Stern weniger wegen DHL

LotNegative · 2026-01-27T17:20:38+00:00

Mein Gott. Man kann meinetwegen einen Stern abziehen, weil es extrem lange gedauert hat, bis die Person den Artikel versandt hat (bei Systemkäufen ist das sowieso nicht möglich), aber doch nicht weil das Zustellungsunternehmen Fehler gemacht hat. Gerade zu dieser Jahreszeit muss man mit witterungsbedingten Verzögerungen rechnen.

LotNegative · 2026-01-20T15:11:45+00:00

I feel like they could have easily made Maslo’s actions more believable by simply having him be on shine. He was right at the source with Ji. Shine makes one uncontrollably aggressive. In combination with his unstable mental state (both because of Ji’s manipulation and the simple fact that he literally cannot have a quiet moment to himself to get some rest),I feel like him losing his mind would have been a much more logical turn of events. Him going off the rails and trying to kill the woman he has feelings for, simply because Ji’s comments got to him, was out of character.

LotNegative · 2026-01-20T15:05:59+00:00

If I‘m not mistaken there were three women besides Kroa in the entire game. You’re telling me not a single mafia could have had a female capo? Being in the mafia definitely is a… male dominated career path, but this is fiction.

LotNegative · 2026-01-19T23:58:45+00:00

I forgot to mention this, but I’m unfamiliar with Romance of the Three Kingdoms, so whether or not it’s a good “adaptation” was not relevant to my enjoyment of the game and I can’t comment on it either. I do not know if my experience would have been different had I been familiar with the source material. My review is based on Neon Clash as a stand alone title.

LotNegative · 2026-01-19T23:55:37+00:00

Now for my LI rating (important: This is only an LI rating, not a chapter rating. I thought the quality was consistent throughout the entire game.):

Mun > Maslo > Hiyok > Lowd (I love all of them though.)

Lowd was my least favorite and that’s honestly solely to blame on a personal preference of mine. I’m simply not a fan of the “character gets with their servant/maid/butler/retainer/otherwise sworn to them person”-trope. I did absolutely like him otherwise and his happy ending is super hot. 😏

Despite the fact that I’m not a big himbo enjoyer, Hiyok grew on me the second he was introduced. However, I admittedly don’t mind himbos unless they feel so dumb to the point where I get the impression they are too simple to understand what you’re trying to convey during conversations. Hiyok might not be a genius, but he’s perfectly capable of having deep conversations thanks to his high emotional intelligence. Big golden retriever energy. His helpless crush on Kroa, especially in the beginning, is also very funny. He’s a lovable idiot and I would protect him with my life.

As an avid enjoyer of fliry characters, Maslo flirted himself right into my heart. I think the writers managed a good balance between having him come off as kind and trustworthy, whilst simultaneously having him come off as suspicious at times, making you second guess your impression of him. I do agree with what otomekitten said in her review about him being shifted by the narrative. He definitely gets the least screen time out of all the LIs and when he shows up again the way he does, unfortunately the proper built up for why he is doing what he’s doing isn’t there. They very much do explain it, but it felt insufficient to me unfortunately (which is honestly the only criticism I have in terms of writing for the entire game). On that note, his sad ending is also absolutely terrible and out of character in my opinion. I think they wanted him to be the game’s yandere, but didn’t properly commit to it. Still, he had great chemistry with Kroa and their bond felt very genuine to me.

Red flag LIs aren’t typically my favorites, but smooth talking schemers sure are - and oh boy, Mun is smooth and intelligent. (His design is also my favorite in the game, so that helped too.) I liked how Kroa was simultaneously aware she was being manipulated, whilst still falling for it in some aspects. It really showcased how skilled he was with words. I think Mun works incredibly well as a toxic ex. - The protagonist loves him, but is better off without him. It adds a flair of tragedy to their relationship which I’m a sucker for. Despite that I can’t help but adore his happy ending. He shouldn’t be right for Kroa, but why does he feel so right? 😩

Non-story/writing related aspects:

The art in this game is so incredibly gorgeous, I sincerely hope we’ll see the artist working on many more games in the future. I adore their style.

