#and i'll always have otome for my romance needs. i just wish there was a bigger following/fandom for that here

[my-current-obsession]

I mean, to be fair, FE was never heavy about Romance. I know Awakening and so on changed it to be more heavy on w the pair ups and such, but thats like... 4 out of 17(?) FE games. I think Engage(ironically) was trying to dial back to the older style of FE. If you wants romani, why not play a dating sim game and not FE?(i dont mean that in a rude way, that's a general question. Sorry if it does tho)

No offense taken at all! I'll admit, Awakening was my introduction to the series (and I'd probably still call it my favorite), so I'm definitely more used to supports/endings that are... pretty dang romantic. Even more than finding out who *I* liked most and S-ranking them, I LOVED playing matchmaker with my entire army. And since Fates and 3 Houses very much kept up that trend I kind of expected it to be a mainstay of the series moving forward.

That said I HAVE gone back and played two of the older games - Blazing Sword and Sacred Stones, and while they're definitely not as romance-focused as the newer games... honestly I STILL think they've got more romance than what Engage gave us. It's hard to see a lot of it organically since the older games pretty much force you to pick a small set of units and stick with them, plus you're limited to 5 supports per person per playthrough. With no guarantee of a paired ending if you don't get an A rank, and maybe even then there's either no paired ending or it's platonic. But when you're lucky enough to FIND a pair that was given a romantic support and ending... yeah, the chain or at least the ending is fairly obviously romantic! There's flirting, the ending generally outright states they marry or "stay together" forever.

I came out of those games adoring Eliwood/Ninian, Kent/Lyn (though I won't deny her relationship with Florina is pretty eyebrow raising), Raven/Lucius, Cormag/Tana, Ephraim/L'Arachel, and Forde/Eirika, among others.

I actually care way more about the loss of matchmaking, but IMO if Engage was going to still allow the player to romance someone... they really should have let those scenes and endings be more romantic. Otherwise what's the point? And as someone in the replies of that post noted... yeah, it's a bit unfortunate and weird that they chose the game where you can finally S rank ANYONE regardless of gender to really tone down the romance.

And for the record, I play plenty of romantic visual novels, as well as other series with "dating sim" aspects, such as Persona or Stella Glow (a HIGHLY underrated game). So it's not like I need to get my romance fix from FE specifically; I just was used to it being more romance focused and am a bit disappointed. But I initially checked out Awakening because I was intrigued by the turn-based strategy gameplay and its art style, and I'm still fully onboard the series for that, too! Outside of actual visual novels, any game I play with romance elements I'm primarily into for the plot and/or gameplay, but the romance is ALWAYS a plus for me. And since it was a pretty huge part of my FE experience for Awakening, Fates, and 3 Houses, I miss it here.

[baeshijima]

ahhhhh miss sophie, do you have manwha recommendations? and where to read them???

I don't want to read it in probably illegal sites cus I'm scared that I might get a virus ;-;

i have.... a lot....

i'll start with sites since theyre easier ;w; personally i use webtoon app, 1stkissmanga.io, and harimanga.com !! the sites are safe compared to a lot of other ones i have encountered, and in my opinion they have more variety in terms of manhwas available ^^ if needed u can use an ad-blocker but i havent really encountered a pop-up but i would recommend it just in case !! webtoon is pretty self explanatory but they dont have as much variety since the stuff is posted directly there !!

for recs, i will start with the ones i love and always go back to on webtoon :D

leveling up my husband to the max

act like you love me!

happily ever afterwards

omniscient reader

my younger brother's friend

the first night with the duke

tricked into becoming the heroine's stepmother

from a knight to a lady

the remarried empress

my irresistible ex

your throne

men of the harem

wished you were dead

sixth sense kiss

there's a mix of genres here, but primarily romance bc thats all i read JGHBKS (tho omniscient reader is action but in my top manhwas ~~)

now onto the super long list of my favs u can find on other sites/the sites i mentioned earlier :DD

the abandoned empress

beware the villainess

survive as the hero's wife

dr elise: the royal lady with the lamp

a villainess is a good match for a tyrant

the reason why raeliana ended up at the duke's mansion (they recently announced an anime adaptation for this and hhhh im so excited ><)

who made me a princess

business proposal (it has a kdrama which a lot of ppl know it for, but personally i prefer the manhwa ;w;)

father, i don't want to get married!

