Dangerous Relationship

Honestly, I finished this a pretty long time ago and bought it only because it was in a really cheap bundle with at least a dozen other games. Buuuut it's honestly not too bad if you read it with your expectations on the ground. :)
It is Dogenzaka's game after all, that should be its own warning at this point.

As always, it really is just less of an otome game for me to enjoy and more of a bad otome I can laugh at when I'm bored.
I had a good laugh going through most of this, though, from the sheer amount of ridiculousness. It took some stress off, for the most part. I could bear and laugh through the cringe for Ryouhei, Taiga, and Subaru, but Akira gave me too much secondhand embarassment (he's otherwise okay though), and Kei is just a straight up piece of trash.

Dangerous Relationship is typical Dogenzaka Lab game, one of the worse ones. Don't expect too much from it. It is playable and you can possibly find at least one suitable suitor according to your taste, but it lacked too much for my taste.

The game system is the same as in other Dogenzaka Lab games: prologue, separate stories for 5 LI, good ending and best ending, date scenarios, sequels and several extra stories. The whole game can be finished in 20 - 25 hours.

Pros:
+ Art, from sprites to CGs.
+ Romantic content.

Cons:
- Translation. But you can live with it.
- Plain story (if we can call it story).
- Easily forgettable characters.
- Annoying background music.

Definitely wait for a big discount if you want to check out this game.

There are many things wrong with this company's stories, but this one has you romancing your rapist.

No, seriously. During Chapter Two of Kei's route, he rapes your character. And you're supposed to romance him after he rapes her. They try to frame it as her choice, but he threatens her job, her income, her reputation, forces himself on her several times, then rapes her. He isn't a "bad boy," he's a rapist, an abuser. His brother makes it clear he's done this before to women unfortunate enough to have to work for him, so he's a serial rapist and abuser.

Just... fucking no. The others are... fine from memory, but Kei? Fuuuuuck no.

This VN is vile, I don't know what to say that isn't just repeating other reviews concerns with this game, but I still wanted to put my two cent in as to why I dislike this 'dating sim' so much. For starters the art and the set up are very bland, whilst not outright bad, it's still extremely boring to look at, moving on to the dialouge, it comes off as unnatural and very creepy! As for characters, theres a guy whos a horny sex maniac, a guy who forces himself on you, a guy who abuses you and plays the victim, a guy who treats you like a helpless child and a guy whos boring...When 'boring' is the best way to describe my favourite character, theres a problem! It would be funny if it wasn't so harmful in perpetuating abuse and toxic relationships as being romantic and something vunriable teens or adults might start to believe, overall, this game is really bad, if you're like me and enjoy playing bad games sometimes, then this one won't dissapoint, otherwise stear clear!

If you've played a Dogenzaka Lab otome game before, you know what you're getting into here. The storylines are cliched and most (if not all) the relationships are problematic. In this one, you play a heroine who starts a secret relationship with a celebrity of your choice. The storylines range from ok (Ryouhei) to abusive (Kei).

The game's romance options are:
-Ryouhei: a singer from an idol group who's sweet and has led an oddly sheltered life
-Taiga: a model who puts up a public facade of being extremely nice when really he's a sarcastic jerk
-Akira: an easy going comedian who's trying to go solo while the partner of his act is MIA
-Kei: a cocky bad actor who's straight-up emotionally abusive
-Subaru: a song writer/rock star who thinks he needs to experience everything first hand in order to write about it

If Dogenzaka Lab games are a guilty pleasure for you, like they are for me, then I'd say go for this. Otherwise, I'd recommend skipping this one.

This otome game centers around dating celebrities. Not unlike some romance novels. Anyway, in this case you have your pick between an idol, a comedian, a model, an actor, and a rock star. These characters are vibrant, and the romances are well-written, if short, and in some cases, lacking much conflict.

And the protagonist? Well, she suffers from otome-protagonist-syndrome. Meaning she does not have much substance. And in many paths, not much intelligence.

Would suggest getting this title on sale. And maybe in the bundle on top of that.

The writing flutuates between boring and cringe, I could not get beyond a couple of chapters of one route... it's bad and should feel bad. Somehow this seems to be par the course for your run of the mill otome games.

