How do yuri games compare with otome games?

[tenshi_a]

I am just wondering, after exploring the genre of yuri games (as in yuri-themed games from Japan, not just "any games with significant lesbian content") within the latest "Why do you like Yuri?" thread - how yuri games compare with otome games, if any of you here read both.


1) How do yuri games compare with otome games?
2) Are there elements in one genre that you think the other would benefit from?


I haven't read very much in the way of otome games. I've read one called "Sweet Fuse: At Your Side", which was a bit like reading a group of people play "The Crystal Maze" game show, and I started reading Hakuoki but got really bored.

I also read Hatoful Boyfriend, but.... does that even count? XD My hunter-gather instincts say "no!"

I notice there are a glut of otome games around these days, compared with a few years ago when there were hardly any at all. A great many of them are mobile ports, and here on Steam Dogenzaka Labs seem to release about one per month - and the latest one is about stalking dudes, so... even straight girls can get full-on creepy otaku these days. How liberating! :P


Things I notice:

* Otome games seem to have a much bigger age range, in terms of the targets of your affection within the games.
* Otome games are far less likely to involve school life stories
* Otome games are way more likely to involve you becoming involved with an adult who has a job - and many games are in fact job-specific - e.g. this one's about dating a detective, this one's about dating a ninja, this one's about dating a surgeon...
* Otome games seem way more likely to contain themes of power within relationships - i.e. dominance / submission
* Otome games seem way more likely to contain themes of infidelity
* Otome games seem way less likely to be "first love" stories


I think age range might be related to youth fetish, where women are classed undesirable when they become older, or look their actual age. It's taken to extreme in Japanese media, but also exists in Western media to a large extent.

When the game is about dating women, everyone is either a teen or "older sister" or "young teacher", very rarely is a character beyond her 20s and even rarer that she'll look it.

When the game is about dating men, they're allowed to be older - and that includes men in their 30s to 50s - and they're allowed to look all rugged and battered and that's just normal. No-one bats an eyelid.

So - age range of the characters has a knock-on effect on scenario, occupation, and other content. Right now, I am thinking that limited age range is the biggest limitation in yuri because it affects so many other factors.

Anyone else have any thoughts on this?

[Quilliano]

Soooooo I agree, and that otome games treat the characters more like their own person. They make their own choices, are more fleshed out. Sadly in society men are viewed more as their own person too, but on the other hand women are there to be "support" or something. Seems to be the same even if it's yuri where women romance women. "Mainstream" yuri in Japan (generalization), the characters are more to serve some function, like to please the reader, in more objectified and sexual ways, and lots of tropes going on, just because it's "sexy" or whatever.

[Quilliano]

In short - treat women characters like people, and yuri will probably become more like otome games.

[Hanako Games]

I think it's dangerous to make too many generalisations because many people have opinions on the subject but HAVEN'T actually explored a statistically-significant sampling of what's on offer. I mean, I can find you people with opinions about "all otome games" that are quite different (and quite negative).

I've also seen plenty of people with opinions about "all yuri games" that when it came down to it didn't actually know of any yuri games outside of the Sono Hanabira series.

[tenshi_a]

Yeah, that's why I want to throw this question out here specifically in this group, since it seems to contain people who've played a lot of both yuri & otome games. :)

Regarding men being more their own person... I think it really depends on the skill of the writer.

[Rasp]

Originally posted by tenshi_a:

Yeah, that's why I want to throw this question out here specifically in this group, since it seems to contain people who've played a lot of both yuri & otome games. :)

Regarding men being more their own person... I think it really depends on the skill of the writer.

Which is depressingly lacking as I've made quite clear - why I stay the hell away from visual novels... Hell I'd go as far as to say I could do it better.

[Eisigerhauch]

Looks like you put pixie-dream goggles on. In (almost) every label (rather than genre) there are tons of terrible stories, some decent and some good stories.
On vndb there are about 19.3k vns listed, about 350 include some (set) elements of f/f, about 1.7k are labelled otome - guess what would happen if you ask an omnipotent objective observer to choose the 50 best stories of each label.

[Quilliano]

Just to add - To be fair, some of my fave yuri VNs or VNs with added game elements (like Black Closet) have !fantasticcc! characterization, really characters I can relate to as people - are written as their own person, etc.

But the phenomenons mentioned in OP remind me more of Japan (generalization, as I typed in my first comment) in which the whole "pixie dream" thing seems more severe to me.