the way to protect the female lead's brother

the villainess reverses the hourglass

inso's law

death is the only ending for the villainess

kill the villainess

a way to protect the lovable you

how to get my husband on my side

i'm stanning the prince

i tamed a tyrant and ran away

a false confession

the princess imprints a traitor

charlotte has five disciples

actually, i am the real one

becoming the villain's family

i became the wife of the male lead

a stepmother's marchen

today, the villainess has fun again

if you touch my brother and you're all dead

the strongest characters in the world are obsessed with me

the villainess is a marrionette

i found a husband when i picked up the male lead

how to hide the emperor's child

princess' doll shop

a tyrant's only perfumer

a symbiotic relationship between a rabbit and a black panther

i became the male lead's mother

i'm only a stepmother, but my daughter is just so cute!

my in-laws are obsessed with me

the bad ending of an otome game

untouchable lady

the lady wants to rest

my husband hides his beauty

the villainess needs a tyrant

limited-time extra

i didn't mean to seduce the male lead

i will take responsibility for the welfare of the male lead

[heatwaveorchid]

Some (Spoiler Free) Thoughts on Tokisada's Route:

Let's get this out of the way: I don't like shotas. Younger guys who do the whole oneesan thing don't do it for me except for Gretel, sorta, but I have a giant crush on Takuya Eguchi so I let that slide. Yet, Otome games love having them. Just really not my thing.

On the bright side, I tend to really adore guys associated with the color green. Shiraishi, Victor Frankenstein, Kent, Gretel I'm sorry for this one, Yang I'm not sorry about this one. So did Tokisada live up to his fellow green comrades?

Well...I suppose the honest answer is to wait until the end of my run but for now, I need to acknowledge the things I really liked and disliked about the route.

Pros:

+ The romance. I was pleasantly surprised by this. I'm gonna be honest here: I greatly preferred this romantic development in this route than in Riku's. I'm a sucker for the boy meets girl, boy is into girl, girl decides to give the boy a chance by going out on cute dates, girl falls for boy trope. I found it to be surprisingly realistic and rather refreshing. A lot of their early scenes were super cute and all of those cute moments were utilized effectively for the later plot moments, which is something I like because I'm an emotional masochist. I think he and Olympia developed really good chemistry as the route went on that if felt natural.

+ I learned about some history? Yeah, that was cool. I caught Tokisada saying something something that I culturally recognized and then I learned a bunch of stuff about Catholicism in Japan of all things. Speaking of Catholicism, Olympia Soiree does the religion much better than Piofiore did. The less we talk about that, the better. I'm a history minor but my area of focus is not Asian History (although I do know a bit about Central Asian) so I learned a ton of new stuff here which is always awesome!

+ The villain of the route. I think I simped harder for the villain than Tokisada himself. So much so I want to write something about it. Also the bad endings were kind of fire, imo. Trashfire but it's still fire!

+ This route gave me an intense need and craving to try mint chocolate ice cream so I bought some talenti and it was amazing. Thank you, Tokisada, for opening my eyes. Your taste in ice cream is impeccable.

The Neutral:

+/- Tokisada's character development. At times, I felt this was too on the nose sometimes, like yeah he wants to change and grow up, we get it. He also does some stupid stuff which I high key kind of found myself groaning at. He does grow by the end, at least and wants to keep changing. Was it as perfectly done as say... Shiraishi? No, but by the end of the route, it did feel like he had changed for the better and found a purpose and a place to belong, which is always a great thing.

Cons:

-It bears repeating but I really don't like his character archetype. Shotas just aren't my thing. At least him and Olympia are close in age, I suppose?

-I loved the villain but I wish there was more time spent on it. It wasn't as bad as Riku's route, where the villain's motives felt weak, as though it'll be revealed in a grander scale on another route, but I felt more could be done. I'm still so intrigued by this person but there's so much more than could be done.

-I found the ending to be rather rushed and it kind of felt cheap. Don't want to delve too deep into that, but yeah.

Verdict:

I hate to say it but I liked this route more than I intended. My expectations were extremely low but I kind of came out pleasantly surprised. I feel kind of bad it's above Riku's in terms of route rankings even though I would much rather date Riku, lmao. He's not at the top of my green guys, who are at an impossibly high tier for me but he tries his best to be a good guy, which is neat.

I'll give him 7 and a half mint ice creams, but I'll be nice and give him 4 ice cream and 4 peach emojis🍦🍦🍦🍦🍑🍑🍑🍑

And a new thing I'm incorporating:

Flashback counter: 76, 79 if you wanna include the short story

I intend on taking a super small break for Deltarune because I realized the other day that I've played 10 Otome games in a row and should try something else, but I'm super excited to get on Yosuga's radar, because he sure was on mine since the moment I spotted him. Also purple is one of my favorite colors. so what it doooo 💜💜💜💜💜💜💜