[Review] My Forged Wedding

So recently, Voltage Inc. released a new english Visual Novel title, dubbed 'My Forged Wedding'. If you've read my previous review on Pirates in Love, you'll know that I'm a huge fan of Voltage's Visual Novels. They have the uncanny ability to make incredibly diverse and irresistible characters with great story lines and personality. You can imagine my surprise and joy when I realised they had finally released another title.

If you're a pretty regular Visual Novel player, you'll realise that it's quite rare nowadays to actually find a translated, in English otome game by a Japanese company. And even if you do, the process of turning the Japanese commercial game into English could take months, or even years of waiting. Seeing as how I played their previous title only months before, this was a relatively fast update. 

And of course, since I enjoyed Pirates in Love so much, I just had to play this one. Overall, I liked it a lot more than I had originally anticipated.

Storyline

"For just one month... please pretend that we're married." 
A sudden proposal to enter a fake marriage. Pretending to be newlyweds started out as a dreadful task, but as you spend each day together, you slowly become drawn to his charm. Will what started out as a lie turn out to be true love? 

You play the role of a small town girl who moves into the city of Tokyo for better job opportunities. Your distant relative, whom you refer to as your 'Uncle' offered to help you with this task. You're overjoyed, as he is the leader of a huge electronics company that is currently dominating Japan. However, to your surprise and utter dismay, instead of finding a job; you're told you must become the pretend wife of one out of six guys, whom you've never even met! Not to mention the fact that your employment opportunities are in jeopardy if you don't go along with it.

In all honesty, the premise of the story sounded so utterly cliche and boring to me. It reminded me of a cardboard cut out shoujo manga, with the forced 'living arrangements' storyline, or the 'live-in-lover' kind of thing. The prologue itself then I found rather tedious and confusing, and didn't quite reach out to me as quickly as Pirates in Love had.

But, seeing as how I had enjoyed Voltage's games so much I decided to give it a try regardless. I was ended up being quite pleasantly surprised. Although the basic concept of the story was incredibly reused over and over, the storytelling was not. Each and every guy is different in his own unique way, with his own 'dark' past which you must uncover. Just how everything was worded kept you reading and reading, to see how the story would play out

It's just so gripping how although the story and setting is so simple, you could just feel the emotions of the character as you were sucked into the Visual Novel. The stories were about as different and diverse as each of the guy's personalities. It had me playing for long, long hours and I simply couldn't put it down.

It made me laugh at countless moments, and enjoy the continuous developments in each story. Again, although it is rather expensive purchasing each guy for $4USD, the game play is so entirely worth it. It is around 2-4hrs per path so you are really getting what you paid for. 

The prologue is available for FREE from the appstore, which you can download here. 

Character Development 

In comparison to Pirates in Love, I felt like the art in My Forged Wedding was a huge upgrade. Whilst in the previous game only some of the guys intrigued me, in this one I wanted to play ALL of them which burned a rather large hole in my pocket. All in all, I was extremely impressed with each of the character storylines and how unique they really were.

Each of their circumstances as to why they'd need a pretend wife were so interesting, and I loved their development and interactions. 

TAKAMASA SAEKI: I chose him first since he was labelled as the 'sadist', and I simply adore tsundere characters in Visual Novels. I was also hoping that he'd be a character similar to Eduardo since each of the character personalities are pretty similar to Pirates)]. If you read my previous review, then you'll know that Eduardo was my absolute favourite character, and I simply adored him. 

Although I did enjoy Saeki's storyline and their dialogue together, I felt like a lot of the spice of their relationship was missing. He's titled as the 'most perverted' and works in the entertainment industry, so I was expecting more exciting developments. His story was very sweet, but it lacked that 'flare', those moments that just make you go 'oh my god... I must keep playing!' His ending in itself, just finished abruptly and I felt like all the build up just disappeared in an instant.

There was no exciting conclusion, or proper 'tie up' of the plot. We shall see what happens in Voltage's next update though, since there are tabs labelled 'sequel' and 'epilogue'. I sincerely hope his epilogue ties up his story so much better.

KOUGAMI YAMATO: I actually wanted to choose him first, since I found him the most attractive and interesting of the cast. The first scene of interaction with him just catches your eye almost immediately in the prologue. However, after reading their character profiles, I went for Saeki since he appeared to be more similar to Eduardo. I was wrong though, since Yamato was actually the one with Eduardo's persona.

I absolutely loved Yamato's character path since it keeps you on edge the whole entire time. You simply just had to keep playing, and I enjoyed countless laughter at their dialogue and interactions. It was just so humorous with the sexual innuendos laced throughout. It was witty and interesting, just the kind of spice Saeki's story lacked. His 'dark secret' was also the most understandable, and I love the built up anguish his character has.

It gave him so much depth, and enhanced the protagonist's experience with him. His character development was just so intense, and realistic from start to finish. His ending of course, was obviously my favourite since they actually went through all the 'relationship stages' (dating, marriage, XXX). The dialogue of that moment was close to perfect. I'm curious as to what would happen in the epilogue though, since I feel that the ending so far is sufficient enough.

