The Cinderella Phenomenon

The Cinderella Phenomenon is a freeware English-language otome by Dicesuki, made possible by generous Kickstarter donors. It is quite robust for a free game, boasting 250-300k words, custom assets, CGs, and 5 routes/10 endings.

I liked the fairy tale mashups and the LIs have interesting personalities. I didn’t necessarily like them as romantic characters, but I enjoyed reading their stories. The main character, Lucette, has her own story and different facets of it are revealed in different playthroughs. There are no yuri routes because God is dead.

The format is select-a-route. Two routes, Felix and Waltz, are locked until you finish the other three. This was done for story reasons and it’s a standard convention but I still find it annoying. Waltz’s story was the one I really wanted to read, so I cracked it diligently played through hours of content that wasn’t of interest to me. The recommended order is Rod, Karma, Rumple, Felix, Waltz.

Karma’s route was fun. There is a bit of manpain, which I always find lulz rather than whatever emotion it’s supposed to evoke, but he wears a dress (and loves it) so I’ll take what I can get. Rumple’s route annoyed me and I didn’t finish it. I tried, but I kept finding myself thinking, “Dude, why won’t you stop bugging her?” and “Dude, get out of her face,” which never bodes well. Waltz’s route is the true route and it provided more backstory and had a different ending from the others.

CP still has otome boundary issues. More than once, I found myself thinking, “Dude, get out of her face,” when an LI invaded Lucette’s personal space. Waltz alludes to not being able to control himself twice while she’s in his room, but in a vague muttering-to-self way and Lucette doesn’t understand what he’s talking about. So the tropes are still there, they’re just diluted.

The only technical problem was a controller issue that annoyed me so much I patched it. A few things bugged me gameplay-wise. The difference between good and bad endings can be as narrow as one or two conversation choices and the storyline is linear, so it’s a little frustrating to get to the end and wind up with a bad ending because of some minor conversation choice three chapters before. The game also blocks rollback after choices, which I oppose on religious grounds.

To compensate, there is a right choice indicator. Choices that contribute to a good ending will trigger a crystal in the corner of the screen. I’ve seen a ‘choice signal’ before with MoaCube’s Cinders (on sale at the Humble Store for the next five hours, buy your copy today!), but in that case a growing tree branch is displayed when new story paths open up, which I didn’t find particularly useful.

Anyway, Cinderella Phenomenon is a solid free OELVN otome. It’s got a theme song, an animated intro, the whole nine yards. Based on what I have played, I feel like it’s a good example of the genre.

I’d like to try the other routes eventually, I’m curious about Felix now that I’ve gotten a few hints about his storyline, but I don’t know if I’ll play too many more route-based otomes in the future. I prefer getting to know characters in a more organic way and I don’t like being locked into a route.