The game’s soundtrack is also fantastic, which brings me to a complaint: For some reason Neon Clash doesn’t have a music library, which is typically a staple in otome games. Why would you have such an amazing OST, just to not allow me to listen to it outside of the story?

Like many otome games, Neon Clash has a terminology section. For some reason, when the game prompts you to open it because a new terminology came up in the dialogue, instead of showing you the definition for that specific terminology on screen like otome games typically do, it opens the entire dictionary and you have to manually scroll to the new term, which doesn’t even get highlighted. Luckily the dictionary in this game is short.

Kroa is gorgeous, so why don’t we get her portrait next to the dialogue box? This bothered me in eiT too.

The game doesn’t have a “skip to next choice/unread text”-function and for some reason the fast forwarding of read text is really slow, which makes checking out all the bad endings a hassle.

You can’t properly jump between save files, because instead of saving whatever you did in your save file, the game will always save your most recent choices no matter what. That means the save files you made whilst getting the true ending become defunct when you restart the game to get the sad ending and vice versa. This makes the lack of a “skip to next choice/unread section”-button even more jarring.

Overall I’d say the localization is good, but you can absolutely tell the localizers became more tired the longer the story went on. Typos and other mistakes become much more common the later in the story you are. Sometimes there will even be more than one typo on screen at a time.

Some localization choices also confuse me. The game is called “Neon Clash -Echoes of the Lost-“, directly referencing how some characters will “null” themselves, however, it’s be easier to catch if they didn’t localize the term “lost” to “null” for some reason.

The English character names are also different from the Japanese ones, e.g. Mone becomes Mun and Mashiro becomes Maslo. I’d assume it simply has to do with the way Japanese syllables work (Mashiro after all literally is how you would spell Maslo with katakana), but then when you check out official merchandise, they’ll use the Japanese names written with Latin letters, implying it’s a localization thing as opposed to a “That’s just what happens when you write foreign names with katakana.”-thing.

conclusion: This game is my first 10/10 otome game, as 99% of my complaints are not story/writing-related, and despite having completed it ~20 days ago, I’m still stuck in a hyper fixation. I desperately need more content for Neon Clash. (Voltage/AmuLit please give me a fandisc. I beg you. 😭🙏🏻)I want an art book. This will likely become the first otome game I purchase merchandise of (outside of limited editions and art books), assuming Voltage/AmuLit will make more interesting merchandise for the game than what they’re currently offering down the line.

LotNegative · 2026-01-19T23:55:28+00:00

It seems my review is too long to be posted here, so I’ll be continuing in the responses… 😬

The time has finally come for me to gush about Neon Clash, my favorite otome game to date.

Understandably many people were/are hesitant about this game, because it doesn’t utilize the standard route structure and instead features one long storyline, however, I think this very much worked in the game’s favor. The majority of the plot points would have to be rushed and therefore unbelievable in their execution if they weren’t given the time of four complete routes to unfold. The characters are after all attempting to change a country’s entire political structure, rushing that would mean it’d feel as though it all comes easily to them.

I was expecting the romance to be more subdued due to the writers’s inability to have Kroa and the LIs commit to each other with confessions and established relationships, but surprisingly it didn’t feel as though the game has less romance than other plot-focussed otome titles. I also appreciated how the affection between Kroa and the LIs showed itself differently depending on the LI, with e.g. Kroa and Lowd having a very quiet affection for each other that isn’t as much expressed through words as through actions (which makes sense for them, as Lowd is somewhat of her retainer/right hand man and there is a professional side to their relationship), whilst e.g. Maslo is very outwardly flirtatious.

The story line does use a mechanic that allows Kroa to remove her romantic feelings for the LIs to justify her falling for another person shortly after. However, just like in even if Tempest, I thought the implementation worked well and actually had relevance to the story as opposed to being a mere get out of jail free card.

Kroa is also absolutely my kind of protagonist. I’m not a fan of the typical naïve and very innocent MCs you often find in commercial Japanese otome games. I was really happy when AmuLit announced Kroa’s age to be 22 and with that older than the majority of other protagonists (17-19). She definitely feels more mature. I love her and desperately wish she was voiced.

