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Do you think poster boy LI aka Love Interest or locked route LI is designed to be the canon route one?

Do you think poster boy LI (Love Interest/Bachelor) or locked route LI as canon route in the game?

  • Yes, for poster boy LI

  • Yes, for locked route LI

  • Yes, for locked route poster boy LI

  • Screw that, my favorite LI is the canon one!

  • No, I don't think so...

Results are only viewable after voting.
Artina

Artina

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Elite
極乙女
Dec 21, 2024
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In every otome games or even in galge/VN there's always poster boy/girl on the cover, the distinct can be quite clear especially in otome games. The majority of standard/regular edition cover almost always featuring the covert art with MC/heroine and the poster boy, while the special/limited edition cover is featuring all the LIs with over 80% of them not include the MC/heroine on the cover. How do you think about how the developer strategy marketing option? Do you think they're might be implying the specific LI as a mere poster boy or as a canon route?

As for me, almost around 70%-75% I satisfied with how the developer execution with the poster boy route so i think i'm on the team who lean the poster boy as a canon route, but then there's BYAKKO whose locked route giving a major development on how the locked route is also share the same ability to see/witness the future of byakkotai from the four guardian gods premonition just like MC and by progressing the route further the tragedy of byakkotai can be prevented and it's ONLY happen in his route.

And there's also locked route poster boy LI.

First beforehand I appreciate and thanks for everyone who replying and participate to give voting/polling. I'm really curious about people opinion about this. Galge/VN/Eroge enthusiast can also participating by voting or commenting in this discussion if they want.
 
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i do think most of the times poster boys are the most canon ones in my eyes however exceptions like amnesia (where shin is the poster boy but imo ukyo is defo the more canonical love interest with how intense his yearning is) or temirana (josephy vs secret locked li) exist so the most ideal option is ones that are the poster boy AND locked since i think locked routes usually dont have the best storytelling because it tends to get so so lore heavy / plot dump that the game ends up sidelining the romance >< but if the character is also a poster boy then youll have a guarantee of them having the most intense / lore heavy as well as romantic route in the game (eg akaza from olysoi) which in my eyes is what helps me decide that this is best outcome for the mc in terms of story telling ^^
 
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For the most part, I feel like the poster boys tend to be the canon ones. Usually it's because they're also the locked/final route where everything from all of the other routes gets cleared up. It's actually why I'm not usually a fan of poster boys, because generally their route is less about romance, and more about clearing up all the plot points from the other routes. It's not always true, like for example I thought Limbo would be the canon route in Bustafellows because he's the most prominent on the cover, but I felt that game didn't really have a canon LI.
 
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It depends. Like, in Over Reqiemz Kaize is the poster boy, and though it's also an important lore-wise route, i think Dorothy is closer to being a canon route? . But mostly yes, i think poster boys tend to be canon ones too
 
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I'd say locked route feels more like canon route for me, as I don't consider the romance the main aspect for a canon route (even though it's a bit frustrating lol)
Most of the time canon route will just make more sense for both the plot and MC (when well done especially!) and they're locked for a reason. Poster boy doesn't feel as canonical for me as some locked routes have characters that don't even appear properly in the cover.

I also play galge/eroge/BL so that could influence my view of true/canon routes, as most eroge I played have the locked route as the true ending
 
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For games like radiant tale Vilio felt canon cause the story tends to give closure to all LIs like collar x malice Yanagi. But for games that have different poster boy and locked route the canon route for me depends on whose story felt more tied up. Regardless locked routes aren't always my favourite cause of the lore dump despite some characters seeming so appealing to me
 
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I don't really believe there's always a single canon route in otome games. Even when a poster boy or locked-route LI gets the most story relevance, I still see every route as a valid possibility for the heroine
 
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Kinda? Locked route usually feels canon even if the devs refuse to confirm it.
Purely because it has more content and the guy is connected to MC in some sort of meaningful way.

Do I like it? Not always. Sometimes I really like the canon route and sometimes it's meh.

What I hate is when a game pushes this canon LI onto MC (like in Psychedelica of the Ashen Hawk), retroactively deeming all the other LIs subsidiary
 
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For me, it probably comes down to a few different situations:

1. The cover guy's route is just too classic and archetypal for me,
so I personally don't feel much from it.

2. The cover guy's route is written with a lot of care,
but the routes for the other guys are handled very casually.
In that case, even if I personally like the cover guy's route, I'd still have mixed feelings about it.
After all, this isn't a story structured like a solo performance.

3. When the locked male character isn't the cover guy, and his route is meant to be the final truth route,
I hope there's enough substance in the overall structure to support it,
along with enough emotional buildup.
Otherwise, if all the foreshadowing and clues piled up throughout the previous routes have built up all these expectations, only for the final route to rush through the plot or fall short when it comes to making the emotional side convincing...

That feeling of being completely let down and left with this huge sense of emptiness...
it honestly makes me so depressed....
It makes me want to yell：
"if you've already made this the truth route,
shouldn't you be properly tying together all the cause-and-effect throughout the entire story？"
 
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If there's a locked poster boy route, I consider it the true route with no objection.

If there's a final locked route different from the poster boy, it feels to me like watching a Beyond Belief: Fact or Fiction story, where you're convinced the well developed poster boy route is a fact, but in the end Jonathan tells you it's a fiction and you got fooled by the scriptwriters:tongue:. I don't dislike this ending, I'm actually looking forward to it and take the the locked route as the true one in this case.
 
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I used to think that the poster boy/locked route was usually the canon route, but after playing more games, I realized that's not necessarily the case. There are games where the poster boy or locked-route LI isn't actually the canon one. Now I feel like their role is more about representing the main story of the game rather than being the "canon" LI.
 
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Probably, but to me im headcanoning that all the routes are canon and just exist in alternate universes. It hurts my heart too much to think that some LIs who have always loved to MC will never get with her in the end!

And tbh I couldn't care less about the poster boy route being canon, like bro *I* bought this game, I get to decide whats real and whats not!! Like mate, stay in ur lane and just make a beautiful game that I will happily pay for and appreciate, but dont try to preach one route as the one and only irrevocable truth 😢😭
 
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