Whether it was the story, the romance, the LIs, or even the writing, what game made you think "okay, this is what I want from an otome game now"? And what did it do so well that other games started feeling different afterward?
*Tokimeki Memorial Girl's Side* was the first otome game I ever played, and it remains the best one.
Even after playing other otome games, I still find myself wanting to go back and play *Tokimeki Memorial Girl's Side*.
I think that is because it has left such a deep impression on my heart.
I don't know if this counts as standard, but because my first otome game was Starry Sky, I always think it's best to split the LIs up when there are more than 6.
However, when I played Norn9, my mindset evolved to, 'Oh, I can handle 9 LIs in one game.' I think a large cast works well as long as there is more than one heroine to vary their characteristics and balance out the number of LIs.
At first, it was my Bai Yueguang DRAMAtical Murder, which opened a new world for me to play bl games for the first time. The monster of the subsequent game memory also gave me new insights in the plot.
I think tokimeki,mystic messenger, even if tempest etc. has game mechanic which I like.I get bored reading all the time.It is better when it has immersive mini games.
Blackish House 100%. The game was so long that it took me almost 2 months to complete, but I never got bored and started every single route with so much enthusiasm. It doesn't even have a super elaborate story, but the characters and everything else are so well-written that it just keeps you hooked the whole time. Now I long for more games that could give me just as many or even more hours of gameplay (´ . ω . `)