What got you interested in otome games?

[Gremgrem]

What got you interested in otome games? For me it was when I was a teenager and I really wanted to experience romance and what it was like. But I was to shy and anxious to even think about having anyone this close to me in real life. So otome were the best thing I could get.
As we all know otome are totally like real life romance and my young mind really idealized the whole thing!

 

[Leviathan_01]

Hotties , stylish 2D guys to use as drawing references—that's what got me into otome games XD At the time, I was totally obsessed with Final Fantasy VII after watching Advent Children, and I wanted to draw someone as handsome and stylish as the males characters from FFVII but my hyper focus was on Cloud Strife. It became a requirement that my male characters had to wield a massive sword—just like the Buster Sword—and have plenty of style (or at least I tried since I was just a 13 kid with bad drawing skills lol)

 

[fr4pp3cinn]

I grew up with anime and games, since my father liked them lol so I discovered them pretty early. I was also mildly familiar with text-based games

I believe I got really into it while searching for any anime-style games I could find, and ended up learning about My Candy Love (I was obsessed with it lmao). I loved shoujo anime, so I started searching for more games in the genre! Played some early titles adapted from anime, and soon enough started playing PC otoge and other types of visual novels ;)

 

[Shelia]

I've always loved books, games, and anime/manga, so getting into visual novels was a natural progression for me ;). And then I was a teenager, so handsome virtual guys were an even more obvious choice.
So, I came for the hot guys, but I stayed for the interesting stories and diverse settings (OK, for those hot guys too—I won't lie).

 

[Plain]

CUTE 2D BOYS

 

[yueop]

When I was a kid, I saw my older sister playing otome games and was amazed by how many handsome characters there were, so I started playing them too, lol.

 

[Vita5193]

Lots of handsome guys, interesting plot, magical CG, beautiful hand-drawn graphics.

 

[pusseidon]

I wanted something that wasn't very obviously made for men, which is difficult to find in the video game world.

 

[marzipan]

I always loved video games with a bit of a romance element; Tales of Symphonia, the Harvest Moon series, that kind of thing. They weren't always available in my native language though, so I started studying via immersion, pick something up to play, with a dictionary nearby, until I got to the point I could pick up new words via context. This led to visual novels; Tsukihime, Fate/Stay Night, Ever17... and a title that caught my eye because it wasn't like the others: Yo-Jin-Bo ~ The Bodyguards, haha. I was on the lookout for more stuff like that afterwards. Muneshige, I still think about you!

 

[Doglo]

I was like 14 and I liked good looking anime men

 

[Watera]

My first otome game was around 2008-2009 , i was a kid around that time i was so happy that guys are supporting me and choosing me over my rival and i was so happy i can take guys on date the game was angelique

 

[jokerblackjack]

I'm always drawn in by the game covers and the handsome guys on them hahaha. Then I read the synopsis, and if it sounds interesting, I immediately want to play it. The problem is that I end up getting interested in way too many games, so now I have a huge backlog of unfinished ones (⁠/⁠￣⁠³⁠￣⁠)⁠/

 

[shironyan]

I love reading novels to begin with it. Also all of the characters is so pretty and it make me more interested.

 

[Cove]

I just wanted to feel pure emotional genuine loving that doesn't have that back-and-forth thing going on in real life. There have been countless times where I've dodged a bullet and I just wanted to feel a sweet love.

 

[satory]

I was into anime and manga, and at one point of time it occured to me, that there should be japanese games as well. Started from games for general audience but soon discovered female-oriented stuff and what a happy day that was.

 

[plumtree]

My older sister (we have a 7 year age gap) introduced me to Pacthesis dating sims, which were inspired by Japanese otome games. Otome, anime and manga had niche popularity within our community (immigrants/disapora living in a Western country) so her friends were into it too (even now one of them plays LaDS). I liked the graphics and thought the storylines were super touching lol. Pacthesis had the classic arranged marriage, secret ghosts, catboys etc.

 

[snowmika55]

My friends got me into reverse harem anime. Then i started to search the original sources which is mostly otome games.

 

[lylophy]

I've always liked anime, manga, and games, especially with romantic elements. And I saw the Hakuouki anime, found out it was based on a game, and knew I NEEDED it. Super hot guys, romance, a historical setting
Back then it was torture; I translated the game line by line and quickly burned out, though

 

[appeldo]

When I was around 10 years old, I got into romance games after playing *Sousaku Alice to Ouji-sama!* on the 3DS, which I picked up because I loved shōjo manga

 

[myfrral]

I am similar to you. When I was in my teens, I accidentally discovered love anime and watched many of them.

For example, Vampire Knight and DIABOLIK LOVERS.

I have watched them many times! At that time, I really wanted to experience love in anime and loved this feeling. Later, I came into contact with otome games!

 

[YummyYum]

I think it was a mixture of a few things. I played Harvest Moon growing up, and really liked the romance aspect. It was how I first got my romance itch. Then later I somehow stumbled on sim dates games, but they were generally made with male MCs and female LIs, but I took what I could get. Then from there I found out about Pacthesis' sim dates who had a female MC and male LIs, and loved them. I also got into choose-your-own adventure books, because I loved Fable 2 where you were able to make choices that affected the story and got hooked on media that let me do that. From there I found out about VNs in general from Katawa Shoujo, where I got to change the story with choices and had romance. I played a LOT of VNs like this, with male MCs and female LIs because little otomes existed at that point. It was exactly what I wanted, being able to make choices that affected story and romance, with the only setback being I had to play as a man and romance women, and then I eventually found out about Yo-Jin-Bo and the concept of otome, and went from there lol.

 

[Plain]

I wanted something that wasn't very obviously made for men, which is difficult to find in the video game world.

This is a good point, and similar to me especially as someone who got into otome games as an adult and not during my formative years lol. I dont know why but it took me so long to realize I wanted something that put women as their target audience first and foremost, instead of settling for crumbs elsewhere or "general" media that isnt actually that general haha

 

[Rosellia]

I got into otome games when I first discovered Will o' Wisp for DS and Shall we date Ninja Love in like 2012. I got interested in the beautiful visuals then realized it was like romance and visual version of choose your own adventure books, so I got super invested in finding more games. I played a lot of early otome games by Voltage and NTT Solmare before moving onto PC.

 

[vitanchlo]

I found a mobile Otome by chance. It was randomly recommended to me on an app store (Ninja Love). As for what inspired me to click on it? I like romance and anime. I then found their other games and others by Voltage. After my purchases were wiped and I started playing VNs on PC/Vita/PSP my standards changed drastically.

 

[Yashalun]

I basically watched reverse harem anime (my favorite genre) and I'd say if it were me I'd choose this one, but since in most cases I didn't end up with anyone, I researched to read the manga, but I found that there weren't any (translated or available in my language). Then I saw that they had games where you could choose whoever you wanted, and I tried to play them several times, but since I didn't know Japanese it was impossible for me until years later the tools improved and I was finally able to play them.