[Otome Game Review] Otometeki Koi Kakumei Love Revo!!!!!

Love Revo is the last JAPANESE Otome game I actually managed to finish....so I'll be starting my reviews from this game. Although it wasn't the first otome game I ever played, it was the first game that I saw fanart of in deviantart and got interested in otome gaming in general. Also the fanartist mentioned here was the CG artist for Doujin freeware Re:Alistair++, which WAS my first otome game, so you could say Love Revo! is the main culprit behind my otome game obesession, haha.



Game Title: Otometeki Koi Kakumei Love Revo!!
Original title: 乙女的恋革命★ラブレボ!!
Company: Asgard & Interchannel
Release Date: 2008-03-28
Genre: All Ages, Otome Game
Voice: Full Voiced (PC version only)
Platform: PC, PS2, Nintendo DS, PSP

First of all if anyone is interested in reading about this game in detail there is an awesome review (albeit with spoilers, so beware!) She has already completed all the possible endings for all the bishies, whereas I am only finished with 4 conquests so far. *sigh*

Basically, IMO the most interesting about this game is its heroine. Unlike most otome games where the main character is either unseen or the usual "looks-totally-hot-but-claims-to-be-not" type of Mary sue-ish character(I'm looking at YOU, Starry sky), the heroine in this game is a HUGE 100 kg fatty chick with an attitude and utter disregard about her weight. Here's an exchange with the school doctor Ryoutaro about her weight:



Ryutarou: So what happened?
Hitomi: No, nothing really….because I had a shocking experience, I cut down my breakfast a little bit.
Ryutarou: Eh?
Heroine: Yesterday some people reacted really severely seeing my figure.. ..But passing out only because of eating a little less, maybe I'm too fragile.
Ryutarou: ....How much less did you eat?
Hitomi: Three cups of rice and two cups of miso soup, fried eggs and grilled fish....
Ryutarou:…………
Hitomi: The leftovers of yesterday's pork boiled with sugar, soy sauce, sweet sake and salt and macaroni salad…. Oh, mince cutlet and pumpkin croquette, too.
Ryutarou:…………..
Hitomi: As a light dessert, ice cream and hot apple pie….I think.
Ryutarou:…………..
Hitomi: *sigh* This isn't enough for me after all.


(Ryutaro smacks her on the head)
Hitomi: Ouch! What are you doing?
Ryutarou: Are you stupid!? How is that much food not enough???
Hitomi: I usually eat 5 bowls of rice, plus 4 eggs, plus...
Ryutarou: You should start noticing that that's not normal!

The game starts with a flashback of heroine's childhood when she used to be a cute young model, but as she grew up she developed a fondness for sweets and junk foods that she got as gifts (also her weird siscon Onii-chan encouraged her since in his opinion, her smiling face when she eats is the best,WTF) and by the 2nd year of high school, she has become morbidly obese. She gets a shock for the first time when the new tenants of the apartment house she lives (who all happen to go to her school) all insult her on her figure (either directly or indirectly). With some "encouragement" from the school doctor and her weird Onii-chan who has suddenly become very fired up after hearing the story of her humiliation, she sets on a journey to become pretty once again! :P



There are 9 bishies in total in Love Revo, all fully voiced much to my delight since I have the PC version! You should also try to get the PC version, too! However, if you prioritize playing in English you should get the "Girlish Love Revolution DS" which is the Korean version of Love Revo. This group is translating the game and they are almost done (95%+), if you want to apply English patch, you must use the Korean DS game. I didn't bother since the PC version is so much better with the voices <333

I REPEAT,The English patch is NOT for PC, it's only for the Nintendo DS version. You can play that version in English if you have a DS or use an emulator on the PC, but playing the PC version itself in English is impossible since there is no patch for the PC.

EDIT: THEY FINISHED THE TRANSLATION PROJECT!!! GO READ MY LATEST NEWS POST!

And I must admit I was shamelessly reeled in by the voices of Takahiro Sakurai (who, oddly, sounds so sexy but so far had voiced only people I hate like Suzaku from Code Geass), Daisuke Namikawa (<333333), Nobuyuki Hiyama (I keep imagining Ikkaku's bald head from Bleach tho XDXD) and last, but not the least, Tomokazu Sugita (<33333333 SENSEIIIIIII) !!!

I'll only go over the guys I've cleared so far, expect this post to get longer in the future.

Ichinose Ren:

Seiyuu: Takahiro Sakurai



Handsome, brilliant and cold school prince from a rich family. At first I thought that he would be a typical shoujo manga stereotypical Tsundere, but thankfully his story turned out to be sweeter and more fun than I thought. I won't spoil it for others, let's say he has family problems and his reason behind being a dick at first seemed legit to me.

