yakuza

Pokemon.

Also, Persona 3

pokemon is too kids oriented and persona is high school setting and often assumes youre a guy. i know enough abt the yakuza games to understand that in a deeply spiritual sense its true but im not sure if i can add it bc it technically assumes youre a guy much of the time, even if its with a ";)" at points

Nina Freeman's games Cibele/We Met in May might fit the brief, also maaaaybe The Stillness of the Wind? sad how few of these im able to think of :(

Maybe the npckc games

https://www.backloggd.com/company/npckc

I understand being hesitant to include Yakuza for those reasons but me and my gf are like going full ape at all the hotties with a heart and passion of gold that it’s almost too close yknow

mostly i will admit i was taking the piss when i suggested it and yet as with all the great jokes and gags...little bit of truth in there

analogue: a hate story

ill add certain npckc n nina freeman n christine love games, forgot abt them! and ill add stillness of the wind just bc this list is too biased towards cosmopolitanism

ghost_girl originally suggested longest journey on the discord (she actually pretty much pointed me towards most of the games on this list and i feel bad for not crediting her now ;_; ill do that now sorry) and i was a little skeptical of it possibly just being "sci fi/fantasy adventure game with female lead" and opening up floodgates to adding a bunch of other games that qualify, but its not like theres a huge amt of them anyway

thanks everyone!!

Three Fourths Home, Choice: Texas, Depression Quest

choice: texas works but its not on bl yet. depression quest seems too neutrally gendered to me, is there more to go on w that? ill add 3/4ths even when its kinda neutral in presentation bc i can kinda see it from the story content at a glance. feel like i could have some stricter standards but the list is already not v long as is...

Great list here! I think Behind the Frame fits the vibes too ^^

I would suggest adding "CUPID - A free to play Visual Novel" for being a mature, historical horror story centered pretty firmly on the female protagonist's POV and the gender roles of its time are significant to that. Very similar reasoning to "House in Fata Morgana", honestly.

For other otoge, I would add the Hakuoki, Code Realize, and Collar X Malice series. They're all written from an adult protagonist's perspective and they all feature some more mature subject matter. I also have "Fashioning Little Miss Lonesome" on my backlog which I haven't played but it's one of the few 18+ otoge I know, for what it's worth.

For adventure games, I'd recommend "Kathy Rain" and "Whispers of a Machine", they both have adult female protagonists and their personal arcs include their emotional struggles with abortion and miscarriage.

Might come back and recommend more another time, but I love josei-core stuff and love this list!

added behind the frame, and thank you for coming thru w these rellni!! i did consider hakuoki before at least and originally decided against it bc protag is 16 i think? least in the first game. but i think the sensibility feels mature enough to allow it anyway. only one im not including is fashioning little miss lonesome bc its in a weird place for me: it is a rare otoge w h-scenes which is kind of noteworthy but theres a lot of male-oriented eroge out there i wouldnt necessarily call seinen just for being 18+. same idea with some 18+ BL games (theres probably a good amt of those that can technically go here if they have the flair, but i cant think of any atm). whispers is one idk enough abt but i think kathy is a good pull, so ill trust you on this one

Thanks for including these! For what it’s worth, Hakuoki does take place over a number of years so Chizuru is in her 20s by the endings, and I wouldn’t say she’s dealing with normal teenager problems anyway. I respect the veto on “Fashioning”, maybe I’ll have a stronger argument for its inclusion after I play it.

Misericorde, Syberia 1 and Syberia: The World Before, The Blackwell series, Cosmic Wheel Sisterhood, Little Goody Two Shoes, Night Cascades.

cws and cascades fit the bill so ill add. two shoes is more shoujo than josei, syberia 1 and blackwell just have female protags in what are otherwise worlds w a lack of the feminine, but i can be convinced if theyre particularly thematically relevant in some way i havent caught (considering taking kathy and whispers off w this in mind but what i remember abt the specific type of snark in kathys interactions and the subject matter set that one apart for me at least). could be convinced the world before might be more relevant than 1 too, i just wouldnt know. misericorde also may be a biiiit debatable in its flavor but ill put it on bc thematically, sure.

I think Syberia 1 counts because while Hans and his past are an important focus of the plot, so is Kate's life back in America and her desire to have something more than it. Like her deal is very much all about her being a grown woman deciding if she even wants to go back to her old life. World Before I think fits even more so because it mainly focuses on Kate's relationship with her mom and her fascination with Dana and finding out who she was. It's a more personal story. I think Blackwell counts because it also mainly has a focus on adult women, Rosa and Lauren, and even its not really femme in style it still has an adult woman sensibility to it. Like I feel both series have similar vibes to Gray Matter and Longest Journey in how they fit with the topic.

hearing what you said and looking into the game more, ill put the world before on the list and at least put 1 in the note as an honorary menschie. blackwell idk still, it feels like its taking cues from classical adventure game + some detective noir sensibilities in the end w/o having enough of that touch im looking for, as much as i dont want to be like "i just cant feel it, man". by comparison imo the protag of gray matter rubs against and comes on top above the gothy horror-ish stuff in ways that feels fitting for this list, n longest journey is such a specific cocktail btwn more graceful scifi/fantasy world n the college town mix that i cant deny the art school girl-ness is more than just the protag