My Experience with Voltage Inc Games.

[Sir Auriel of Lionel]

Sorry to make multiple threads of my game rambling nonsense but I wanted to write out my thoughts on Voltage for a very long time fan and player in gaming spaces not just otome and VN fan spaces.



Voltage, Voltage Inc, Voltage Entertainment USA and also a rebrand name some western players might know as Otome Romance was mainly a mobile Visual Novel producer and studio of their works still going strong in Japan and still a fevered fan base in the west even with more otome games now accepting there's a niche to fill in the west through some releases on Steam and Switch exclusives this little company that filled the gap until then from 2012. It was the wild west in the this little corner of the internet and mobile scene and I would like to take this chance to put a spotlight on this guilty pleasure of mine for years. I won't go to much into it's history other than for a few purposes but before it's more fleshed out paid model you could play it's freemium title or rather GREE/Party titles which featured almost completely different characterization and story beats and these titles which felt out the market before fully releasing onto the west. It's early titles that made waves were (from my memory): Love Letter from Thief X, Pirates In Love, My Forged Wedding, and Be My Princess. They were a pretty moderate success in both audiences and the west was desperate for any otome titles that came our way that didn't require having to learn the language, find a forum that accepted you that would upload the roms, learn to mount the roms, and either translate line by line or found a translator tool that could run side by side doing multiple hard translations, assuming you got the rom running without having to change your Windows into the JP setting, and have it on your smart phone which the mobile scene was just taking off and on the go? It was no competition as NNT Solmare (it's main competitor) hadn't hit the stores yet and Cybird hadn't also landed west yet and Cheritz only had Dandelion and Nameless just released on PC we ate that shit up. Some title cards below:



Pirates in Love (title without it's English title card) with it's initial Western release cover on the left and the Original JP release cover and yes the characters changed in the cover art do reflect in the game's initial release but has since been considered lost media as per the games originally were on their apps not a hub app that hosts multiple titles as they do now. Hence why many took to recording and sharing videos not just as gap to reach people who couldn't afford the titles but to also spread the love of these romance titles to new audiences who only had glimpses of the genre from titles like Amnesia.

But I would be neglectful if I didn't bring up the company's flagship series that still brings in new and the old players to check out the app:


Kissed by the Baddest Bidder. When this exploded on both ends it really brought cashflow and eyes to really flood places like tumblr (remember tumblr?) And further cemented it's place in the Visual Novel spheres than just the few novelty titles and help boost a niche fanbase into a more vocal niche fanbase. (laughs) really it's hard to state how much this title really made this genre more accessible to people who didn't know titles like this existed for the female demographic without it being a gaming title like Rune Factory or Persona as many weren't gamers or were foreign to the concept of gaming leaving to the idea of games being something for guys. While they did have a few more working titles both during and after KBTBB's release none have come close to the multiple seasons released

Spoiler: Seasons Explained

each man will have a route you pay for and multiple seasons exist for a few titles with some as low as 2 but will average to about 3-4 seasons (First Meeting/Falling in Love, Dating/Couple's first stumbles), Proposal

many substories and even a real jewelry tie in, this series reigns supreme, not even it's Switch release does it justice carrying only 3 seasons and very few DLC packs in glorious HD rendition that UNICO has been doing to it's titles as remasters/rereleases.

And there's also a lesser talked about subsidiary of Voltage as while they did rerelease their Japanese titles to the west they also produced titles overseas for their US based audience, a few were remake versions of My Sweet Bodyguard and Be My Princess which I will not show as the hyper realistic art style is not fit for maiden eyes but many where original titles ones and only one title to this day has been released back onto Steam and Switch. This in house studio was home to many titles that while most leaned into fantasy aspects they had an array of love interests that were hardly seen in the otome gaming spheres outside of indies such as dark skinned love interests, bi/gay love interests and a few nonbinary love interests, a few male gay routes (unheard of as the few that existed were yaoi titles mainly sexuality explicit not romantic lensed) and had they not closed abruptly we might have seen out first transgirl love in the form of a childhood friend. It was a very wonderful time (not for the wallet) to finally explore well fleshed and complete stories from the droplets that indie barely filled for me looking to read new stories and new lovers and I will miss it.




So why bring up mobile gaming? Well it's not mobile anymore as I said few titles have been rereleased on Steam and Switch (Switch is the way to go for some as it's the only platform to have their DLC) and as of 2022 they released their first Switch exclusive title: even if TEMPEST. I haven't launched it yet but I'm very curious to how they handled this jump from short mobile bursts into a longer console title that Otomate dominates the space in.