Though he was the one who was most horrible to Hitomi at first, as the game advances he acknowledges Hitomi's efforts in the small cut scenes and such (basically anyone you date does, but I liked the way he said it :D ). I also like the dynamic between him and Hitomi, him constantly pwning Hitomi in a deadpan voice whenever she does something stupid (often related to food) and Hitomi bashing him in her inner monologues XDXD And OMG his kissing CG was so HAWT <3333 Takahiro Sakurai has a damn sexy voice, I could not even spot that he did Suzaku in Code Geass, who used to be on my most hated character list.

The only thing I'd complain about was the fact that Hitomi becomes his secretary in the good ending, whereas in the single ending she became a super model! Is this game trying to be sexist? >.<


Kinomura Tohru

Seiyuu: Nojima Kenji



The mandatory Osananajimi (childhood friend for who don't know) who used to be fat on the same level as Hitomi. He has a lot of "otaku" hobbies, and if I remember correctly his dad was a mangaka and his mother a cosplayer. The above pic itself is a spoiler since it's from the good end route where he suddenly falls ill or something and becomes skinny (in the bad/friend end his transformation to bishounen does not occur). I will allow this spoiler since....seriously, who would do his route if he never got hotter? XD

He is a cute boy and he kinda grew on me after a while, but I really cannot view him seriously. =)) His seiyuu took politeness to an extreme level and his voice really sounds like a somewhat masculine female >.< Character wise he was a very good boy, the only one to never make fun of Hitomi, but since I believe Hitomi , suffering from a serious case of obesity, NEEDED to be given a little push, disliked how he discouraged her dieting. I liked how devoted he was to Hitomi though, and his ending was sweet and I had no reason to complain. His route had the least amount of drama, but that is not necessarily a bad thing.

P.S. WHY NO KISSING CG? *Rage*


Kamishiro Ayato

Seiyuu: Namikawa Daisuke



The kind, gentle senpai (senior) with a weak body, you can pretty much guess he'd have some sort of sickness. Like with Ren, I was afraid Ayato would bore me with the "sick boy" stereotype, but thankfully due to lack of cheesy dialogues (they were rather profound and touching, specially his bad end made me go T____T ) and Namikawa Daisuke's skillful deliver of the lines enabled me to have a pretty emotional ride :) He isn't my type as I like more funny/sarcastic types, but it was a good 4 hours.

P.S. LAME KISSING CG IS LAME *Rage*


Wakatsuki Ryuutarou

Seiyuu:: Sugita Tomokazu



The last but not the least, the oddball teacher who helps Hitomi with running her diet. He is, in one sentence, my true love. LOL :D Like I mentioned before, I really like funny, snarking characters who have a good sense of humor, and Ryuutarou has that more than the rest of the guys combined. With his delinquent like demeanor, I was afraid that he'd turn out to be a player which I HATE with a passion, but thankfully he's pretty nice guy deep inside ^_^

Like Ren, Ryuutarou's interactions with Hitomi are pretty fun to watch, even more so since both have a habit of running their mouth, haha. Also his way of addressing himself, "Ore sama" made me crack up everytime XD And his story had a good amount of drama, not too much but not too little which I like. I approve of the way he handled a certain bitchy character *wants to rant but doesn't want to spoil people* AND I FORGOT TO FANGIRL, TOMOKAZU SUGITA <333333 He is one of my favorite Seiyuus ^^ I've been stalking him ever since I played Starry Sky and heard him for the first time :D

P.S. Cigarettes= 1000 disapproval points. This is a personal thing of mine, I can't stand smoking. But still Ryuutarou is my favorite~~

Walkthrough:

This walkthrough is for the DS version, but it's good enough for the PC version (also this guide provides some extra tips) other than the Keywords needed for the "true " ending which differs in the PC, DS and PS2 version. You can get them in the japanese walkthrough here , there is another good jap guide here which has all the correct choices marked , but it doesn't have the right keywords, By combining this 2 guides (keep a google translation of the pages open in another tab so you know what is where) with an English one, the game shouldn't be hard to beat.

And remember, the 4 items exercise bike, the sauna suit, healing music and the rowing machine must be bought ASAP! ESPECIALLY THE MUSIC CD! Without it you'll be stuck eating sweets to lower the stress bar (hara-heri), which will INCREASE your weight!

As for dating, this game employs an unseen affection meter (the color of the hearts beside the bishie's heads in the options sub-screen indicate it), you can raise them by visiting them during holidays (I spent 90% of the holidays stalking them). See details inside the walkthroughs from gamefaqs. My tips would be:
-always save before any choices, specially before answering questions during dates
-if you ask out a guy for a date and he refuses, load right before asking him. It's all about probability. Even Ren, the "ultimate catch" in this game, agreed for a date when his affection meter was close to zero after I reloaded for like 7/8 times. Oddly, Tohru gave me a pretty hard time, rejecting me a lot even after getting the affection meter pretty high. Made me go all ballistic "You tryin' to play hard to get, fatty?"

Anyway, I am getting tired now, hope you guys enjoy this game as much as I did! It really is a good game~~ Let us finish with a pretty Hitomi in case everyone is wondering why the hell the guys would want to date such an elephant look alike.