Developer/publisher: love&art/mages.
Platform: Switch,mobile.
Official Site: https://gensomanege.com/
VNDB: https://vndb.org/v25993
Release date: 2020-01-30.
I saw this was on sale at the jpn eshop for 30$ and since I had considered playing it
a while back plus the fact these VN rarely go on sale especially otomate/koei let alone
this low I was like why not? this is also by the folks who made meikoi which I really enjoyed.
This was also one of the first few new otome games on switch but back then I didn't have one yet
so I had to sit out on it till now as I took advantage of the golden week sale.
This game also has a soft/fluffy colour scheme which really helped anyway
I don't know much about this game and went in relatively blind.
Also the title of the game would be something like Carousel of dreams or Dream Carousel.
I am not a professional translator but that is what it simply what it would translate to.
Pro's
- Cute & Comfy with an okay plot! but need to do all to fully understand it.
- Interesting characters.
- Gorgeous art and the backgrounds are very well done.
- BGM fit the mood most of the time.
Con's
- Kiss CG's could leave to be desired (but still ok).
- Character design can be a bit colour-coded.
- Could've benefited from a slightly stricter play order.
OP is cute but not the stuff I felt like watching everytime I booted it up.
Gensou Manege ended up being more or less a light-mystery otome game hench why
I won't write too much here except some prologue bits below! this game seems perfect if you're
in the mood for cute and fluffy things but still want to enjoy a little bit of plot to go along with that.
--
The heroine Emma lost most of her childhood memories and she has some weird magic powers...
as well as a miniature carousal she inherited from her late father, she really treasures this.
One day she goes to the amusement park and meets Hugo someone who claims to know her.
Hugo asks Emma to work with him because the people who work at the park are stuck there
so he wants her to help release them with her magic. After thinking about it and acknowledging
her magic powers might be of help she ends up joining their troupe! most of the time
she's been teached to not let anyone know of her powers as well. What could come of this?
The setting is french themed, not sure when its supposed to take place but they had electricity
anyway it is entirely a work of fiction so its best not to think too hard about it.
--
This game does have a common route but its more of a get to know
everyone a little while getting used to working with them kind of thing. It didn't feel like
it was too long and its also there to decide which route you'll end up on.
Art is really good, the backgrounds are very detailed and sprite work is pretty good! once more
I will say I really love the colour-scheme even the user interface...and most of the time
I don't really care about the latter so I think that says something.
Music is fitting enough... but it didn't stand out too much and its just okay.
Seiyuu cast... they're all relatively well known maybe some a little less though some of
the voice actors I hadn't heard in a long time so it was good to hear them again.
System wise its just standard stuff, a little common route to check flags to get on
the preferred route! there's only two endings one good and one not so good.
It does have a minigame but its nothing too hard or annoying.
The weird part about this after the first minigame there is an option to skip it anyway
which gives you an auto A-rank(still need to fail it for the other end though).
After the first playthrough I decided to skip every minigame because while cute it got redundant.
As for play order... the guide I used said if you care for the story that its better to save
Hugo's route for later as it contains the most revelations and he unlocks Arnaud.
My order ended up being: Luciole > Crier > Lyon > Serge > Hugo > Arnaud.
If I had to recommend any order it would probably be this:
Serge / Luciole / Crier > Lyon > Hugo > Arnaud. Because Lyon is where some
revelations start rolling and it start making more sense, the way it works
is Serge/Luci/Crier do have hints about what's going on but you won't really get it
till you do Hugo nor will it fully make sense till Arnaud's route. So the order of the first
three or four routes doesn't matter that much as its hard to see how it fits into the big picture.
This game has a certain bittersweet feel to it, there is still some comedy to be found
as expected from the dev's of meikoi but comedy is not really the focus.
All the backgrounds were so detailed and helped with the setting the game
and made it more immersive. The heroine Emma also had a sprite!
She's cute and was pretty pro-active as well I couldn't dislike her at all.
The music always helped to set the tone/mood of the scenes but like I already
said above its not that great either. Romance wise it was good it just that
some routes may seem to not have much going for them but still all connect to it in some way!
Now I am personally wondering... why does this one go so under the radar?
is it because its not from otomate? by some other dev and not in english?!
or maybe just bad marketing? idk... maybe most just weren't interested
cuz they didn't have a switch yet at the time it came out, I know I had to pass.
Anyway this was like such a feel-good otome game and I could tell they tried with it.I definitely recommend checking this one out if you're in the mood
for something cute and fun that still has an underlying plot to figure out!
even if its not on a sale and at full price I think its more than worth itjust be careful with your play order,there are routes that do have more revelations than others!
I think this game is also good for beginners just trying out the otome game genre as the plot
in most routes is not too heavy but its there and you're just mostly in for a good time!
7,7/10
As for language difficulty its easy to follow its plot, it might be good as a test
if you think you have a good grip on your japanese.
Okay that ends the non-spoiler section and the rest is all just character rambles and CG
there's probably a better digest of it by now but I still wrote some stuff down I remembered.