But before I dive into Voltage once more I thought I'd look back on this company as a whole and share how some titles shaped me and my view on love and storytelling. So this little mini series of reviews will read like a blog in each new post about either 1 or 2 titles, please feel free to comment and posts your own thoughts on this company and the games you played.

 

[Yousef]

Yay, I love your writing style! I plan to post my review of hundred line too after I finish typing it. I clocked in 200 hours and got all 100 endings. Was fun!
Your review reminded I should finish code realize and other otomes I have in my backlog but I don’t feel like touching my switch for a while xd.
Good read!

 

[Nebulon_Galaxy]

Ive skimmed through and my brain changed the words "Kissed by the Baddest Bidder" to "Kissed by the Baddest Bladder"

 

[Sir Auriel of Lionel]

Hey the majority of titles are on sale on Steam at the time of this post, which I'll be perfectly honest is the only time to buy these games as are at the end of the day HD upscale mobile titles with no added content and some titles even lacking content with no DLC in sight to complete them

If DLC isn't a priority (which case there's only 1 per version available that I say is at best 9-12 min per character,) I think Star Crossed Myth is a solid choice no matter which of the versions you pick as each guy has 4 seasons (4 major stories really) each with either epilogue and/or POV so each route should be about 2 hours of content and with 6 possible lovers it's not a bad time, but I guess that's where story should be making the point not the content length for value so let's get to that.



This story the main character (MC) and I will preface here that even though this is a romance visual novel title and not a dating sim Voltage titles usually have this shallow characterization of the main character so you can slip right in to the role play. This has lead to some hilarious cgs when they include the MC and love Interest to in shot the MC has no eyes (this style has been dropped in later titles as they fully embrace giving the MC a full character (I.E.: MD Romance, Masquerade Kiss, Oops, I Said Yes, and later seasons of KBTBB) but for now slip into the shoes of a young lady protag that works at a planetarium and suddenly weirdly dressed men show up out of nowhere to abduct her to heal their sinful bodies. That's the first season which stars 3 love interests per version, and while it's not necessary to read any of the later season gods as they're given the same amount of stories (there's a few exceptions) but the story will assume you read one (as they were produced separately) to have learned that the MC is a former goddess in her past life now reincarnated on earth as a human but still has some godly power to influence the gods and heaven above, no worries as the second season prologue will also hammer this to you.

The difference in versions in from the separation of departments each God is assigned to. The Wishes Dept. headed by the god of the Leo constellation, (Leon, center of logo) grant the wishes of humans below likewise the Punishments Dept. headed by the god of the Libra constellation, (Zyglavis, center) rolls out punishments to offending humans below in a karmic pull of balance. Despite the heads clashing most members on either side freely interact and goof off so you it's just a matter of preference of who you'd like to see more of as neither side is lacking in depth and complexity or heart (well compared within Voltage titles). If anything you might have to get used to Voltage's MC being either a push over in some routes or nearly older sister or mom figure than a maiden in love. But that's really my perspective talking as I'm not that partial to the MC but without an active sprite on hand or a goal for the MC herself it's really hard to hate the girl as she's obviously meant to be the reader's stand in for the romance than be a fleshed out character like Otomate titles.

Choosing between the versions I am the bigger fan of the Punishments gods probably because I run to my sign first chance I get (and a promo voice video with him voiced by Sephiroth did not influence my maiden heart, nope) maybe I'm a secret slut for obvious bad boys and mansluts (eyes the Pink haired god) or maybe Hue from the Wishes left me a sour taste in my mouth and Leon unfortunately suffers from being the main lead and thus is given every clichés to teach newcomers to the genre of the common beats you'll encounter so I bought Wishes last with Hue still unfinished. Surprisingly beautiful boys come with a lot of drama why can't they be beautiful men with no problems that the MC helps them to resolve? Actually Karno is kind of close to that...is that why he was a little boring? But that's part for the course with Voltage and most romance VNs as a whole but at least more slice of life titles do try to use more outside narrative obstacles than women fix man, it's a fantasy among romance and I'm hardly complaining when I'm happy with my product.

I honestly loved my time with each god, clichés and all and so far this isn't the worst game to start off with as I said it's nearly the full title as it was released on the app, though if you find some OGs you'll be told of the missing horoscope section when you booted up the app, the pronunciation chart for their names and a few extra details I'm forgetting. Next I think I'll flip a coin to determine if I'll review a Lovestruck title or a other mainline Voltage title.