I'm back, and I'm weebier than ever! (Sorry if you thought, a year+ ago, I wouldn't be just another nerd with some opinions about anime and video games and nothing else, because that's exactly what I am).
Also, I returned with some inkling on how to actually review things... I suffered a lot of secondhand embarrassment for younger me reading back through the backlog.
This thing is gonna be long, so if you want a tl;dr, here it is: I loved it, shell out the thirty bucks because it's well worth it, highly recommended.
Anyways, I actually just spent a good... 30~ or so hours playing this straight through, but since I fear that when I go to sleep I'll also lose a large chunk of my memories from this all-nighter-ish-thing that I won't be able to recall enough of the first routes I played through to do a review...meaning I'd have to replay them and I'm not ready for that type of commitment...again.
I've been a fan of the otome game genre for a little while now, but this is the first one that is both commercial and bought by myself. For those of you not in the know: Otome games are essentially dating simulation games or visual novels targeted towards the female demographic, wherein a heroine is placed in a setting where the typical goal (for the player, at least) is to romance one fictional anime man (or lady, when the game-makers are generous (sadly, I haven't played any games yet with a girl/girl option)) out of... well, it ranges from two, to three, to five, to...like...ten, or something. Dandelion comes with five...sorta.
My past experience with this genre lies in Hakuoki: Demon of the Fleeting Blossom, which is enjoyable, yeah, but so gosh diddly darn heavy in plot and historical tokugawa-shogunate-period japanese terminology that it was fairly hard to follow at some points. Granted, I've only played three routes, and one of them was with the main boy, who followed the main plot that left too little time to spare for romance and the other dude being the senpai with a bromance that broke my heart but also left the main plot hanging and then swept under a rug... Anyways, my issues with Hakuoki are A) not relevant and B) belonging in a separate review when I finally manage to finish the game.
So what we can gather from this is that Dandelion is a first for me. I was nervous when I first bought it - to be totally honest, I didn't know much of what it would be about other than the description offered, though it had some good ratings and was also fully voiced and available on macs...so I started out optimistic.
On to the actual review! (Spoilers present, I'll try and keep them simple and not spoil the endings or major plot points too much.)
Here's the provided description:
"Hee-Jung is a 21 year old girl who pushes herself to be perfect at everything; yet she realizes that she does not know what she really desires.
Although she lives a hectic life, she feels like she is on the road to nowhere. However, one day she encounters mysterious animals and decides to take them in. She doesn’t yet realize that this will radically change her life…”
I'm going to go on and start with my individual ratings of the character routes available: I'll go into characters from there and then I'll get into ending ratings. The BONUS ~true ending~ isn't counted in the routes, as the...entire game is sort of that route considering it can only be unlocked after all the good endings of the other routes have been achieved.
Character Routes (Ending Bias Included)
1. Jiwoo
* Jieun
3. Jiyeon
4. Jisoo
5. Jihae
Jiwoo and Jieun are tied for first. I put a lot of thought into that - but they're tied in my mind, there's no way around it. Also, let'd get this straight: I enjoyed all of the routes. Heck I even enjoyed Jihae's even though it had the least substance, in my opinion - I still loved it. I loved Jiyeon's route, and he's smack dab in the middle. Just know that it goes from best to good here.
Jiwoo Route
Here he is. Hot diggity damn, I honestly did not expect or even believe it possible for an otome route to be so funny. Jiwoo appears as a secluded spotted rabbit (with some awkward bedroom eyes goin on if you pet his stomach or give him a carrot - let's not get into that) who turns into MegaTsun, the Fifth of his name, right after our lovely heroine Heejung realizes she has a penchant for sadism. I really, really loved their relationship, and how much she teased him and how that lighthearted, fun tone kept up as the story progressed. That wasn't something I was expecting: I played them in the order the menu offered; Jisoo, Jihae, Jiwoo, Jiyeon, Jieun - so I'd just come out of Jihae's which, while not bad, wasn't the most memorable - really, my best comparison was Jisoo's route, which kinda lost its rebellious tone as it went along and the player and Heejung got used to Jisoo and his antics.
Not the case with Jiwoo - there was always something new for him and Heejung to argue or discuss or come to terms with and it was all very different and varied. The translators...definitely had their fun with this one, lemme tell ya.
Heejung and Jiwoo helped each other grow, and at the end they both had immense respect and affection for one another, as well as having both grown into lovely, lovely adults.
The voice was pretty great, too.
The Ending: Wonderful; I actually may have shed a tear or two.
Bonus points for Jiwoo being the only sub in the game - granted, this is never really confirmed or denied for any of them besides Jisoo (and....Jiyeon.........), but...
I mean, really, c'mon.
The story of how she pins him to the ground using two cabbage halves and a carrot is a good one, too.
