Cendrillon PalikA – Common Route + Final Thoughts

The heroine, Hairi lives in a place called “Toukyo” which is a cursed town that she’s always wanted to leave and see the outside of. However, you cannot leave the city without wearing glass. But you’ll turn into glass yourself and die if you do not return before midnight. Hairi one day tries on some glass slippers after she’s told by someone they would suit her. She promises to someday buy them and as she continues to live in the same town, she encounters a wizard. He offers her the glass slippers saying she will be the key to undo the curse.

Hairi is told by the wizard that she can undo the curse but asks her to try on the slippers. She’s hesitant at first due to how suspicious he is but she can’t deny she wants to try them on so she does. They fit her perfectly but the Wizard, who goes by Kashika, still wants her help to unravel the curse. He tells her he’ll give her time to decide and leaves. The next morning he appears while she’s making breakfast. Her brother then appears but because he’s a complete airhead all he cares about is Kashika’s pet otter, Campanella lmao. Kashika and Hairi go outside and encounter Hairi’s friend, who doesn’t like guys. After she leaves, Campanella tuns off into a fountain and is captured by three guys who appear.

The white haired man named, Natra roughly asks who she is and where she got her shoes and his older brother, Rindo, tells him to chill and be more polite. Natra is the gatekeeper of the town’s entrance while Rindo guards the clocktower. Hairi introduces herself and says that she and her brother manage a clock store and they promise to visit sometime. Kashika tells Hairi she met 3 men just as he said she would but she believes it was a mere coincidence. He then brings her to the gate where you can leave “Tokyou” and urges her to come to the outside world like she’s always wanted. Hairi is hesitant at first so Kashika picks up up and decides to carry her there himself of he must. She insists he put her down though and tells him she’s made up her mind to go.

They walk down a vast forest filled with nature Hairi has never seen before since everything in Tokyou is made of glass. Kashika explains it all to her as they walk but as they do, Hairi loses track of Kashika and finds herself alone in the forest. She starts to panic but then calms down and tries to make her way out of the forest. She ends up at a church-looking building and goes inside. She finds its more of a library and meets two men there. The first one, Shien, has an eyepatch and is very kind and welcoming to Hairi. The second one, Ulen, is reading a book and is very dismissive towards her. Another man named Klone appears who tells Hairi she should hurry and head back or she’ll die. They’re all outsiders who do not reside in Tokyou.

Hairi has tea with them but then has to leave since its nearing midnight. So, Shien walks her back to the entrance of Tokyou. He cannot enter though because of the curse since outsiders who try to enter Tokyou will turn to glass and die. So she leaves there and promises to see them again. She then meets with Kashika who appears again and asks for her answer. She says she wants to try and undo the curse but wonders how. Kashika explains that the clock tower “Astrolabe” must move as right now, the clock is stuck. But only a Astrolabi who is a keeper of time can move the hands of the clock. Those of a certain bloodline, Hairi’s bloodline, are those of Astrolabi who can undo the curse.

Hairi has a a special watch called an “Astro”  that proves she’s an Astrolabi. There are many fakes but she has a genuine one. So, Kashika tells her to try and use its power and so she does. Kashika tells her it’ll take time for her to use it but with the help with the people she met, she’ll be able to. The next day, she meets Rindo at the gate and he invites her out to a cafe. When she goes to the library, she encounters Ella there. After that, she meets with Natra who essentially forces her to hang with him and they end up having a debate on who’s brother is better.

The following day she tells her brother she’s leaving the town but has a curfew to come back at 8 pm. She visits goes into the woods until she encounters Shien by a field of flowers. He tells her it’s his “special place” and invites her to see the flowers at night sometime since they glow. After that, Hairi visits the tower where Ulen is present. He doesn’t conversate with her much but tells her to feel free to make tea. When she does, he compliments it saying its okay but not as good as Shien’s. Finally, Shien bumps into Klone who gives something to a guard at the gate. She finds out he has a secret cave and crafts accessories from a mine for people in Tokyou. When Hairi returns, she must decide who she will collaborate with.