Dogenzaka games are often a hit or miss, and this one ended up being the ladder. Abusive relationships simulator 2016 woohoo! Most of these guys are assholes who force themselves onto the protag and it's nothing but frustrating. The romance feels forced, they fall in love with the MC either right away or one chapter later. All of these routes are just hehe haha you're cute > sex > misunderstandings > and more fucking. If you want to turn your brain off and wild out with one dimensional guys, then hey this is for you. If you do buy this game however, I'd recommend to stay away from it at full price and buy it whenever it goes on sale.

Dangerous Relationships

Music 1.5/5

There are a total of five different musical scores...I think. After having played a couple routes it sort of became comical hearing the same song EVERY time one of those…ahem…so called tender moment came up. In hindsight it was a rather interesting combination. Most of the time, the MC finds herself in an awkward position, unable to resist her suitor, unable to even react, and the guy sort of pushes his will or dominance over her with tender music playing in the background. It is rather satirical in its rather oxymoronic manner.

Characters 3/5

The characters are rather bland and robotic with the exception of Taiga and maybe Kei. There is really nothing exceptional about them or the MC. They all fall in love pretty quickly without much substance or common ground to make any relationship believable and that is quickly followed with vigorous intimacy. It was difficult to take any of them seriously and after a while I simply played for the comical effect. However, even this got old when the characters pretty much ended up reacting the same one way or another and I eventually just keep clicking just so I could hurry and get to the ending. I give the characters 3 out of 5 simply because Taiga was not actually so bad and even though Kei was sort of a sadistic a-hole he at least kept the story interesting. He is someone I would never want to have the misfortune to meet, but at least he wasn't another clone of Kyouhei, Akira, or Subaru. After mind numbingly clicking through their routes, the psychopath was a refreshing change. The rest are pretty much a numb grinding waste of time. This is just my opinion.

Plot 1.5/5

I found the plot idea decent, but its execution terrible. When you hear the MC is supposed to keep her relationship with the stars secret you do not actually “see” her attempts. Instead, we are told how important it is that they have to keep it secret all while she is trapped being romanced by these characters at any given location. The main plot really has no bearing on the story and instead it often takes a nonexistent backseat to character conflicts that is supposed bring enlightenment to each of the character’s personality and background.

In reality, most of the conflicts were childish and exhausting. Each of these so called grown adults with high profiled jobs fail comprehending their most rudimentary human emotions. What is love? Why am I feeling this way? What is jealously? And yet, these puberty absent incomplete humanoids are quite adapted at understanding emotions such as lust and passion? I don't get it.

Final Grade 2/5

The game is lucky to get 2. I don’t care who has what to say about my critique and if they happen to love the story. It was lacking in too many dynamics to get excited or even really care about it. It is not the worst game I have played, but there are certainty better ones out there. If you do decide to want to play the game, the only worthwhile path really is Taiga. He is really the only reason I gave "character" the highest score. There is a lot of reading involved, so I guess it is nice, but not really a plus if the story is boring. I would NOT buy this game at full price.

Like most of Dogenzaka titles, this visual novel is terribly written and has the most godawful characters (I actually dare to say that the only character I liked a bit was Taiga. Even Akira, the supposed “gentleman”, was very bland to me). The art is okay, but it gets rather annoying to see only CGs of the guys kissing the faceless MC. The BGM… Good god, it’s so bad! It’s only 1 or 2 songs looping forever and ever and making you want to rip off your ears. I had to mute the game in order to keep playing it.

The story is simple: the MC gets a job in the show business and she gets to know one of the guys better. That’s it. In my opinion the problem with this game isn’t how simple the plot is, it’s how fast things happen; It takes only 1 or 2 chapters for the characters to fall in love and to act jealous around each other. There’s no depth here, just the “ah I just met you and therefore I love you more than anything (and I might treat you like garbage because that’s the way I express my affection)” thing. Well, if you’re really desperate to play a girl x boy VN and you don’t mind all that, this game might be for you. But get it only on a sale, seriously. It’s not worth paying the full price. I enjoyed Taiga’s route a bit and I hated Kei’s route. That man is a f*cking psycho. And the MC is very annoying in his route… She literally faints during their sex scene because apparently it was “very intense”. YEAH RIGHT

3/10. Boring story, shallow characters, terrible music… You can get better otome games than this one.

