game in 2022 is not unlike reading a classic novel: it offers a traditional kind of excellence. Amnesia: Memories was first released over a decade ago, and it’s fair to say that the visual novel genre – and particularly the otome sub-genre – has moved at a rapid pace from that time.
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