|Klone| Shien| Ulen| Natra | Rindo | Ela| Kashika |

Final Thoughts: I honestly didn’t play in the order it recommended me so I think I ended up feeling less and less surprised by certain things it tried to ‘wow’ you with. Regardless, I didn’t end up with a fave really, I guess cause none of the guys really spoke to me?? I normally go for the tsundere types (or kuudere) but I decided to nope.jpg out of Ulen once I saw his true yandere colors. Truthfully, I don’t mind yandere characters as long as it fits into their character. I mean Rindo? Yeah, I see it. So it made sense he was kind of craycray. But having Kashika and Klone having similar backstories of dead lovers seemed overused and cliche. Like, Kashika’s story could’ve been something else, I don’t think they should’ve pulled the “my lover died” card. I felt less and less sympathetic. But at least Klone just kinda dealt with it. I guess I have problems with conflicts just being solved for the sake of needing it to be solved. After each route, unraveling the curse never seemed so easy until now (especially in Klone’s route lmao). As much as I enjoyed the concept, I hope next time we get the same sort of thing just less yandere down your throat + more character development too cause I do think a lot of these characters had potential. Hairi certainly made the scenes with them more fun.

Story –  The concept of this game is actually very interesting but I do think that it could’ve been handled better. There are some inconsistencies in the plot in which certain events are solved in a very “cliche” manner and sometimes it doesn’t fully explain. Even while it seems like there is a lot to the story, it’s a bit deluded in the sense where it doesn’t elaborate on certain things that may seem intricate to the story (such as Hairi’s past and the death of her parents). If anything, it was just too arbitrary. Only Klone’s route really focused on the fact people die when they stay outside of Tokyou without wearing glass. I’m surprised this wasn’t a plot device used in every route to show just how dangerous the curse was. I was honestly expecting something more, but it fell a bit flat when finishing Kashika who’s obviously the “final” route.

Characters – Overall, all the characters were charming in their own way. Although there were some inconsistencies with some in various routes–yes, I’m looking at you Rindo (especially with the bad endings). If a character is meant to be yandere, just make them yandere. Don’t shove a bad ending in there to make them suddenly jump out of character. Its strange that some of these characters don’t even interact with each other. The residents of Tokyou + the outsiders were kind of their own separate circles of interactions. Although, I didn’t feel a huge connection with anyone except Hairi. She was honestly the most active heroine I’ve seen in a while and it does not surprise me she made 3rd on the character poll.

Visuals & System – The one thing that was this game’s most memorable and most commending feature would definitely be its visuals. I can’t even describe in words how beautiful the backgrounds looked. They were all beautifully drawn and the sprites/CGs were honestly so much eye candy. As for the system, you could tell it was first developed with the Vita in mind (since that was its original console) but it suited the Switch well and on a big screen TV, the game looked really stunning.

Music – The music was very soothing and suited the atmosphere well. I really liked the music that played during the intense scenes (it kind of stood out among the rest). Although I’ll admit the opening sequence wasn’t very memorable to me (nor was the ending honestly). There was also another song for the bad endings which wasn’t bad but nothing too phenomenal.

Overall Thoughts:  Maybe I’m just hard to please or something but this game to me was really just… okay. I wasn’t wowed by it, nor did I feel a huge connection with the plot. I really just liked Hairi mostly… she did what some heroines wouldn’t do. She took so much action in each route that–I kid you not– she solved the problems of pretty much the curse and the LI. She literally saved ya boy and the world. I guess my biggest problem was that the story felt a bit arbitrary at times. There was pretty much a million ways to unravel the curse (according all the routes) and so then it kind of gets repetitive. But aside from the plot, there’s the bad endings. I really thought they were going to go full-on sad heart-wrenching with these. Especially when they emphasized that each boy will cry in their route. However, out of all the 40+ bad ends I sat through, not a single one involved Hairi or any of the boys of that matter, turning into glass after midnight. Which is strange right? This game’s plot revolves around a curse that will kill you if you don’t wear glass outside and make it back by midnight, yet the game decided to kind of be round-about when it came to the plot and have the bad endings be OOC and yandere. I found that really strange honestly. If you have a plot device for tragedy, why aren’t you using it?  Instead I have to sit through these really out of character bad ends that really just aren’t appealing in my eyes.  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ But I’ll give you one thing Otomate, you made a great heroine. Hairi deserved to be 3rd on that poll, but I think she should’ve been 1st. Anyway, complaints aside, I don’t think this is a bad game. My own opinions aside, it stands on its own as an entertaining otome game even if it falls flat on certain aspects. Maybe I was expecting something kind of grand since this is technically Otomate’s first new Switch title (I say technically because it was supposed to be on Vita first). But when it really came down to it, the story didn’t really go all the way like I thought it would. Although, I really couldn’t tell what the timeline was supposed to be…. it felt like a fantasy-esque setting that wouldn’t have technology and yet Hairi mentioned on numerous occasions she’d seen movies (so they must have TVs…?) or maybe they never considered it as something that would seem kinda weird to mention.