I'm very happy to discover KoiLog, I haven't played a lot of otomes (mostly mobile ones for the past few years, started playing more famous ones recently). I was ysing VNDB, but I'm glad there is a otome focused tracker now :D
I usually go blind in my first playthrough, but after I like to collect the good ending first, and then the bad ones. That's mostly because I suppose the good ending is the "true ending" and i treat the bad ones as kind of extra endings
Art is pretty inportant to me, but I might still play if the story is good, even if I dislike the art.
Sometimes western otoges art don't appeal to me, but they have such good and refreshing plots that I end up playing anyway
I don't usually research about the VAs in a game, but it's a nice surprise to hear a favorite's voice when playing (like Yuki Kaji or Junichi Suwabe for example)
I hope that someday Shall We Date games get ported to Switch. I was devastated when they ended service recently, since they were a few of the first otome I've played. Especially Guard me Sherlock! and some other I wanted to play but didn't get the chance. And Voltage games too, like the Ikemen...
I'll never recover from the shutdown of Shall We Date? titles, specially Wizardess Heart and Guard me Sherlock!
I loved those games and I can only hope they'll be revived someday :cry: (as an extra, I wish I had played Liar! Uncover the Truth from Voltage while it was active)
I remember reading the Heart no Kuni no Alice manga a few years ago, but I didn't even know it was based on otoge. I've also read a few Diabolik Lovers mangas. But it is not something I actively search or read often since in my opinion most of them are kinda lackluster compared to the game.
The Men of Yoshiwara Kikuya and Ohgiya - I started playing them a few years ago and I did a few routes (they are pretty short) but now looking back they were not good games, so I won't spend my time playing them anymore. (Ohgiya was better than Kikuya though)
I tend to be a completionist in almost all games that I play and otome are no exception, so I usually play all routes and all endings. But if I find the plot to be uninteresting I might play my favorites route and drop the game.
I don't mind small minigames (like the gameboard/chessboard on RBL, for example), or card battles in gacha (specially since most of them have an auto-function), but stat-raising stresses me out so I tend to avoid them (even though Dandelion have been on my backlog for a while)
I pretty much dislike repetitive BGMs, the ones that repeat on a short loop and/or there is a short silence between the repetitions. It doesn't necessarily breaks my immersion but annoys me
I used to play them while in development, but I've had my few share of disappointments with games that were never fully released, so I'll stick with games full developed from now on