Before I wrote this review I made sure that I finished every route in this game and one thing that I notice after finishing a character's route is that they all follow the same pattern. The relationship with MC and the other characters are rushed, I understand that there's only a few chapters but it's only the first/second chapter and the guy you're going after already tells you that he's in love with you. Some of them doesn't even know MC that well and they've already kissed or proclaimed their love for her in the first two chapters it's possible to start the first few chapters having the characters just spend time with each other as good friends. There's also smut in the game so if you're not a big fan of it don't get this game, though it's up to you if you want to skip them.

TRIGGER WARNING: if you want to try the game but don't want to see the scenes that involve rape then skip Kei's route.Kei forces MC into doing a lot of sexual things without consent and brush it off as a loving gesture.I have never hated a character so much until I've played his route. Everything about his character development felt forced and rushed

Overall if you want to get the game despite all of this wait till it goes on sale.

Nobody making this game gave a h*ck. It's bland and perfunctory with no passion or heart.

I played Kei's route because someone here said it got rapey and I thought, 'like, *how* rapey tho?" Yep. Pretty rapey. I was warned and I didn't listen but tbh none of the other characters stood out enough for me to care.

Oh, and all of the characters have the same sprite but with slight differences. They just created one body and then slapped a few different eyes and hair-dos on them. Plus, the faces look kind of broken? Like, the chins are a separate layer to the rest of the face and you can see the seam. This probably looked okay on mobile but on PC it's really obvious. Speaking of mobile, my play through had only two CGs: one in the first chapter to convince you to buy the story in the app and a kind of meh one at the end so you don't feel too ripped off - except, I bought the whole game outright and I feel ripped off as h*ck.

TL:DNR - Story is bad, art is weird. Play Yoshiwara instead.

I personally found this game disappointing. I finished a route with difficulty (because I didn't want to feel that I wasted my money) but the other route I chose had a similar pattern. Even the "nice" guy was forcing himself physically to the heroine, that's not "exciting" it's harassment and assault. The story felt rushed, and the plot was weak.I didn't like the art of the CGse either. I understand that they had warnings in the beginning, but I personally don't enjoy explicit scenes and there was an abundance of unecessary explicit scenes there that I had to constantly skip. So in short, I do not recommend this story even with the sale.

i will recommend this if it's on sale. i am big into otome with some smut and this goes all out on smut and i'm a fan. however, i recommend this with a TW, since there are some situations in which the MC is coerced or forced into sexual situations and that's no bueno. if that's your kink, then it's definitely for you. if that's something that is triggering, i'd heavily advise against this game.

Got it because I kind of like the premise and it looked promising and the guys look cute but I feel like they didn't manage to bring out the full potential of the game.

Akira was the first route I played and he's the one I probably like the most in this story (other than Kei's brother, who is non-dateable LOL). I kind of lost interest after the first route because of how repetitive everything "felt" like. Everyone falls in love quickly and hump like bunnies every other chapter, if not all. Good for you if that's the kind of story you enjoy reading. Of course, each of the guys have their own personalities and stories to tell but it kind of feel like those are taking a backseat compared to the... "intimate" scenes. Maybe "Horny Relationship" might be a more fitting title. Personally unless the story plot calls for it (like Men of Yoshiwara where we are talking about courtesans), I'd prefer something with more story and character development.

On plus side, the CGs are mostly good. Even though I wasn't a fan of Kei but his final CG gave me some dokidoki moment. The quality of sprites, range of expressions and backgrounds are pretty good too. Akira's smiling face is just so cute! :3 I only wish there were more different kinds of background in the various routes for a little more variety.

That said, I don't think this game is a fail, it is not really my cup of cappuccino but it's okay enough for some casual reading to pass the time if you aren't too particular about the plot (or if you just want to read about bunnies humping). Although if you plan to get it, I would suggest waiting for a sale.

And they should totally give Kei's brother a route.

I would recommend if you're an otome game ENTHUSIAST who likes to read AND who's looking for ANY OTOME GAMES TO FILL IN YOUR FREE TIMES... oh and... any otome game enthusiast who doesnt complaint much and enjoyed the game.

The arts and backgrounds are polished and beautiful.
The characters have their own story. (Sigh, I just wish Soh has his own route... Who is Soh? Check the game out!)
They have side/short stories : Sequel and Date Scenario which takes place after the ending. Which is great. I like to read more.
lowkey Smut... ;-) (excuse me)
I don't have much problems on the characters route... Oh, wait.. KEI... I have a problem with him.
Play this for fun... But don't romanticized on what's going on with it.
The writing is okay to me.

