How do you guys feel about rival characters? Does it bother you when another girl is trying to get with your LI and keep you away from him?

[Watera]

I don't really like this kind of storylines, i feel so annoyed specially if the ML is dumb and clueless
let rival girl do whatever she wants to him then boom he realizes he love you?! And what he was feeling was love towards you! (⁠ノ⁠｀⁠Д⁠´⁠)⁠ノ⁠彡⁠┻⁠━⁠┻

to be fair, most of time the heroine would be stupid too so as reader i would be so uncomfortable and lose interest on ML , i wish if i could find an otome game where heroine or ML do something out of normal

 

[Leviathan_01]

The only game where something similar happened to me was the first two TokiMemo girls side games, and it annoyed me quite a bit XD In the first game, I really liked that girl who worked with flowers, but when I wanted to do the route with the boy from the gardening club (I forgot his name, the one with green hair), she started getting mad at me, so I gave up and restarted the game lol. In the second game, it was the same thing, where I wanted to do Hariya's route, but the energetic friend girl got upset :( That's why I like the third one more, since there's no rivalry and both Miyo and Karen support Bambi and help her too! I hope the friends in TokiMemo 4 are like that too!

 

[Harmonea]

I think I've only actually played one route with serious rivals (Amnesia Ikki), so I think I wouldn't mind seeing it a little more often to mix things up.

However I don't think I would appreciate seeing it more than rarely, especially if the stories have the ML actually starting to fall for the rival. I play these games to indulge in a romance fantasy, not to be left on the sidelines in my escapism too.

 

[Hisami]

I am fine with rival characters but I don't like it if the LIs get together with rival in other LIs route cause it feels like the protagonist is actually getting in their way like maybe their destined to be together why make him an LI just make them a side couple instead.

 

[1chi]

I really hate this kind of stuff, I don't play otome games to watch two women compete over a man I especially get angry when the rival is portrayed as cartoonishly evil and when the LI treats her disrespectfully, no matter how she acts

 

[lambdadelta]

does this happen a lot? i don't think i've seen it happen frequently, maybe it's just me who hasn't played enough titles yet... i'd feel a little depressed seeing two girls fight over a guy tbh :/ like why can't we be besties instead... i wouldn't want to see a female character who's clearly just an excuse to create more drama/an unsympathetic caricature for the reader to hate. we need to portray women better than this (though i have a soft spot for messy, difficult characters.. esp if theyre women...)

The only game where something similar happened to me was the first two TokiMemo girls side games, and it annoyed me quite a bit XD In the first game, I really liked that girl who worked with flowers, but when I wanted to do the route with the boy from the gardening club (I forgot his name, the one with green hair), she started getting mad at me, so I gave up and restarted the game lol. In the second game, it was the same thing, where I wanted to do Hariya's route, but the energetic friend girl got upset :( That's why I like the third one more, since there's no rivalry and both Miyo and Karen support Bambi and help her too! I hope the friends in TokiMemo 4 are like that too!

rival mode in tmgs1+2 really takes me back omg. you can regain their friendship if you're really persistent and keep hanging out with your rival, but it's hard;;; (or if you never hang out with her at all, i think rival mode won't trigger that way) maybe it was indeed better off without it since it gave us karen and miyo!

 

[azazah]

In the game Amnesia Memories on Ikki's route, the girls from his fan club and Rika were really annoying to me (¬_¬").

 

[Leviathan_01]

In the game Amnesia Memories on Ikki's route, the girls from his fan club and Rika were really annoying to me (¬_¬").

And that's why I never finished his route. His club is so annoying and makes me feel uncomfortable for the MC, and Ikki doesn't do anything to help her too. It drives me crazy (⁠┛⁠◉⁠Д⁠◉⁠)⁠┛⁠彡⁠┻⁠━⁠┻

 

[Leviathan_01]

rival mode in tmgs1+2 really takes me back omg. you can regain their friendship if you're really persistent and keep hanging out with your rival, but it's hard;;; (or if you never hang out with her at all, i think rival mode won't trigger that way) maybe it was indeed better off without it since it gave us karen and miyo!

I wish I could manage the time to rekindle the friendship within school activities, go out with the love interest, and use the weekends for shopping/sleeping to reduce stress but I get very overwhelmed ʕ⁠´⁠•⁠ ⁠ᴥ⁠•̥⁠`⁠ʔ In the second game, I unfortunately had to ignore the energetic girl friend who was interested in Hariya in order to follow his route, but in the first game I couldn't avoid bumping into the girl who works at the flower shop, since if I'm not mistaken she appears in the school library and I wanted to increase my intelligence... The first game is really punishing, very difficult.

