What kind of stories do you like? Period stories? School stories? I read a lot of games from Voltage (paid), OKKO (free, but limited reading tickets per day), Shall We Date?/nttsolmare (like OKKO, but stories not as mature), and Cybird. Lots of tumblrs about otome as well. Let me know! I can suggest a ton of them.

btw, my icon is from a paid Voltage otome called Irresistible Mistakes -- about a relationship that started from a one-night stand.

/slams hands on table

You came to the right place

I'm mostly only familiar with the Shall We Date? series but let me tell you my knowledge within that sphere is extensive

Literal best otomes I've ever played are Mystic Messenger(the only non-Shall We Date I can recommend), Scarlet Fate, and its sequel Scarlet Fate II

Mystic Messenger is great and unique, but if you don't want to spend money and/or have a busy schedule, you may want to steer clear. It's time-based.

Meaning, events happen at certain times of the day and if you don't check in regularly, you'll miss them and can only participate - and get the affection bonuses with your bachelor of choice for participating - if you use the game currency to buy in

(Participation is free provided you're there within the right time window)

MM is a little questionable in certain areas; even its secret, 'true' ending is less than ideal, it seems to have some weird ideas about mental illness(though this is partially translation fail from the original Korean), and near the beginning of the story it teases you with the possibility of not necessarily having to play a girl and then goes HAHA J/K

if you actually try to pick that option

Which, tbh, most people who play otomes don't expect to be allowed to play anything other than a girl protag anyway, but it's a little mean-spirited to get people's hopes up by including that option and then having it do nothing :T

But they're minor gripes and the game is super engaging, with really fun characters and genuinely cackle-worthy humor

Scarlet Fate is absolutely the cream of the crop out of everything Shall We Date? has ever had a hand in, which is primarily because it was initially a PSP game and not a mobile phone game at all

So it's super high quality, the writing is great, and I love the characters so much I've actually RPed one of them

It also comes in ftp or paid versions - I personally recommend the paid version because I hate delayed gratification, but do as your wallet dictates

The biggest gripe with Scarlet Fate is that the first five (I think?) chapters are always identical, no matter what route you choose to pursue; you get a couple 'do A event or B event?' choices that boost bachelors' affection depending, but you're just re-treading the same ground with every playthrough

And the fast-forward button, even on the paid version, is slow, so even fast forwarding those five chapters takes awhile

I don't know if they make you go through it multiple times in the ftp version but if they do I can't imagine how much more tedious that is

But once you get into the individual routes, every character has a completely unique and wholly unpredictable story

And I like all of them so much

Scarlet Fate II is basically a collection of events you can purchase individually for the bachelors of the first game, plus two whole new routes for two bachelors who showed up but weren't romance-able in the first game

(One of whom is a perfect angel who absolutely deserved his own route and I'm still so happy)

(And another one who was a Hot Mess but then in his route becomes absolutely amazing and you realize you didn't even know you needed what the game provided, but you totally did need it)

The events are cute, but whether or not you consider them worth your money is debatable - I only bought them for my favorite characters primarily because I wanted to see all possible pieces of their character development, and that was partly for RP purposes

But the new routes are definitely worth the money even if the events don't interest you

Niflheim+ is a great ftp otome, even if it's nowhere near the level of my top three

I'm very fond of its characters

If you can tolerate some rather...not good translation, Ninja Love is actually a hidden gem from the early days of Shall We Date

In particular, the Musashi and Munenori romances are surprisingly well-written and please me immensely to this day

It's also the only otome I've played to date where you have a female romantic rival who's outright overweight and not conventionally attractive, but 1) she's treated with complete respect, and in fact is demonstrated to be a ninja badass, 2) she and the protag are friendly and actively don't want to be pitted against each other in love,

and 3) most importantly, when you romance the guy your rival is in love with, another one of the bachelors develops an interest in her and actively pursues her because she won him over by being strong, smart, and skilled

So even when she doesn't get the guy she wanted, she gets a happy ending with someone else

And that is fucking REVOLUTIONARY in an otome, in my experience, and I'm still so fucking delighted with how they treated her

So I strongly recommend Ninja Love even though it's old and the translation is janky at best

It does a surprising amount of things right

Destiny Ninja 2 is pretty good :|b I'm in the middle of playing that one, and they haven't stopped releasing new content for it yet

(Everything else I've listed, save perhaps Mystic Messenger???, is about as complete as it's ever going to get)

DN2 does everything on a level of 'pretty darned decent', and while it never rises much above that line it never dips below it either

Also, there's a game that I'd almost...not even call an otome, and I haven't worked up the nerve to play it yet

But I have to rec it because everything I've heard about it sounds amazing

Which is Can't Say No

Calling it an otome would be misleading because this game is hard smut with adult characters, rather than the fluffy romance with teenagers that otome is known for

And this game is absolutely off the rails

It basically runs on porn logic and comes with all the insane scenarios that might imply

Like. The protag can try to seduce a married man away from his wife, or get kidnapped to become a sex slave. These are literal things that can happen. I read someone's review of this game who did not know what they were in for and it was fucking hysterical, which is why I got the game.

If you don't mind spoiling yourself for the game, I can link the review. But based on that review, I feel like this is the kind of trainwreck that might be worth experiencing firsthand, if only to stare in wonder.

OKAY that's all from me in terms of recommendations. Although let me add a warning: do NOT play Wizardess Heart, it's a shitty game and the worst I've seen out of Shall We Date.

The protag has all the competence of a blind puppy, and all the charm and intelligence of that puppy's empty food bowl.

Worse, one of the bachelors turns out to be a literal, unapologetic abuser behind closed doors who will actually murder the protag at one point if you make the wrong dialogue choice. After which she gets brought back to life by magic bullshit and allowed to pick the 'right' option, and then she still falls for him anyway.

It is projectile vomit repellent, and that it's presented as a ~romance~ as valid as any other route is mind-boggling at best, literally toxic to people's understanding of what qualifies as romantic at worst.

There's one character in WH I really like, but he's not enough to make me recommend the game or want WH to ever make another cent for Shall We Date ever again.

Klaus deserves to be transplanted into a better game.

Mystic Messenger is awesome. You just have to play it in real time.

I played Can't Say No, too. Definitely of the adult persuasion. Paid app.