We be bloggin'

I’m sure that at this hour, you might have noticed that this post did not go up on the correct day. But Luna, why in the world would you point out your own error instead of simply backdating this post and not saying anything? Because I wanted to show just how absorbed Star and I got into this game. On today’s post for Otakutober, Star and I returned to the realm of Otome games. But not just any Otome games–creepy, thriller, and horror otome games. This year, we decided to play a game that seemed less straight up horror and more creepy than anything else, and one that went a little outside of the typical vampire and werewolf setup. This year, we chose to play Love Shore — and as I said, we got so absorbed into it. Out of all the otome games we’ve played, this has been one of the best (if not the best).

What sets Love Shore apart from other visual novels we’ve played in the horror category is that this game is mainly Sci-Fi. In fact, it’s described as a cyberpunk noir. There are gods, humans, android-like humans called S. Humans. It’s not a traditional setting of ghostly or demonic happenings. It’s told in a future city and it’s underground society. You get to choose between the two main characters–either a girl, Farah–or a boy, Sam. Both of them are S. Humans — essentially humans that are created from cybernetic parts. Each of them has four possible romance routes (as far as we’ve discovered). What’s awesome about the routes for this games, is that they aren’t all heterosexual romances. You can be with girls, guys, and nonbinary characters–there really aren’t any bounds to gender or sex in this game. Which we both really appreciate it. It sucks when you get holed into only romancing pretty boys or pretty girls with only one token same-sex relationship that generally ends in friendship more than anything else.

Anyway, we chose Sam for our first playthrough (yes, I do mean first). Sam is this S. Human working in the underground–or rather trying to escape it, and who knows some shady characters. One of which, an old flame, was named Aziz. Naturally, we chose to go his route first. The tension between them was just TOO good. There were a lot of gods involved in the storyline, and every time one of them switched out of their human forms, we got these really creepy and horrific-looking gods. They were honestly terrifying in design, and they clearly scared both Sam and Farah. I think part of their terrifying nature was how ruthless they were. These aren’t gods who are benevolent and who do things to help people. These are gods who are twisted on purpose, trying to start a war, and really just use people for their own benefit. And spoiler alert: there may or may not be monstrous god sex in one of the routes we played. Which yes, reminds me: this otome game is very R-rated. There is reference to sex, drugs, there’s death, missing people, shots fired, gambling, porn shops–so many things in this dystopian underground. Anyway, back to the gods–they give the entire game a sense of anxiety. You KNOW they could kill you at any moment, thus making you choose especially carefully around their choices. PLUS, and especially in Sam’s stories, many of the characters have associations with some of the most threatening gods–making you feel like even when you’re just trying to get in someone’s romance route, you’re so afraid that you’ll still get on a god’s bad side. Like in Aziz’s route, he works for Inanna who essentially is the employer Sam is trying to run from, so you can never fully trust Aziz. We were always afraid that even if he claimed to love us, he’d end up killing us one day (he didn’t — but we did get the good ending).

So after playing through Sam’s story on Aziz’s route, we switched to Farah and played Imani’s. Then after getting a neutral ending (which we didn’t even know was possible), we switched back to Sam to play Alyosha’s route (Alyosha is a key character in both routes, though moreso in Sam’s). One thing we noticed when skipping around player characters and routes, we realized that the through plot-line for all the ones we played, was the same. There was always a war on the horizon, a god-injection, and missing S. Humans. But depending on the route you choose, you’d delve more into one plot over the other. What was interesting though is that you could literally see where the other routes would intersect. For instance, Farah’s Imani route and Sam’s Alyosha’s route heavily involve one another. They make reference to each other, and most importantly, their timelines lineup together. Farah has a lot of prologue before we get into the real plot (aka when Sam shows up). But in Sam’s route, there’s barely any prologue and we just enter straight into the plot. We later find out that Farah got out of prison earlier than Sam, hence why she had more setup. It was pretty impressive how well they weave the plots together, unlike some other otome games that have COMPLETELY different routes through and through.

I think it’s because the story is so well done, and the plotlines are so wonderfully interwoven that makes us want to keep playing. Each route, while having the same through-line, highlights different pieces of the story — or the mysteries. AND they mention the other mysteries in the other routes so it makes you want to know it all. Like, we started with Sam. Then just kinda got curious about Farah. But then from Farah’s we got curious about Alyosha’s route, but also like Jo’s route. But then in Alyosha’s route, we wanted to know more about Viv’s route–and so on, and so on. To the point that we were actually wanting to keep playing. We might continue playing even after Otakutober. I mean, this post is late because we couldn’t stop playing. This was such a GOOD game. Was it traditional otome? Maybe not? Was it super horrifying? Not really. It was more of a body horror. All and all, we loved Love Shore.

So would we recommend you play it? Absolutely. It was so good! Over 10 hours of this game was played, and we’re fully prepared for another 10 hours. So if you’re looking for something with a good plot, lots of good romance options, and some dramatic horror–definitely tune into Love Shore.

Stay weebtastic,

xoxo

Luna

P.S. Sorry again this was late!