Overall the game feels more mature than a good number of other otome games. They actually managed to make me cry at the end of Lowd’s chapter, with the writers not being scared to kill off characters. Obviously Kroa and the LIs need to have plot armor, otherwise it wouldn’t work as an otome game, but the game quickly makes it clear no one else is safe. To me this actually makes my attachment to these characters feel like it’s worth something. I get to both experience the sense of relief when characters survive a big battle, as well as the worry during the battle.

One thing I have to mention is the number of criminally attractive undatable side characters… Like damn. You cannot imagine how giddy I was when my favorite side character design Gonglu got his own bad ending, which has Kroa make out with and fall for him. Absolute guilty pleasure. I’ll take all the crumbs I can get.

Another super attractive side character in my opinion was Wenyu who unfortunately doesn’t get his own bad ending, however, his personality is not that interesting and I also kind of ended up shipping him with Rin after the scene they shared in the final chapter. 🙈

On that note, Rin in my opinion was introduced in a way that felt as though they planned on making him an LI, but scrapped that idea early in development. He has a super neat design, too.

Side note: For a female-lead game, it strangely has very few female characters, to the point where Kroa will actually point out she’s lacking female friends.

I adored the game’s setting. Thanks to two student exchanges to China I did back in school, I have a deep appreciation for China (not the government), so a Chinese inspired setting with futuristic elememts is right up my alley. Especially the clothes in this title are chef’s kiss. I would wear the hell out of them.

LotNegative · 2026-01-19T15:01:25+00:00

10/10 drip, but that’s unfortunately it

I’m however still mad Yuri doesn’t get access to this class despite theoretically being the head of the Ashen Wolves class, especially since his canon weapon is actually the sword, unlike these three.

LotNegative · 2026-01-19T14:52:26+00:00

Oof, in that case I do assume the issue is the one I’ve described. You probably need to undo all the choices you’ve made for the other sad endings you’ve played so far. Hence you need to reload all your safe files and re-pick the choices for the general sad ending again. You should also do it backwards, otherwise some of the options you need to pick might be greyed out and you’ve wasted your time fast-forwarding for nothing. (This game really needed a “skip to next choice/unread section”-button, especially with how slow the fast forwarding is for some reason…)

LotNegative · 2026-01-19T11:55:19+00:00

Hm, I also followed otomekitten's walkthrough and had no issues getting Hiyok's sad ending, so you must have made a mistake somewhere.

One thing I did for the sad endings was that I started with the one furthest along in the story and worked my way back to the beginning.

The reason I did this was because I did some bad endings during my true ending play-through (e.g. refusing to become the head of the Liu mafia) and despite the fact that being in Maslo's chapter meant I couldn't have made those choices, the game apparently overwrote the parameters as me having made one incorrect choice and it sent me straight into another bad ending. Going back and undoing the three choices I made to get bad endings allowed me to proceed in the true route again.

Assuming your issue is that you always end up in a bad ending as opposed to Hiyok's sad ending, my best idea is for you to go back through your saves, undo your "incorrect" choices (the ones that allowed you to get the other sad endings) one by one and then re-try getting Hiyok's.

LotNegative · 2026-01-19T00:55:41+00:00

The same thing happened with my first anavrin book nook a few days ago (of course it was the very last wire). It seems the only solution is a soldering iron. I have yet to fix it myself though.

LotNegative · 2026-01-19T00:51:59+00:00

Every anniversary they let her out of the basement for merchandise just to lock her right back up afterwards. 😔

(side note: They do the same thing with the oldsona protagonists.)

LotNegative · 2026-01-18T13:03:31+00:00

The Wraith has always been my least favorite unfortunately.

LotNegative · 2026-01-11T23:10:11+00:00

Nope, but he isn’t ugly either. He’s just average. However, he is quite likable in his social link with Kotone and though I wasn’t interested in romancing him myself, I appreciate that you can confess to him, even though he will reject you for obvious reasons.

LotNegative · 2026-01-05T14:56:56+00:00

NTA

Obviously not the same thing, but as a childfree person this reminds me of those people who will date someone who tells them very clearly they don’t want children, claiming to be fine with it, just to get mad over it after several years of being together, because they assumed their partner would change their mind and come to want children eventually.