It helps me to fill in free times and this game played my emotions... especially on Kei's...
I want Soh to have his own route. That guy deserve his own happy end.

This is just my opinion but I absoloutly HATE this game. I'll list the pros and cons so you get a better idea why.

Pros:
The art style is good but it's quite bland and forgetable compared to other visual novel/ dating sims that are on steam. The characters have clear personalities and they're all somewhat likeable. The storys take about 5-9 hours per route and you WILL need a guide. The CGs are decently well done but they are not professinal quality which you can get over.

Cons:
The story and pacing is TERRIBLE! The musicis also annoying and very repetative. You will need some advil on hand for all the headaches you will get due to the music alone. I think the best route to use to truely capture the essence of this game is Kei so I'll use Kei's route as an example. (Kei was my least favorite route by far)
SPOLIERS FOR KEI'S ROUTE!
Kei is the "a****** playboy" charater type in this game. It starts out somewhat normal with your character and Kei arguing (like in the prolouge) about clothes and such. He tells your character that he will wear the clothes if you BANG HIM!?! In his route, whenever theres a disagreement or anything major happens or a problem comes up, you end up just banging Kei. What the hell? Near the end of his route, his brother confesses his love and says he can treat you better (HIS BROTHER NEEDS A ROUTE!) and what does Kei and your character do about it? They bang. Screw solving the problem at hand, lets just bang and everything will solve itself. Theres a lot of lazy writing in this and just useless things like this. What could have been a good route turned into a bang-fest.

To be fair, not all the routes are like this. But in all the routes around the mid-way point or near the end, you'll start doing it like rabbits. (If you don't know then "doing it like rabbits" means a lot.) Some of the routes had promice but I was quickly dissapointed with the lazy writing and little to no real character development. The only development that will ever take place is one of the characters falling for you. Thats it. And even in the best end, the endings can still be dissapointing with how little some of them seem to care about you.

A lot of the routes have this problem. Insted of finding a good way to solve a problem, you do something completely diffrent and lazily solve it as quickly as possible to get back to the main romance. If they actually took the time to figure out these problems and maybe have a bit of conflict, it wouldn't be so bad of a game. (Or you could just remove Kei and replace his route with his brothers)

If you are ok with dating sims that are lazy but somewhat funny at times then this is right up your alley but if you enjoy decent games, I wouldn't get this. (Unless its on sale for 2$ like how I got it) Its also a fun game to play with friends and do voices for the characters due to the bad writing (during the sex scenes I don't reccomend voicing it though. It could get very awkward) I also sort of understand why this has such mixed reviews. Some routes are more enjoyable then others with Kei's being the worst once again but if you can look past those flaws you MIGHT like it.

If you are into otome visual novel games I highly reccomend Amnesia Memories or OZMAFIA!! They are much better done game with more interesting stories and characters. If you do however like the company that made Dangerous Relationship, then try the Men of Yoshiwara games. The characters and music go together really nicely and the stories arn't too bad. I also reccomend Nameless the one thing you must recal with 5 routes but once again, they are really well done.

Edit: I went back to this game (to do a better reivew) and I forgot one thing about Kei's route. He always mentions in it that you are his "plaything" and nothing more. This never changes by the way. Even in the best end, you are still just a toy to him and he will never think of you any diffrently. Honestly, going back to this game just reasured me of my hatred of this game. Even after not playing it for months, the music stays with me. Thats how annoying the music got. I really can't reccomend this game to anyone! I am usaully am very good at reccomending otome games for diffeent people bassed on their taste but I really just can't ever even concider sudgesting this to anyone.

This game is the Boko no Pico of otome gamess and I'm surprised more people haven't found this and critasized it.

Also for those who have read this far down on my essay of a rant, thank you :D This took me way too much time and I really took it seriously. Otome games are kinda my life (I have no life) so it just made sense that I'd rant about at least something. But even with all my ranting and nit-picking, there are still worse games on the market or on steam for that matter. There are only maybe 3-5 really good otome games on all of steam which is just dissapointing. Dear Steam, give us more female oriented otome games plz! XD

So to sum up everything I've said thus far, Don't get it, its lazy, annoying and just really not well done. If you do get it, Just skip Kei's route for god sakes XD And I can not STRESS HOW ANNOYING THE MUSIC IS!! UGH!

