Otome Game Review: Sweet Fuse ★ At Your Side

I thought I wouldn’t like Meoshi’s route. Well, I thought wrong, because I actually really loved it. Meoshi is an introverted gamer who only came out that day, because they were giving out a special DLC exclusive to the opening ceremony. Quiet and reserved as he is, he’s actually a really useful ally to have on hand because of his comprehensive knowledge of the games the park is based on, which comes in handy almost every single trial. As we delve deeper into his route we find out why he have become a hermit. It stemmed from a very traumatic event in his past, which combined with a low social understanding of trauma and mental health as a whole, which in order progressed to him closing himself off to the world, finding solace in the only thing that catches his interest - video games. I would just like to point out how realistic this is - literally, this is exactly how mental illness progresses if not taken care of. I like how the story attempts to separate his love for gaming from his mental illness - which I found refreshing as it only adds to the characters personality in my opinion. He is definitely one of those characters who are incredibly useful, work very hard but still don’t give themselves enough credit. I also liked his character development and how he slowly gets out of his shell with the help of Saki. I felt like Meoshi felt very realistic - he wasn’t a mr hero kind of guy, who always has solution for everything and he had his limits (his frail body - as a he isn’t particularly active for example). I know it’s a conflicting opinion to some, but I really liked his ending - yeah, he’s still addicted to video games, but that won’t go away in a week, not after years of repressed trauma, lol. At least he doesn’t lock himself at home anymore. I found it only made the character more intricate and added to the realism of a whole situation. 

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I know the translation says he’s an escort, but I think he was just a host? I’m not brilliant with Japanese, but I think he’s just a host. Whatevs, let’s go with the host. So, Mitarashi Ryuuji is a number one host in the club he works at “Ulysses”. He’s kind of a hot head and comes off as this tough guy kind of dude, but it’s just a cover for his soft heart and cute interest in theme parks. I really like the chemistry they have had going. Of course, he’s a bit older than her (not sure exactly how much older, but I think it’s quite a bit as she’s only a high schooler and he’s at least in his mid twenties). At first, of course, he sees her as a child, which is understandable taking into consideration the age difference. As they get closer (mainly if we pick the more assertive choices for Saki), we find out a bit more about his past and discover why exactly is he working as a host - he just wants to make women smile because he couldn’t make his mother smile. I don’t think Saki is immediately so much in love with him, but it kind of comes gradually to her and her feelings of intense gratitude (as he has saved her life quite a few times), though her actually realizing that Mitarashi is a kind of guy who will risk his life for the sake of others, I think the assertive choices which we supposed to pick are to signify that Saki really wants him to think about himself a little bit too. At the end of the day - I think Mitarashi is a really decent guy and I really enjoyed his route. I think he’s feelings for Saki started to grow when he realized how different she is to the girls he usually meets - I mean she kicks ass and he seem to like strong, independent women who don’t wait around to be rescued. Their dynamic was so far the best out of all characters and I just thought writers did a great job making Mitarashi a complex character instead of riding on that tough guy trope. I really also liked how in his route Wakasa was extra salty, haha. 

Urabe is seemingly gentle fortune teller. Apparently he’s quite famous in fortune telling circles and he holds a proud title of The Oracle of Shinjuku. He’s also the traitor of the group, lol. From the very beginning he was very nice to Saki and seemed to care a great lot about her well-being, whether it was because she was a young girl caught up in all mess or because he was into her from the start, nevertheless I appreciated the sentiment and so Saki, I think. Okay - I will come out with it already - he was a gentleman from the start, but I found it a bit boring, even with the traitor dilemma - those kind of character just aren’t my type - I find them too sentimental for my cynical dried up heart. He’s also pretty dramatic (not in the same funny way as Wakasa) and falls in love with Saki pretty quickly. It might have something to do with lack of love he received from his father in the past combined with Saki's caring personality, but I think that’s a flimsy excuse as if that was the case he probably would fall in love with Mitarashi too, as Ryuusei cares for him a lot too. Later on, when the cat is out the hat and Saki chases after him and splitting from the group, I found their interactions quite sweet, but after another twist it just turned straight creepy. And not Amnesia’s Toma kind of fun creepy (lol, stop judging me). Like he is willing to betray everybody else and risk the lives of all those innocent people just to first kill his dad, and then his motive changes to protecting Saki? Like fine, I appreciate the fact that he was trying to protect her and it was romantic, but it also does make him somewhat of a bad, selfish person? I dunno, maybe I’m reading too much into it. He eventually rehabilitates himself by trying to sacrifice himself and Saki had to get mad like 3 times in the row to persuade him otherwise, lol. That’s all it took. Like, his route somehow made sense, but I just didn’t like it much. He was meant to be this intricate character, but I found him simpler than Meoshi (which surprised me a great deal). I found his ending quite heartwarming and last CG from his route is definitely worth seeing as Saki looks really great in it. Don’t get me wrong - the route wasn’t bad, I just expected more and found it quite meh. 