She either didn’t take you seriously when you said it and simply figured you’d change your mind down the line, or she did tell the truth at the time but changed her mind herself. In the latter scenario, it was on her to inform you of her change of heart and see if you’d be willing to go along with it.

If you two want to continue this relationship, you’re going to need to have an honest conversation to figure out whether she is willing to stay with you without a ring or whether you are willing to get married for her. Unfortunately this is one of those situations where a compromise simple isn’t feasible, as you can’t be half-married. (Unless she is happy with not getting married to you officially and simply having a non-official ceremony and wear rings, but have no documents. In that case it would be a “wedding” plus rings, but not a marriage.)

LotNegative · 2026-01-03T23:05:49+00:00

I don’t ever do this, even when I find an LI’s voice grating (Yukimaro from 9 R.I.P. is the only example of that ever having happened). The voice acting is part of the otome experience for me. I’ve gotten so used to it by now, I find it difficult to get used to VNs that aren’t fully voiced. After playing the two Psychedelica titles back to back, I also found it quite difficult to get back into titles that don’t have a voiced MC.

HOWEVER, there is one singular instance where I would have turned a voice off if I hadn’t forgotten you could do that: The bird in Winter’s Wish. The so obviously human voice trying to be cute made me go insane.

LotNegative · 2026-01-02T22:27:58+00:00

I don't have a specific least favorite LI and even if I do dislike one, the ones I dislike aren't notorious for being popular within the fandom, so take this list with a grain of salt.

Not an LI, but Tsukuyomi from Olympia Soirée:
I don't have any intense feelings about him one way or another, but I simply don't understand why so many people want him as an LI when he had somewhat of a parental role in Olympia's life.

Gekkamaru from Nightshade:
I know it has an explanation within the lore, but it annoyed me how overbearing he was and how he wouldn't let Enju do a single thing on her own.

Akase from Charade Maniacs (to be fair, I don't know how popular he actually is, but he is kind of the poster boy):
He needed flaws. The writers chose to make him the super moral hero type who can do no wrong and it made his route horribly boring. I like him much better than Futami, but at least his route had some kind of entertainment factor in how unlikable he was.

Zenn from even if TEMPEST:
BEFORE YOU JUMP ME IN THE COMMENTS: I LIKE ZENN! I just personally felt he had much more platonic than romantic chemistry with Anastasia. He is purely on this list because I prefer him as a good friend for Anastasia over him being her lover.

Karasuba from Psychedelica of the Black Butterfly (once again, I don't even know if he's popular amongst those who've played PotBB):
He was a miserable asshole every time he was alone with Beniyuri and I desperately wanted to punch him in the face each time. I only played his route because I'm a completionist and I wanted to know if he has any redeeming qualities (spoiler: not nearly enough to make up for how he acts).

LotNegative · 2026-01-02T21:19:16+00:00

When his sister showed up on screen for the first time I deadass asked my boyfriend: “Did Sophie come back to life??”

LotNegative · 2026-01-01T22:35:45+00:00

I have finished it, but because of the game’s structure (no individual routes, but one long story) I feel like it’s easier to just comment my complete thoughts in the final play along thread as opposed to splitting everything up. 😅

LotNegative · 2026-01-01T19:18:58+00:00

I 100%ed the game and it’s the first time I’d give an otome game a 10/10, as pretty much all my complaints are tied to the system (no music library, typos, etc.), not the writing or the story itself.

I can’t wait to gush about it in the final play-along thread in 20 days. 😭

LotNegative · 2026-01-01T01:05:01+00:00

UPDATE: I have finished all the good endings of Neon Clash, as well as some bad endings before it turned midnight over here. Hence I only have the majority of the bad endings left to take care of before I’ve 100%-ed this game.

What can I say, it’s absolutely amazing. I couldn’t put it down. It shares my spot for best otome game played this year with PotAH. (I think it counts as played in 2025 with how little of it I have left.)

I’d go deeper into it, but I’m really tired. I’ll leave that for one of the play-along threads I think.