I really wanted to like this game, but I couldn't. Would I recommend it? Maybe if you can buy it with a good discount.
The characters are way too simple, with very boring stories. I found very hard to connect with them.
The artwork is not that bad, but the music is so annoying that I had to mute it.
Overall, I was very disappointed with Dangerous Relationships. In the past I´ve played really good free otome games before, and wouldn´t bother buying this one for £11.99.

I'm really perplexed why this game has mixed reviews, especially in a genre like this by a publisher who has released games that about 10x less worth the cost. That's not to say this isn't a great game, it is. This actually makes my top 3 for character-driven otome games.

Character personalities: 5/5
Unique, engaging, creative, and very different from what you often see in otome. These characters are fleshed out and unique. They have fascinating backstories that create who they are today as people and it goes so far beyond the expectation of archetypes in an otome. Very attractive designs too with good variance between the characters.

Art: 4/5
The art surprised me in how subtle it is. There are the most subtle sprite changes that REALLY convey the mood if you are paying close attention to them and how they shift. It isn't just the same 4 images recycled, it's subtle changes to those base images in the eyes, the plush, the eyebrows, the mouth..all that really tell a story through the character. The backgrounds are generic but they at least look the same. Many otome change so drastically in art style for the backgrounds you can really see how obviously stock they are. Here it feels more uniform. It's a shame none of the sprites seem to have shirtless shots though, there IS erotica and it's odd to read when the character is still bundled up in 3 layers of clothing.

Music: 3/5
It's not the worst I've heard, but it is generic and overused. Props for having some unique songs to certain storylines but all in all it's passable. Does a great job of setting the mood though.

Story: 4/5
This is a modern, slice of life, short otome. You can only do so much with that but even with that limited content Dangerous Relationship succeeds far beyond games twice its price. This is more of a character driven plot, but they work so well together that I don't mind that the plot isn't EXTREMELY fleshed out. The character motivations and unwrapping of the layers makes the plot stand out far more than most otome games do. And I might also add, it doesn't feel forced or generic. Even series I love like The Men of Yoshiwara are so heavy handed and predictable that it gets tiring. Dangerous Relationship does not fall into that trap and I find that extremely refreshing.

Side Stories/Extra content: 4/5
Same as story, it's more just character development and experiencing the characters more. The extra stories aren't terribly engaging as their own independent stories but they do offer more character exploration and I wouldn't have regretted buying any of them. I bought this on Steam so everything was bundled together, but had I bought this on mobile I likely still would have paid for the extra content and not regretted the purchase.

Erotica: 3.5/5
I'm being generous here. Most otome's erotic is so much more limited than this, I'm giving it a 3.5/5 rating COMPARED to other otome. It's got the same limitations you expect from an otome where everything is vague. But, depending on your storyline you get a lot more of it than you usually would from an otome. It's still fun and engaging even if a little limited for someone who likes a bit more. A 4/5 rating may be a little more fair here but I play enough male-market dating sims to have a higher standard of sexual content than most otome can give. So I'm biased.

Favorite storyline: Taiga
Hands down. He actually has made my #2 spot of otome DS characters period. (#1 belongs to Rory from Voltage's Gangsters in Love). This was a spot held by Mamoru from Dandy Shot/Pub Encounter for a long time but Taiga has enough interesting layers to his personality and such a unique personality that have to give credit where its due. He may seem a little tsundere at first but I promise you he isn't in the slightest, his rashness just comes off like that before you settle into it. He's open, honest, and uniquely himself. Unlike the usual bad boy or playboy archetype in otome, he doesn't change when he falls in love with you. He will remain himself to the end and that's something beautiful lacking in very single other otome I've played with this character archetype. He has such a fleshed out and interesting personality that I find myself playing his whole path again and again just because his character is so much fun.

Overall Value: 5/5.
This game is cheap enough you shouldn't be passing it up. Even with its faults.

Best Audience:
This game is great for seasoned or new players to the DS genre. I think it sets a high standard that can lead to disappointment in other games if you're new, but it's still such a well rounded game I have no problem recommending this to everyone.

A decent otome

Background and CG are beautiful. I would of like more CG Though
Each route takes about 3 hours to complete.

I played Kei First ( What an A..Hole)
But the other guys are actually really sweet they'll sooth your soul.