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carinareviews · 7 years

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Steam/PC: The Charming Empire Review

He’s a cutie <3

Final Grade: D+/C- TL;DR: Not great. OST was very mediocre. A little above average visuals. Storytelling was terrible. Voice Acting (VA) was the only saving grace for this game. UI is terrible/no improvement from the mobile version. Characters were great but development was non-existent in many of the routes. Couldn’t stomach the game to play through everyone’s Good ending…I just did Happy Endings which were still just mediocre ends.

Route Order I followed: Yoshimine, Togawa, Tanba, Sera, Soshi.

Route Order I recommend: Yoshimine, Tanba, Sera, Togawa, Soshi Though it honestly doesn’t matter since none of the storylines are that closely related anyways….I’d say Soshi for the beginning or end since his has the most “answers” in it. His route is pretty painful to save for last though….

Here are the route reviews: Ratings for the routes in this game will be actually higher than expected. I'm not saying these are "good" routes but the overall game is pretty kusoge (shit-game) so I'm rating them based on the low standards the overall game has set already. That being said, if you're use to fully fleshed out otome games, which I'm spoiled with...since I tend to play console based ones and not mobile based games, this game is pretty garbage. However, if you just want some light fluffy writing with tolerable visuals and a simple UI, this game is perfect. I originally played this game cause Tsuda Kenjiro VAs onii-chan... but holy shit after the first route I wasn't sure if I could make it through all the routes.

Luckily all the routes are pretty short....thank god. I didn't bother with the Normal ends cause the lackluster CGs with the shitty auto mode really made me want to kill myself while playing. Without further ado.. Here are the individual route reviews. Each written after completing the Good end.

Yoshimine 6/10

Angry Tsundere Shota >_> Uhhh def not my type. So I chose this to be my first route cause I saw the character pictures and this looked like no.1 not my type I tend to play the routes I don't think I'll like first then end with the best. He's an okay tsun-shota type. He def has some cute moments but it was really hard to get into his character since the kusoge didnt really give him good character development His idle sprite also looks really awkward too so that didn't help. Overall his VA really made up for the shitty character writing he had and semi brought his character to life. Oh yeah... the plot "twist" at the end...was so obvious.... holy shit.

Wtf is this idle..... something looks off....

Togawa 7/10

Okay... from what I see so far... this game is mainly a setup for the Soshi route at the end... I'm kinda okay with this. This route was sweet due to the bachelor being such a sweet cinnamon roll. Luckily his sprite wasn't as awkward to look at. His CGs were pretty weak as well. I think there was like 1 good CG. Augghh this kusoge with the shitty character development. I'm glad this character had some "history" with the MC though that made the lack of character development better. There were some interesting translation differences IDK were meant to be in there like switching black tea to just Earl Grey tea.

Tanba 8/10

So I really like Tanba Toki's design and the fact that his VA is also Prompto from FFXV's VA is even better.The VA suits him really well and his character development is on point. There was some questionable OST choices for certain scenes... there was "happy" music when you were helping the rebels... like whhaatt? THEN THE MAIN THING THAT MADE ME UPSET. NO CG FOR THE CONFESSION PART HOLY SHIT IM SO PISSED. THIS GAME IS KUSOGE WTH D: Then after the confession scene theres an awkward Kiss CG which look sssoooo weirrdd >_>

Overall though, this is my favorite route so far. He had the best writing so far. I think the fact that the MC doesn't get to be with him all the time really helps. There was def. slight character development written in for both the MC and Tanba. The trend of setting up for Soshi is still very prominent in this route...anddd still no connection to any other characters expect for Soshi. I really hope Soshi's route is good to make up for all the rest of these mediocre to shitty routes. (Spoiler…it didn’t) Sera's route next.

Sera 7/10

Alright, I'd be lying if I was going to say that I didn't enjoy this route. ITS STILL A TERRIBLE FUCKING ROUTE. Writing is very mediocre and storyline/development is downright garbage. BUT I fucking love Sera's character trope. Stoic quiet big guy who's actually a fucking cinnamon roll inside. He also holds the knight card as in he must protecc. Seriously, if he had glasses he would be perfect for me. HOWEVER, the VAing in the beginning was a little forced. I think Takuya (the VA) was trying to force himself to have a deeper voice at times and it didn't sound good. Then there was the sprite of Sera... wtf is this hand shit going on his idle sprite?!??

Besides that shitty idle hand...I love his character design. A LOT of the scenes (including the ending) were not satisfying at all....they could've done so much more with his scenes. The sewing scene pissed me off the most....WTF IS THAT "he said thanks" end scene. The best part of this route is that Kagamitsu Togawa actually exists in this and Yoshimine Kei is hinted at...finaaaalllly other characters being shown. I'm also glad of Soshi's end in this route compared to others. Lots of good but lots of bad in this route.... Soshi for last bois.