 

[azazah]

And that's why I never finished his route. His club is so annoying and makes me feel uncomfortable for the MC, and Ikki doesn't do anything to help her too. It drives me crazy (⁠┛⁠◉⁠Д⁠◉⁠)⁠┛⁠彡⁠┻⁠━⁠┻

Yesss!! His attitude about it is frustrating!!!!! I wanted to say 'Dude, do something! anything!' ( " ಠ_ಠ)

 

[lambdadelta]

I wish I could manage the time to rekindle the friendship within school activities, go out with the love interest, and use the weekends for shopping/sleeping to reduce stress but I get very overwhelmed ʕ⁠´⁠•⁠ ⁠ᴥ⁠•̥⁠`⁠ʔ In the second game, I unfortunately had to ignore the energetic girl friend who was interested in Hariya in order to follow his route, but in the first game I couldn't avoid bumping into the girl who works at the flower shop, since if I'm not mistaken she appears in the school library and I wanted to increase my intelligence... The first game is really punishing, very difficult.

i agree omg you have to manage your money on top of that too if you want special dialogue on xmas/new years and buy outfits in the style your guy of choice likes. and don't forget the BOMBS of course

 

[Leviathan_01]

i agree omg you have to manage your money on top of that too if you want special dialogue on xmas/new years and buy outfits in the style your guy of choice likes. and don't forget the BOMBS of course

Just you mentioning all this already makes me desperate (⁠•⁠ ⁠▽⁠ ⁠•⁠;⁠) I hated it when I was planning to go out with my love interest and another guy would end up with the bomb, then I'd have to cancel my plans to go out with the guy who had the bomb lololol wow now I feel like playing TokiMemo again!

 

[orionsbestie]

I'm getting tokimeki memorial flashbacks....... I lowkey hated the mechanic lmao it was way too hard.

 

[jjng_chwn]

I think it depends on the trope. I don't mind rival characters, but if the LI is more of a womanizer type, that's when I tend to dislike them even more. I'm more of a plot-focused reader, so if the rival character contributes a lot to the story, I sometimes end up liking them.

 

[lambdadelta]

Just you mentioning all this already makes me desperate (⁠•⁠ ⁠▽⁠ ⁠•⁠;⁠) I hated it when I was planning to go out with my love interest and another guy would end up with the bomb, then I'd have to cancel my plans to go out with the guy who had the bomb lololol wow now I feel like playing TokiMemo again!

me too! despite complaining about it being stressful (and it is) there's this charm to it too, isn't there? it's such a memorable game. i really don't want to revisit that chocolate minigame tho i sucked so bad </3

 

[YummyYum]

I am fine with rival characters but I don't like it if the LIs get together with rival in other LIs route cause it feels like the protagonist is actually getting in their way like maybe their destined to be together why make him an LI just make them a side couple instead.

I feel the same!

I guess it depends on how the relationship is portrayed? Like, if the rival and the LI actually have good chemistry, and I like the rival as a character I'd feel bad about 'stealing' the LI and seeing the rival heartbroken/forever alone, but if it were say the more womanizer type, where the relationship is more shallow and the rival is less likeable then I have less of a problem with stealing him.

 

[Leviathan_01]

me too! despite complaining about it being stressful (and it is) there's this charm to it too, isn't there? it's such a memorable game. i really don't want to revisit that chocolate minigame tho i sucked so bad </3

Oh my god, I had completely forgotten about the chocolate minigame! I had to use the DS emulator's save state every time I got the move right!!

 

[Kaorin_]

I'm fine with them if they literally do something other than being annoying. Some interactions and being, you know, human, nor just hindrance. If they can date\start family with LI you ignored - it's a big plus to me. Thou it's mostly simulators thing. Aw.

 

[Kaorin_]

Oh my god, I had completely forgotten about the chocolate minigame! I had to use the DS emulator's save state every time I got the move right!!

Aw, I liked it a lot.) You could do smth yourself! But yeah, game and I rarely had the same vision on choco styles. =\

 

[Leviathan_01]

Aw, I liked it a lot.) You could do smth yourself! But yeah, game and I rarely had the same vision on choco styles. =\

I don't know if it's because I was playing on an emulator on my phone, but every time it asked me to move in a certain direction, the movement reading almost always went wrong XD I was super happy that in the 3rd game they changed the chocolate minigame, and frankly, for me it's cuter and more fun to decorate the chocolate than to struggle to move the spoon and pray to read the movement correctly lol

 

[Zaffi4ka]

Ребята , а как тут получить доступ к ссылкам?

 

[Zaffi4ka]

Не могу посмотреть и всё

 

[alexsda]

Though I don't really see fem rivals that often in otomes, I actually liked the ones in Ikki's route. Sure they were annoying always popping up but I felt like it added more to the story and the conclusion where Ikki finally gets the courage to stand up to them is really great which is why I loved his route sm lol

 

[Kyoko]

Oh i remember the rival girl in Amnesia ..... Yeah she was annoying.... I think mostly cause Ikki didn't even like her and she was so persistent and delusional. If they written her better I think she wouldn't be so annoying. There was an indie game i played on itch.io were there was a rival route with the main hero of they game and you played as his sidekick. He was in love with the princess but she was using him and he was too kind and in love with her. In the end he was framed for murder and the game kinda stop there as it wasn't finished. But i kind of love that rivalry. It gives it drama and another depth of character development in which the protagonist has to overcome. Only if its done right of course with multiple points of development not the shallow type like in Amnesia.... that is just annoying since the ML don't even like her

 

[crisalt]

I'm really tired of this trope, not just in otome but in general romance books, manga, etc. It's everywhere. And if LI just falls for the act/schemes without bothering to think for themselves, it turns me off completely