Title: Real Rode Portable
Console: PSP
Genre: Otome, RPG
Language: Japanese
Company: Kadokawa Shoten
Summary: You, an avid otome gamer, get sucked into the game Rode world one day while playing in your room! And your boyfriend too!
Story: You pick whether you end up in the white kingdom or black kingdom, although neither kingdoms are fighting each other. Lol, the whole basic premise reminded me of Fushigi Yuugi Genbu, especially with already having a hothothot guy as your (boy)friend, who gets sucked into the alternate universe along with you. Although I didn’t go for him this time. In fact, I didn’t even catch that Naoya was “my boyfriend” until he brought it up towards the end of the game.
Characters: Cast is a total eye glitter:
Naoya (Boyfriend): Kondou Takashi
Dyse (Black Prince): Kamiya Hiroshi
Keith (Black Follower): Midorikawa Hikaru
Alvand (White Prince): Takeuchi Ken
Raclot (White Follower) Nakai Kazuya
Wataru (Thief): Miyano Mamoru
Somari (Villager): Yonaga Tsubasa
Shinn (Hunter): Tachibana Shinnosuke
Lukia (Bishop): Kishio Daisuke

I HAD A LOT OF TROUBLE DECIDING BETWEEN MAMO AND TACHIBANA FOR MY FIRST RUN. XDDD And omg, I’ve been familiar with both of their voices for a long time, and I was surprised when I heard from other fans that they had trouble telling the difference between the two. But when Mamo’s character appeared first and I could’ve sworn it was Tachibana until Tachibana actually showed up shortly afterwards… and sent my mind tumbling. Achh. After that, I could clearly hear the difference though. XD I’d been fooling myself.

Anyway, I went with Mamo first ^^;

…or I thought I did. After playing through, I looked up a guide because that ending left me so empty. And I found out I had just picked the ONLY character out of 9 who has a compulsory “Heartbroken Ending” (and multiple optional other bad endings) before you can get the happy end ORZ XD Not only that, it’s the only route where I have to get the NORMAL ending on top of that too! ORZ ORZ ORZ This would all be so much easier if I didn’t have to go through the training and RPG stuff for every run through. It’s not like other otome games where you can just skip huge walls of text and zap to new scenes within minutes. Even if the levels and stats are transferred to the new game, all the items have to be recollected, dungeons traveled, training redone, events…

This guide is useful too.

And so I finally finished up his route. On the way, I got Dyse’s good ending because I was tired of trying to get Wataru’s good ending (it happened to be the very last option I didn’t try out).

I plan to go for Naoya or Shinn next. First time Kondou Takashi’s voice has really attracted me, and I just feel SO BAD for turning down “my own (hot, sexy and kind) boyfriend” for every other route. REAL LIFE AIN’T SO LUXURIOUS.

Also POSSIBLY considering to bother with Somari and Lukia’s routes. Somari because he kind of looks like a brunet Aphrodi ;;;; And Lukia because he’s the youngest cute-ish. Kind of too bad Nakapan’s personality/voice type in this isn’t my thing.

Tachibana Shinnosuke (Shinn) and Miyano Mamoru (Wataru) in Real Rode. OMG Mamo’s character broke my mind. Not only does he specifically say “I like having something fluffy around my neck”, he also says during training “Can you keep up with my speed” and “LET’S BE LIKE THE WIND”. OI.
And Yonaga Tsubasa’s character reminds me of Aphrodi… with a cute hat. XD;
Graphics: 9. I’ve seen this artist’s works in quite a few games, and I have to say this is some of the best stuff of hers I’ve seen so far. It’s not completely to my tastes, but it’s definitely very notable and with its own appeal. The main markdown is just me being awry about the RPG sprites. XD But I’m just overdemanding with that imo.
Sound: 10. Each character has their own BGM theme, which I didn’t realize until about halfway through my first playthrough. Individualized themes are my favorite way of associating characters. Also the voice-acting is superb as expected of the cast~ Even the random bad guys inserted in there had pretty interesting voices haha. Some of the enemies have odd sound effects, but nothing I couldn’t tolerate with a mute or such. Mmm sound
Gameplay: 9. Otome game with full-out RPG elements? I’D LIKE MORE OF THESE. With improved gameplay systems though. THANK GOODNESS you get to keep stats and levels between replays. To make things even faster, I wish I could keep items as well. It gets REALLY tiring fishing out treasure chests for each playthrough.
Replay Value: 9. The omake offers pretty much all the things I’d hope to get out of an omake, nothing more and nothing less. More would be like all those extra dramatizations that came on Panic Palette Portable.
Overall: 9. Definitely one of the better otome games out there, mainly for the cast and attempt at innovative gaming (otome + RPG). The stories are somewhat fleshed out, ESPECIALLY Wataru’s waaa. There really is a reason why you have to go through so much trouble to get his good ending. I guess it was worth it for Mamo. XD;

Official Site
Screenshots (spoilers)

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