Jieun Route
Aaah, yes - the shota. Y'know, Heejung is actually fairly old for an otome heroine (from what I've learned, they typically come around 14-18), and she's a senior in college at 21. That being said, three out of the five boys are younger than her - Jiwoo and Jiyeon being assumed at around 18, or 17, since Jiyeon is mentioned to be a minor at one point, and Jieun being noted as the smallest of all of them - I'd say he's around 16, considering Jihae is the oldest and is seven years older than Jieun, putting him at 23-ish. Jisoo is assumed to be Heejung's age. Anyways - I got some lovely flavorings of Jieun in the other routes, specifically Jiwoo's (where he had a hand in The Great Cabbage Trap (see above Jiwoo CG)) and especially Jihae's, so I was actually very excited to play through his route. In fact there was so much of him in Jihae's (which I will have to speak about) that I wanted to go on and play his route right after - but then, I figured, nah, him and Jihae are similar enough that I don't want two doses of the same thing right after another - true enough, I don't think I would have appreciated it if it hadn't been at the end.
Anyways, this is the first shota route I've ever played (I didn't want to touch the kid offered in Hakuoki (even though he's probably 17) bc he's a rotten monkey) so I was...very, very pleasantly surprised at how respectfully Jieun's was handled. Heejung had to watch over him for a bit in Jihae's route, and I, being a rather largely maternal person myself, jumped at the chance for more adorable cuddling...which is what I got. Hugging, lots of it. Jieun is very definitely a minor and not even finished growing - but though Heejung eventually realizes how mature he is, that boundary of "you're so mature you're practically an adult" is never breached, it never comes close. There isn't even a love confession, just somewhere along the way it is acknowledged that Jieun is the one closest to Heejung and they go from there. Even when Heejung develops feelings for Jieun, and she realizes how mature he is, he never "becomes an adult" to her - he's still a growing boy. Personally, I appreciate that.
By this point I was expecting excellent development on both Heejung and Jieuns' and by jove did I get it.
The CV was lovely... I could listen to it forever, his voice was very soft and fluttery.
The Ending: A++++, the best one in the main routes. I've seen it advertised as the best one to start with, but I can't recommend that - not even that - I beg of you, I beseech you, I implore you, if you play this game: end with this route.
Bonus points for the only kiss between them being this:
I'm meeelting
Now, I'm gonna get into some spoilers here: I suspected, just from Jisoo's route alone that Jiyeon was really manipulative but I never expected the level of shitty broken bastard this kid was hiding. ....and I loved it.
His route was pretty confusing, not gonna lie, and at a couple points I seriously started asking myself if I wasn't actually on the bad route train but nope, nope. I pitied Heejung a lot and I probably would've disliked Jiyeon a whole lot more if I wasn't basically in the same boat as her - that being, too confused and curious to be turned away. It all balances out nicely in the end, in my opinion, and I actually enjoyed the ending, even if there was only two months to sort everything out and finish the game.
The fact that his plot isn't resolved might be a drawback for some.
I actually think it was even more guilty-pleasure-y than Jisoo's..................
CV was..........goodness. Very impressive performance.
The Ending: All in all very nice. The most bittersweet of all of them, I think, and I felt bad but at the same point I could understand and the character in question did as well. It works well in the middle.
Bonus points for older non-neko Jiyeon.
wow
Jisoo Route
Contrary to my initial belief, Jisoo is who I would consider to be the "main boy" of this game. I initially thought it was Jiyeon, considering his positioning in the center of the circle of boys on the cover, but a couple things early on made it fairly clear - to me, at least - that Jisoo is where the money's at. His bad ending also has a whole nother CG, something the other boys lack.
Maybe I haven't mentioned this - the boys are all fairly tropey, or at least they start out that way - Jisoo is the jealous, occasionally possessive type. Fair warning: get the good ending first. Bad endings only serve as rerun fun and it would ruin his character for you. Personally I haven't played any of the bad endings yet, but I may make a separate post/rant going into all the juicy, spoilery detail I want about these dudes so it would be in there.
I can't really say much - it was excellent in the Heejung Development Department - Jisoo is very devoted to her, eventually begging her to unleash all of her emotional baggage on him. I was astonished at her emotional growth when I first fired up this game and raced through this route - frankly, I wasn't expecting the main character to be such a...character. I was rather disappointed when she didn't go through the same development cycle in Jihae's - but thankfully it all got better in Jiwoo's. Jisoo got his own fair share of development - really, they worked well for each other, and the end result was very sweet.
Jisoo himself is an interesting guy - did I like him? Yeah, I guess. Some things he did made me question Heejung's decision making skills, but in the end, he supports her so I won't complain. And besides, this is an otome game, it's meant to be guilty pleasure stuff, so they made him as ~*~sexy~*~ as possible.
