Main Hero POV:
Hi, my name is Kuro Aku.
I was standing before the shelves packed to the brim with games and was looking for something new, without much interest I was pulling out the boxes just enough to have a glance at the covers.
|I played it, I played it, I played it, this one's apparently a shitty one, I played it...|
The chain continued for some time, one could say I play way too much but how else I could relax after the stressful day? I want to play games! And don't get me started about how high school boys spend too much time playing video games!
|Oh? What do we have here?|
I pulled out a game with the anime art style, and it instantly picked my interest.
|This girl looks really cute!|
The cover had a busty blond girl with blue eyes being courted by six men with various hair colors all wearing the same school uniform - but the one person I was looking at was the girl in the background. She had short black hair and black eyes and was frowning and squinting her eyes at the group in front of her while crossing her arms. She was also wearing the same kind of uniform as them, so this probably was some school setting jRPG if I had to guess.
|...I like her design! I'll buy this game!|
One may say that buying the game just because of one character is a bit much but hey, I have watched shows over a hundred episodes long just because I saw one five-second scene on the internet!
I took the game with me and brought it to the shop clerk. For some reason, she was looking at me a bit weirdly once I handed her the box.
"Is there a problem?"
I frowned and asked the clerk with a challenging look.
"Ah...! No, of course not!"
She hurriedly shook her head and sold me the game.
|What's with her?|
I was wondering as I walked back home as soon as I could.
Back in my room I inserted the game into the console and was greeted with a cutesy flowery main menu with the title: Kampf um die Liebe.
|Wait a moment... This isn't right...|
I turned the box around and read the description on the back.
"Otome game? Huh!? I bought a reverse harem game!?"
I raised my voice in surprise.
That was an unexpected development! I've never been really interested in that genre of games but I did hear about them...
Thoughts of returning it to the store crossed my mind, but then I looked at the character I liked.
|Hell, playing through it once won't kill me...|
I thought not knowing what I was getting myself into...
...
One week later I could clearly say how addicted to it I have become.
The world was way more interesting than I ever could expect. The world of Kampf um die Liebe was that of an alternate reality – its setting was was similar to European middle-ages with the class division but was at the same time very fairytale-like because of the addition of magic.
Magic was divided into six elements: Fire, Water, Earth, Air, Light, And Darkness. As far as I've learned it was a standard-setting for otome games – though that was the case for a lot of games, period.
The main heroine, who was sadly the blond girl and not the cute black-haired one, was a commoner who enrolled into the school for nobility in the country of Bellcephora because she awakened for the gift of unique healing magic – hence she was a special existence known as a variant magician. Normally magic was something only available for the elites as commoners had too little mana coursing through their bodies to go through the awakening.
Therefore the player experiencing the world through the heroines' eyes had caused a stir in the hierarchical society.
Then there were the capture targets. Six attractive young men of high status.
First was the prince of the kingdom, Horeo Marets Bellcephora, a gold-haired confident youth who wielded the light attribute commonly recognized as the strongest.
Then there was his younger brother, second prince blue-haired Surou Delche Bellcephora who wielded a water attribute, a relatively mediocre attribute on the scale, Surou had an inferiority complex towards his magically superior older brother.
The third was a son of the general of the kingdom a red-haired Grazio Mera Victureo who wielded fire attribute, one only second to the light in terms of power. He was serious and upright but was hiding a flaming personality and hot temper.
The fourth one was the son of the country treasurer - a green-haired Reo Serentii Moyena, at first glance he had a very twisted personality and often used his wind attribute magic to cause many mischiefs and stir troubles just for fun.
The fifth one was the son of a duke, brown-haired Xeonith Zarble Derizno, as you may already see a pattern here, he wielded the earth attribute that's supposed to be relatively weak on the chart but that wasn't the case in his case because of his unprecedented amount of mana necessary for casting magic, he was very proud and often clashed with the prince Horeo.
People who had more mana than average, like him, were known as transcended magicians.
And the final capture target of the story was the son of the royal magician - Arisu Karde Lazaram. White-haired youngster of stoic personality, for some reason the creators decided that he should be a variant magician and wield special attribute allowing him to use almost any spell from any attributes as long as he had enough mana to cast it.
Personally, I thought that having characters have color-coded hair and eyes – oh, by the way, the colors of the eyes had matched the colors of their hair – was a bit peculiar, but that actually had an explanation in-game.
Mana of each attribute was greatly influencing the pigmentation of hair and yes – that's why the only ones with mismatched hair and eyes were commoners.
Anyway.
There was a rather glaring representation missing from the capture target list.
For some reason, the darkness attribute was not represented at all.
But once again – there was an in-game explanation for it too.
Darkness attribute was thought of as a disgraced magic attribute only good for the perverts or assassins – that's why there were no NPCs with black hair and eyes in the game as none attended the school where the bulk of the story was taking place.
But back to the story.
The heroine could get close to a single capture target or choose to conquer all six of them at the same time and achieve a harem ending.
There were many masterfully crafted events with breathtaking illustrations that helped the player stay immersed in the story...