Visual novels aren’t known for moving particularly fast. Most of them linger on things like – shudder – emotions, which can really hoist up the word count. But Seduce Me – The Complete Story is the exact opposite. Things move at such a speed that we wondered why everyone was in such a rush. We found ourselves skipping back a dialogue or two, just to make sure that we read it right.
Take the setup of Seduce Me – The Otome, the first of the three games collected in Seduce Me – The Complete Story. The main character’s grandfather, a toy tycoon, dies suddenly in his home. The very next day, his funeral is held and the main character is expected to be there. While she’s watching the coffin being lowered in, the will and testament is read out. She inherits her grandfather’s estate, and is expected to move in that evening. And when she moves in, five demons (incubi, to be more specific) teleport in, covered in wounds. She makes an on-the-spot decision to let them stay, and so they do.
It’s not just us, right? These events should – by rights – have taken place over weeks, but Seduce Me – The Otome puts its foot down on the pedal and rushes through them in the space of a day. We felt sorry for the main character (unnamed as you, the player, gets to name her), because she has to somehow weather all of the events. She’s still in high school, bless her, and her parents are go-getters who have a seat on the ex-grandfather’s board. They mostly complain that – somehow – she’s moving too slowly, rather than actually helping her out.
Having complained about the deeply slow pace of other visual novels, I should be thrilled at the prospect of one that doesn’t sit still. But for some reason I found it all a bit ludicrous. On more than one occasion I blurted out a “they’re doing what now?”, as the plot took yet another pivot. I’m not expecting a visual novel that focuses on five incubi suitors to be believable, but it could have let the plot sink in on occasion.
So, the main character is – wham-bam-thank-you-mam – thrust into a situation where she is suddenly living with five demons. It’s otome time, as the five men are – of course – hunks (of the white and sinewy variety), and you have to quickly make some decisions. The first is whether you want them around. The second is which one (or more than one) you start spending more time with. That decision pushes the narrative into a multitude of directions, eventually leading to confrontations with devils, succubi and other cryptid encounters. Several endings are on offer, with plenty of sexy-time, bad endings and triggering moments (warned about in the intro). It’s the bread and butter of a good visual novel.
And that’s just game one. There are two other games included in Seduce Me – The Complete Story. The second assumes you shacked up with Damien, the more sensitive of the incubus brothers, and then teleports you into a war with a demonic lord. You’ve been cursed and can’t leave the world of demons, so all you can do is train up in your chosen martial art and defeat the demon lord yourself. This is a high-fantasy swerve away from the otome template, and – at least in our view – is clearly the most entertaining game on offer.
Game three is less a distinct game, and more a chapter-select for the more outlandish moments in the first two games. Want to see what happens when you make a harem of the five boys? Knock yourself out – feast your eyes on the abs over there. Want to see what happens when you finally manage to marry one of the demons? That’s on the table too. These are mostly ‘what if?’ scenarios that take less than five minutes to complete each, so they’re morsels for once the first two games run out.
Aside from the feeling that these stories are being played out at 1.5x speed, Seduce Me – The Complete Story managed to leave us feeling a little empty. It’s a hard feeling to pinpoint, because the stories here are told competently: there are few typos, the world is painstakingly drawn with all the different races given different roles, and the characters are clearly delineated. Everybody you meet feels different.
I think it comes down to Seduce Me – The Complete Story feeling too focused on wish fulfillment for its protagonist. It’s an odd thing to complain about, but it feels like a narcissist’s love story to themselves. Everyone – and we do mean everyone – is deeply in love with the main character. Every single decision is made with the main character’s betterment in mind. Demons are in a life-or-death war, but the happiness and survival of the main character is the most important thing in the world. People would die for you, want to jump in bed with you, and will even kidnap you to spend five minutes in your company. Even Fate seems enamoured with you, as everything falls into your lap, from suitors to money to best friends and mansions.
Now, that might not sound much like a negative. Many extroverts would love to be the centre of attention. But it doesn’t half make for a low-stakes story that’s lacking in drama. With everyone bending over backwards to help you, and mansions, money, nipply men and more at your disposal, it can feel like fan-fiction that someone has written about themselves, and that’s only going to go one way. The main character is going to get what she wants. And that robs Seduce Me – The Complete Story of drama.
It’s a taste thing, but we found Seduce Me – The Complete Story to be absolutely flooded with exposition, too. There’s a kitchen-sink world here, full of vampires, demons, devils, fairies, ghosts and all the rest, and the author is eager to lay out how it works. We get it: it’s a Tolkien-esque impulse to catalogue everything that certain readers really like. But we found it overly earnest and a little boring. Everything might be moving at speed, but the conversations on the way are too straight-faced and expositional.
It all adds up to an experience that moves in fits and starts. Seduce Me – The Complete Story is so eager to careen onto the next situation that it can be exciting. There’s none of the visual novel genre’s traditionally slow pace. But we never felt more than mildly interested while it whipped from scenario to scenario. That’s down to a main character who everyone loves but is dull as dishwater, and some worldbuilding that the author dearly wants you to know about.
We suspect that there will be an audience for Seduce Me – The Complete Story. This is a generous visual novel package with some racy scenes, and the incubus/succubus angle is a fresh one. Someone is going to love this. But it rubbed us up the wrong way. It needed higher stakes, more ambition, sharper writing or something – anything – with more edge to really engage us. As we played, we felt less seduced and more cornered by someone who can’t quite tell that we’re bored.