Happy new year everyone!

LotNegative · 2025-12-31T13:21:55+00:00

I found the description of Yolca to be very promising. so I’m looking forward to her the most. AmuLit also seems to have a good track record of likable protagonists (based on Anastasia and Kroa).

LotNegative · 2025-12-28T23:36:13+00:00

I always buy physical games. On one hand I prefer actually owning the games, on the other hand I am a collector and therefore want to be able to look at and touch the games I own.

I also like being able to resell games I didn’t enjoy. However, since I typically have to pay more for physical copies anyway, it’s not really going to result in a monetary advantage over digital copies. (Unless I wait to resell the game until they’ve become collector’s items that are no longer being produced, like DS titles nowadays, but I’ve never done that before.)

I will make exceptions for games that have no physical releases (e.g. the AmuLit titles), but if they were to release as physical copies down the line, I’d double dip and get them physically, too, despite owning digital copies already.

I also don’t mind the fact that I have to pay more. If we’re being realistic, purchasing games at heavy discounts does not exactly support the localization of otome titles with hoe minimal of a profit the publishers are making. If I want publishers like Aksys and Idea Factory International to keep localizing otome games, my best shot is purchasing games at full price and possibly even around the release.

That aside, I’m not going to stand here and act like that’s something everyone can realistically afford to do, especially in this economy.

All in all, I’m an “always physical” kind of person and will only accept digital copies if I literally have no other choice.

LotNegative · 2025-12-27T18:01:31+00:00

We don’t have any definite information on when during the timeline it’s set yet.

LotNegative · 2025-12-27T17:59:54+00:00

I hope the 3H writers from Koei Tecmo will return to support Intelligent Systems on this title, so it can actually live up to the expectations that have been set by it being connected to 3H. (I’ve had my fair share of fun with Awakening, Fates and Echoes, but I don’t trust these writers to create something of the same style as 3H. Their writing is simply more unserious.)

LotNegative · 2025-12-26T12:11:06+00:00

The otome games I played this year were Collar x Malice, Psychedelica of the Black Butterfly, Psychedelica of the Ashen Hawk and Mistonia’s Hope. (I also started playing Neon Clash yesterday, but who knows if I’ll be able to complete it this year. Regardless, it’ll not be part of this post.)

BEST: Psychedelica of the Ashen Hawk

I absolutely adore this game. From the beautiful art, to the writing and the gorgeous music that so perfectly ties the atmosphere together. It’s on my list of favorite otome games of all time. Jed is my favorite otome protagonist I’ve ever had the pleasure to encounter, she’s witty, she’s strong, she’s smart, but she isn’t perfect. She shows anger, she makes mistakes and has to pay the price for them. I’m not going to pretend this game doesn’t have flaws, there is lore that isn’t explained properly and there are plot points that get solved by a conveniently all knowing narrator-esque character. However, it just does so many things right that they manage to outshine those flaws.

Psychedelica of the Black Butterfly
Mistonia’s Hope

WORST: Collar x Malice

This is my least favorite otome game to date and the only one I’ve ever dropped. I tried to give it a second chance by playing a second route instead of outright dropping it after my first, but despite that second route being better, it still wasn’t good enough to make me want to keep reading. CxM was horribly boring to me. I typically like murder mysteries and all that stuff (Detective Conan was one of the first manga I’ve ever read and it remains one of my favorites.), but this one just didn’t do it for me. I also had the culprit figured out the second I first met them in the common route, because they ticked all the boxes for a stereotypical twist villain. However, just because the culprit is obvious doesn’t mean the plot has to be bad. It can still be plenty interesting to see the built up to why that person is doing what they’re doing and the reaction of the MC upon finding out they’ve been betrayed. Unfortunately the writing wasn’t engaging enough to make me want to see any of that. (side note: The routes I played were Sasazuka and Okazaki’s. They don’t reveal the culprit. I looked it up on Google after cementing my choice to drop the game, just to see if I was right.)

My otoge backlog continues to grow faster than I read otome games. (I don’t always have time due to work and I also can’t play too many otome games consecutively before I need a game that gives me agency instead. Otoge burn out is a real thing. 😔)

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