So, our LI in this route is Subaru Shidou - cool, collected and reliable detective who has been hired to handle the security at the event. He’s kinda mean and suspicious of Saki at first, but later on warms up to her great deal. He genuinely cares about every single person in the group and is clearly Mr Canon. Which is fine with me. And I liked his route. The route was well constructed, he was sometimes smooth af and sometimes just adorable and blushy - which I think was by far most realistic Otoge character behavior wise I have ever seen. Although one complaint I have was definitely not enough romance? I dunno, I just don’t think there were that many romantic moments - it was more like a story route (which is great as we came a bit closer to unraveling the whole thing). So yeah, I would like it to be more romantic, but overall I think it was a great route. Both characters are mature and I think they make a cute, healthy couple. He’s one of those characters that probably will end up my favorite, although I didn’t found Shidou and Saki's chemistry as entertaining as some of the other LIs (Mitarashi, Wakasa). I don’t know, I just was kinda bored. Maybe it’s just my angst-craving brain can’t process healthy relationships anymore. Too many yanderes, I’d say *Toma flashbacks*. Anyway, the route was really sweet and very realistic - I think the romance between Saki and Subaru progressed very naturally and it was defiantly most believable, but like I said, I was missing the zing. I feel like this is the kind of guy I would go for in real life, but like I it’s otoge. I want to go crazy, lol. 

Another LI in our round up is a mysterious journalist in pursuit of the truth of the accident that took his mentors life. He’s a widower (+1 to daddy points, I guess) and a literal dad. I was like WTF, I really haven’t seen that coming and definitely didn’t expected it in an Otome game (just to picture how dysfunctional my brain has become because all those dark VNs is that I literally expect cage scene in every Otoge, but not that someone is a single dad, lol, see which one is more probable in the real world - LI that locks you in the cage or single dad). I found just one annoying inconsistency in his route - when the writers risked badly injured Mitarashi’s life to give Saki excuse to split up and go look for Shirabe’s daughter with him. It was just like… that’s too much of like convenient twist, it was a bit eye roll inducing. Whatever, I still enjoyed it. As it’s the sixth route out of seven we’re pretty close to discovering the mystery of the whole game, which is cool to watch. 

Ayumu Shirabe is old. I mean, a lot older than the protagonist, which is fine with me, but if you don’t like that relationship dynamic then I guess you won’t like this route. Saying that, it wasn’t creepy or manipulative whatsoever and Shirabe actually tried to distance himself from Saki quite a lot, as I don’t think he thought it’s right, which is actually a sign that he’s not some old guy looking for a cute high school girl. I thought I’m going to hate this route as I was never into older men, but I seriously found it quite sweet. Most of the relationships in this game are quite healthy and well developed, so I wasn’t exactly expecting anything less then that, but I was pleasantly surprised. Also, the CGs in this route were pretty nice, especially the kiss one. 

I mean… okay, so Makoto’s route is much much darker than anyone's really as we have some angst, some manipulation going on and you know, the general bad-boi-must-execute-revenge type of shit. The route itself was exciting - as like I mentioned before, it was darker and it unraveled whole mystery behind the whole game. I liked Makoto as a character, he was this kind of easygoing guy at first glance with real twisted personality and normally - I’m all about it (I am a sucker for angst, blame my stupid brain), but honestly? This time I was like: meh. The climax contained few plot holes. Like I know he’s troubled, but why would he need to execute revenge on people like Shidou, Mitarashi or Wakasa? They aren’t even a little bit to blame for what happened by any standard, even his own. Also, he’s clearly lying about not wanting to hurt any hostages - I mean, he clearly was happy to do so in previous routes? I dunno, maybe it’s me, but I found this route, which was supposed to be a climax of the game, disappointing. Yeah, I did cried, but because I’m just a crybaby. And the ending was really unsatisfying too. I like him most visually (except Shidou), but I didn’t found much depth behind what drives him as a character. Sorry. 

Overall, I enjoyed the entire experience that was Sweet Fuse: At Your side. I think the entire game had a bit of Danganrompa feeling to it (aside from the participants killing each other), which I appreciated. This game has a real cult status on Otome Games Reddit, which I can definitely can tell why - it’s really fun and refreshing. All the characters and a real depth to them and were really well-rounded and well written. They all had their own personalities, without being a caricatures of their own issues. And we do get a lot of creeps in this genre, so that was really nice to see. At any point I didn’t feel the love interests were pushy, possessive or rapey towards the protagonist, which I think was great and also made a bit of a change comparing to other games in this genre. My favorite was definitely Shidou, but I thought also the highlight of this game for me was Meoshi as I felt very connected to this character as experiencing similar issues. Another great thing about the characters was their dynamics with each other - everybody would just grow closer together over the course of the game - not only LI and protagonist, which I thought was really cool and gave us a variety of funny interactions and heartwarming moments. 

The slow unraveling of the mystery route by route and having to play the last route to fully grasp it was a great idea as it kept me entertained and I genuinely wanted to play all the routes. Yeah, there was a repetitive element to it as with all otoges, but I thought each route was quite a bit different to the others. 

However, I didn’t felt satisfied after the last route. I felt like it was just cut short and I felt like I expected more from the last route. I expected the drama and the fireworks. But we didn’t get it, in my opinion. Well, I suppose the writers went the realistic route, which was cool too, but I just like the drama. Sorry. 

The absolute highlight of this game was Saki herself - she was clever, no-nonsense and kept all those much older than her men in check. She had a mind of her own and was resourceful. I think Saki was possibly my favorite Otoge heroine so far. It felt empowering to have female lead and be able to actually get angry and give them a piece of your mind but still get a good ending afterwards. 

The design of the game is quite different to the others in the genre and definitely has his own appeal - I personally really enjoyed it and found it refreshing. It is however a matter of taste, but I thought the design fitted well with with the story. Same with music - I thought it was fun and quirky, just like the design and fitted well with the plot. 

Overall, I think this game is definitely something any fan of the genre should pick up - it’s only £7.39 and it’s such an enjoyable experience that even if you don’t like the look of the design you should still give it a try.