I might just be a bit hard on him because I started on his route and didn't know how to play the game, and therefor got trapped in a generic bad end with Heejae from not getting his affection maxed early and therefore had to start again three times..............................I should play it again, it was a while ago.
But when it comes down to it, I liked Jisoo better as a supporting character in all the other routes, and I mean all of them.
The CV was splendid.
The Ending: Very sweet! I liked the twist - if you don't end with Jieun's, end with Jisoo's, but personally I liked starting with this one. It was all very bittersweet, but I loved how Heejung got to keep going on the path she chose for herself.
Bonus points for
he tried
Jihae Route
At first, I really could not decide if I wanted to romance Jisoo or Jihae for my first runthrough, and me making a Jihae choice early on ended up screwing me up later and getting stuck landing a Heejae bad end at 11/24 until I finally restarted. ...it kept happening, I only finish jisoo's route on the third try.
as it turns out, I couldn't finish this review in a night, so here I am and I no longer care about grammar or appearances =w=
When I first saw Jihae, the only thought that went through my head was something like this: "that's him, the one that I will conquer." then I realized that his name was actually Eddie, which was so out of place that I nearly decided against it, and then Jisoo-cat was really cute and charming, so I decided against romancing him, but then he turned into a human and I realized my mistake.
Unfortunately, Jihae's route contains far less development than I would have liked. Jihae himself fights his development, which is kinda detrimental considering the route is largely centered around him, but sadly, while he does change, his formality and outer bearings never really do, and he seems largely the same distanced guy at the end as in the beginning, albeit a tad warmer. Aside from a few instances he's very reserved, and personally I like the ones that start out that way, maybe, but eventually become really affectionate and loving and open. More than that, I think I expected too much - you can't have a guy this pretty and not center the route around him, as I've learned (a comparison I made while playing was to Ikki in AMNESIA - yeah, I watched it, no, I didn't really like it too much - where it was sort of a let-down bc the plot was focused on his appearance and how it affects him). Not to mention his tragic backstory was a bit iffy, to me, though it was covered a lot better in Jieun's route - (spoilers) Basically, Jihae was shunned because his silver hair is an "ominous" color and he was an illegitimate child born between classes - or, at least, that's how it's phrased in Jihae's route, with a large emphasis placed on his "ominous hair color". In Jieuns route it makes a lot more sense - Jihae was officially recognized, but he was looked down upon as his hair was pure silver and not white, like the aristocracy is supposed to have. I've said this before and I'll say it again, Jihae is better in Jieun's route.
But bonus points since Jihae isn't too hung up on it himself.
It's not like this route wasn't enjoyable - it was, and we got to see the awkward and bashful side of Heejung, which was nice. But after Jisoo's route, aka "Heejung Development Department #1" I was expecting more about her, where really the focus was on Jihae. I think I just expected them to be similar, which I shouldn't have, so jokes on me~~~
CV was great uvu
The Ending: Rather sweet, I enjoyed it. It's very similar to Jiwoo and Jiyeons', but I don't mind because they're all also quite different. Still nice.
he braids his hair end me
Part of me thinks cheritz just hoped that a pretty face would carry the route....and it kinda did................I lived, I breathed for those CGs.
Now to rate the endings. I won't elaborate on them specifically for spoiler purposes, but they do stand differently in my mind from the actual routes themselves.
1. Jieun
2. "True Ending" (aka it's bonus material unlocked after all the other good endings have been achieved, no actual route to match it).
3. Jisoo
4. Jiwoo
5. Jihae
6. Jiyeon
Welll, unlike the routes themselves, the endings are all very nice and enjoyable. Most of them are rather open, bittersweet, or both - something that I, personally, like. It's nice to be able to decide for oneself what happens after the curtain falls, and I'm a longstanding fan of not-happy yet not-tragic endings. Of course, this may vary from person to person, so this is entirely my opinion. If you're not a fan of bittersweet endings, then this game maay not be for you, though there are some, like Jieun's and the True Ending, that are very satisfying.
Since I'm done with the characters, I'll move on to other stuff. As far as the characters go, I already gave a brief description of them in their routes, and Heejung can't be wrapped up too well considering she develops differently depending on which route is played. The supporting cast is well-done, but there are some loose ends in a few routes and Heejung's awful mother leaves me unsatisfied every time, but I'll withhold my judgement because maybe, maybe she gets what's coming to her in a bad end.
Overall, though, I give the Characters an 8.5, after some calculations, and the Story a 9.2.