Soshi 6/10

I'm. so. sad. I was super hyped for this last route cause there Soshi was the only route that was hinted at in ALL the other routes. This route was a whole lot of disappointment though :( In fact... Togawa was kinda the only saving grace of this route. Arrgggh I tried so hard to like this route I really did but the story telling was soooo bad. I mean after playing the other routes you kinda are just waiting for the "twist" that was shown before...so the precursor to it is literally like WHY?! WHY YOU GOTTA BE LIKE THAT SOSHI KUN?!Also there was some fucking weird ass development or something messed up in the translation.... WHERE THE FUCK DID THE TEA PART COME FROM!? DID I MISS SOMETHING!?!?!AS IN (Spoiler alert)

WHY THE FUCK DID SHE TRY TO KILL HIM?! I'm sorry this is the only major spoiler I had to mention cause I was so confused when it happened. Then the writing got even weirder when the "Happy end" scene played where she literally started to call him "Onii-chan" and she's been calling him Soshi the whole time.... even Soji at some point IDK why....top of that...why the fuck was Soshi allowed to do what he was allowed to do at the end like no you were still the ruler howwww?....This route was just full of weird plot holes and shit that just didn't make sense. Since the route was very shitty to begin with the CGs were equally lackluster. Boring scenes got boring CGs except for the last CG but by then I was just so sad and done with the game. Tsuda Kenjiro's VAing talents were wasted on this kusoge and kuso-chara.

The Pros:

Artstyle/Character Designs- I really enjoyed a lot of the Character Designs. In fact it was the VAing and Character designs that made me eventually pick up this game. The art is vibrant is really nice to look at. Sadly some of the CGs weren’t the best of quality and some sprites could be improved. However, overall the art is very pleasant and well suited for the time period it is set in.

OST- OST was decent too. For a mobile game that ported to PC. I was decently surprised that even after trudging through so many routes the OST didn’t get annoying or repetitive. Granted there were some questionable timing on when to play certain tracks but the songs themselves were still pretty good.

VAing- So many good voice actors involved in this game. Tsuda Kenjiro is literally my favorite VA and they had the voice of Prompto too? Man good shit. The VAing did not disappoint. They def. made the game 100x better. If this game didn’t have VAing I would’ve been so sad and I don’t think I could’ve played through it all.

The Cons:

UI/UI Functionality- My BIGGEST GRIPE about this game. I get it shitty story/development, budget art, etc. BUT WHEN YOU CANT EVEN GET YOUR UI TO FUNCTION/LOOK GOOD?! COME ON! The UI is directly a port from the mobile game so it looks clunky and jenky. Not only that Auto doesn’t work as auto normally does in otoges. It acts more of a skip button which was SO FRUSTRATING. I sometimes multitask when I play otome games like check my phone/send messages to people, so I love having it on auto especially with VAing. Additionally I don’t know if it was only a bug on my game but my settings would NEVER save when I would start a new route… holy that pissed me off.

Development of Characters- Do I even have to touch on this? There was little to no development of the bachelors at all… Most of their characters were just thrown together and you were to just nod your head at some of their “developments” as in they would say “I’m partially a cat” and your character would go “Oh cool”. End of story sequence. I wanted to just punch the screen sometimes…

Tasteless CGS- Artstyle==cool. CGs==terrible. The CGs were at really weird timing and sometimes I wished there was a certain CG at a certain time but there wasn’t. I don’t know if its because there wasn’t enough memory to put in CGs for the mobile release or what not, but regardless the game did not have CGs at good times. Leading the CGs to be at awkward moments, except for the “core” CGS aka the “meeting” CGs and the “ending” CGs.

Main Character- She’s weak willed and not a fun character to follow. She just takes things as is, except maybe in Tanba’s route. I hated “being” her… I wanted to make choices at times when the games doesn’t give you a choice.

Bottom Line:

This game is just pretty garbage. I just want to move on my life and pretend that Tsuda Kenjiro wasn’t VAing in this game. If you’re thinking of buying this game..buy it on sale…like 50% or more sale or some shit. The routes are short and not fun to play through. There are def. better choices of otome games out there for PC. Of course not a lot of them are voiced by cool Japanese voice actors but this one is pretty shitty you might as well pass. I would highly recommend Nightshade on Steam or if you’re looking for something more comedy-esque and risqué… Fashioning Little Miss Lonesome. For good artstyle I’ve heard good things about OZ-Mafia too. Or just save your money up for a PSTV for those sweet sweet PSVITA games. ;)

#The Charming Empire #steam review #PC review #carina reviews #otome games #otoge

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