Money Jar and Illusion of Choice
aka Story Jar by NTT Solmare and Love Choice by Voltage Inc. Since I haven’t been around much the last few weeks and because I got an ask about it I decided to look at these new ways to “enjoy” Otome games. I already vented about Money-… I mean Love Jar yesterday, and while Voltage isn’t quite as hardcode (yet) it still should be talked about.
I’ll start with Masquerade Kiss, Voltage’s new game which introduces Love Choice as a way to read Main Stories. Apparently the only way for future releases. Though it doesn’t matter much where I start since both of these new “systems” have a lot in common. This is how the Love 365 app greets you currently.
FOR FREE OMG. However as you know nothing in life is free, if you look closely you’ll see “Use hearts to read without wait times ♪”. So literally in the same breath they tell you that this new system is shit. We’ll take a more in-depth look at those wait times later because they play a big role for this entire new system, including the situation in Story Jar. To put the second part into words that aren’t sugar coated “Use money to deepen your affection! If you want to see CG’s and get a satisfactory ending you had better open that wallet of yours cause those are behind a paywall♪“. Voltage is trying to be charming about this but the bottom line is: without money you get the short end of the stick. Which isn’t all bad or uncommon. They are a company so obviously they have to make money. But they’ve come up with quite a cunning way to do just that.
CELEBRATION! NOW OR NEVER! READ THE WHOLE STORY WITHOUT WAITING!!! WHAT A NEW AND REVOLUTIONARY CONCEPT?! HAS THIS EVER HAPPENED BEFORE? Yes. That’s the old system we’ve had until now. Where you pay 4€ once and own the entire thing to read at your own pace and revisit as often as you’d like. I honestly couldn’t help but scoff when this screen showed up as I was playing.
Which brought me to my first question. Why don’t they simply let us consumers choose between buying the entire thing and this “f2p” version? It’s the same simple answer for all questions related to this topic: 💰 💰 💰
The elaborate explanation is that obviously no one would touch this “f2p” version unless they’re forced to. As stated above stories used to be 4€. However Love Choice is much more expensive.
This part made me especially sick. They know exactly that for a lot of us Otoge is something we use to treat ourselves. These sugar coated words “special” “exciting outcomes” “spicy ending” aim exactly for that. You’re already here, surely you don’t want to miss this super special spicy scintillating sexy breathtaking ending.
However that’s not even the worst part yet. One choice costs 5 hearts which is not too bad right? Too good to be true almost, which is exactly what’s happening here. As you progress the amount of hearts needed steadily increases. The biggest amount one choice costs is 26 hearts.
That singular choice plus CG costs almost as much as an entire route with all CG’s etc. used to cost (400 Coins).
Granted as you can see above you “only” need 12 points to get the super special spicy scintillating sexy breathtaking ending. Which means you don’t always have to select the ~special choice~. However the amount of points you get per special choice is different each time (ranging from 1pt to 3pts), there’s no other way to earn them. So unless you use a Walkthrough you’re grasping at straws. Like here, you’ll get a CG sure but only 1pt. In theory a choice with 3pts is more lucrative but who knows when one of those might show up.
Ultimately guessing whether the money you’ve invested so far will be enough to get you that desired ending might be more thrilling than Eisuke 2.0 trying to shove his tongue into your mouth.