Technical Stuff
I'm not going to lie - I was a bit apprehensive and a tad disappointed when I saw the little Ren'py app symbol appear shortly before being replaced with the standard dandelion, but I quickly forgot about it and now don't mind. I was afraid because Ren'py is typically something that fans or amateurs use - granted, this was cheritz' debut game, and also it was very well done so I can't fault them for it.
Gameplay - 9
The game uses stat-raising mechanics to progress the story, which, after several bouts of trial-and-error and one walkthrough I finally got the hang of it. One tip: save, save often, retry until you get the desired outcome because otherwise you're going to have a bad time. Something that got on my nerves and may frustrate others is how you occasionally have to raise a certain stat or max out a characters affection by a certain date, and if you save too close to that date you may be fucked and unable to get the affection by the time it rolls around. Thankfully, the skip button makes the cutscenes and such pass quickly, in the event that you do have to replay.
The day-by-day progression of the game can get a bit tedious at times, considering you have to play through 365 whole days, five times, in my case, but there are often enough scenes paced well enough throughout that, most of the time, it isn't too terrible. On the plus side, after each memory unlocked you can visit each scene whenever you want in that characters file in the extras, off of the menu, so you can replay the routes as often as you want without actually having to play through the stat-raising stuff.
Another thing I liked was how there were no actual choices in the game - by that, I mean, there were no typical visual-novel-style choices of "Go to the cafeteria" or "Eat on the roof" or whatnot. I'm the type who's adamant about getting each character's true ending the first time around, so when I'm given choices that aren't so obvious as to what will and won't please the character in question, I feel compelled to look up guides or walkthroughs, which feel kinda cheap. But this game is fairly straightforward - choices on dates and such only change how much affection is added to the characters numerical log of their love. There's only ever hits of one or two points, which can always be gained back. Yeah, I still looked up a guide, but because it could really only provide tips on what to do, it didn't affect how I played the game, and therefore still felt like I was independently making choices and the like, which I appreciated.
All in all, I personally liked the gameplay for the most part, but the time it took occasionally got tedious and I know it's not for everybody.
Translations - 8.2
It's not the most professional, but I can really tell that a lot of effort was put into it. It's mostly clear and good, but occasionally there will be a grammatical, spelling, or mechanical error, but none of it really mars the meaning behind the words or the intentions that are being conveyed, so while they did distance me a bit from the game, I don't really care. And, a plus, Cheritz made a note that actually asks players to contact them about spelling and grammatical errors! I find that really swell. Whether they've done anything is up for debate, I'm not aware of it because it's been a week since I discovered them.
Sound - 8.6
The background music does what it needs to do, with a few tracks that stand out really well. But, unfortunately, there isn't too much diversity in it, so during a lot of the mundane stat-raising part the same tracks get played over and over...but they're not too grating, so I won't complain.
The opening song is really great, I've found myself singing it over the past week or so.
As said before, the CVs are all very lovely. My favorite, though, had to be the Wizard's. I would wait with anticipation for his lines every route, even if he was largely saying the same thing. Also, Heejung is voiced as well, which I really like. I'm playing NAMELESS - Cheritz's other otome game - right now and to my disappointment, Eri isn't voiced - I suppose it's because she's meant to be more of an insert than Heejung, with a changeable name and everything, but still. Heejung's CV was very nice as well.
Art - 9.3
The art for this game is very nice...for the most part. The CVs are very beautiful, but the talking sprites are a bit weird for some characters. Maybe it's because this is their first game, or maybe it's just me, but for the most part I found the sprites to be a bit...wonky. Each boy comes with two different standing positions with a diverse range of emotions for each. Jieun and Jiwoos' were both great, I thought, but Jisoo and Jihae each had a position that looked...kinda off, at least while not up-close. However their other standing position looked fine to me, so that kind of made up for it. Jiyeon's were both kinda wonky, but neither bad enough to warrant complaining. The sprites weren't bad, persay, but some were just a little off-putting...I didn't mind after I'd gotten used to them, though, and the rest of the game and the CGs more than make up for it. Not to mention all the promotional and official art was pretty splendid.
Something that threw me, though, was that during each characters' route, while the game was loading event scenes, a pop up of each character would appear, with art that's never revealed or from some other official art. They all seem to be fairly standardly standing or positioned, and the style they're in is a lot more similar to the CG and official art than the sprite art, so I was very confused as to why they didn't use it instead....ah, well.
So, after adding up the scores and adding in my own enjoyment of the game (because I feel that some of the scores don't accurately reflect how I felt of each one - mostly in the character and story department which were each products of separate calculations), I give the game a final score of 9.2.
I highly recommend it, and I implore you to buy it, especially to support Cheritz! They've only got two games out right now, but I have high hopes for the future and future projects of theirs! The quality of their products is through the roof, and I'd like to see more from them for a while to come.
Here's a link to their English site.
Have a nice day!