Out of all the characters, if you only wish to purchase one I really recommend Yamato's story if you also prefer tsunderes like me. 

SHIBASAKI REN: Surprisingly, he ended up being my second favourite character path in the whole entire game. Although I will warn you now, at the beginning his character is the most confusing and you will find yourself wondering which choices to pick. He's just so quiet and difficult to understand but that slow, gradual development until the very end is so entirely worth it. It's that mystery about him that keeps you on edge, and wondering how he will react next.

His actions although so little, made you pay attention to the minor details. They meant so much more in meaning in comparison to the other characters, who simply voiced what they were thinking. Ren's ending was just so heart wrenching and sweet, that it had me gushing at the extent of how much he really changed. I felt that out of all the characters, he truly loved and needed the protagonist more so than anyone else. 

Admittedly though at the beginning, I wasn't very 'impressed' with the whole 'prince' plot device since I felt it was so cliche and didn't quite realistically fall into the 'modern setting'. It seemed so out of nowhere, and so abrupt but I'm glad that in the end, it really turned out for the better. 

TAKAO: Initially I wasn't going to purchase him, since I'm really 'anti-nice guy' in Visual Novels and tend to go for them last, or never choose them at all. I just find them so boring, and utterly cliche since nothing really interesting happens in their relationship paths. The development is quite stereotypical, and slow. It doesn't have that 'spice' that just keeps you reading. But, since I was already loving My Forged Wedding so far, I thought an extra four dollars wouldn't hurt, would it? All in all, his story was exactly how I pictured it.

It was smooth sailing from start to finish. Admittedly, although his character was very sweet, and they did have some really cute moments; it just wasn't my cup of tea. I found myself growing bored half way into the story, and simply continued on to see the ending. If you're a fan of guys who are great with the family, and will be kind to you from beginning to end, then I recommend his story.

If you're like me and want a little something more, then I don't recommend purchasing him. Although I did like the fact that out of all the characters so far, they're the only two who actually had a 'real' wedding and their ending CG was beautiful. 

The other characters have yet to be released and updated, but at the moment I really only want to play Kuni's path since I'm curious as to how it will go. I was never interested in Yuta, so I most likely won't be purchasing him.

Design

Seeing as how it is a commercial Visual Novel I was unsurprised at the beautiful art. I really liked the improvement from Pirates (visually) and overall, everything was just so much better. The character designs were greatly improved, the backgrounds, the colouring and everything was just great. I had no complaints whatsoever. I particularly liked the 'super happy ending' CGs, since I felt that they really made it worth getting the best end. 

I also liked the character purchase page, since they were basically their 'profiles'. They really made you want to purchase and play them, which can be both a good and bad thing for your pocket. There were just so many backgrounds, and once again each character has around 5-6 event CGs. 

Music and Voice Acting

Since it is an iPhone platform Visual Novel, I really wasn't expecting any voice acting. However, the music in itself I loved so, so much. I know many other players would also agree with me, since a lot of people are wondering whether the OST (Original Sound Track) is downloadable. If you guys do find it, please link or tell me since I'm also on the prowl for them. I felt like the music was just so romantic, soft and pleasant to listen to. It suited the scenes perfectly, and at times I found myself just pausing to enjoy the music itself.

It was so gentle to hear, and completely enhanced the playing experience. There was quite a large variety of music, so you're not listening to the same thing over and over. Each different area also had it's own 'theme' music. All in all, an amazing job well done on this!

System

For an iPhone platform, it incorporates all the necessary controls for a Visual Novel. It has the basic buttons (play, skip, record history and save mode) which is really all you'll need. Again, I'm a little frustrated that they have yet to include the text speed where all of it just appears on the screen. It's just a little pet peeve of mine when it comes to Visual Novels, since I don't like seeing moving text after long hours of play. 

Overall though, it was something that I could easily overlook since I enjoyed the game so much. Once again, they only had one save slot for each character. Admittedly it wasn't entirely difficult to achieve the super happy end, but it would without a doubt be more convenient if there were maybe even three save slots per character. I myself, wouldn't mind the extra storage space on my iPhone.

One thing I did notice was that at random points in the game it would suddenly close/crash. It wasn't a huge deal, since it didn't happen very often and I could easily reopen it. I do hope that they fix this in future though. Also, I wish Voltage would make their Visual Novels a multi-task application, since I found it bothersome when I had to close/reopen constantly.

Personal Opinion

All in all I loved My Forged Wedding and I'm so glad I decided to give it a go. Although I was initially unimpressed by the title translation ('Forged' Wedding? Really?) the content in itself, was a completely different story. It was an improvement from Pirates in Love character wise, as all the character stories and personalities were so much more than I expected.

On that note though, although I really did like it overall there were of course, minor details that could always be improved. Systematically, then it did have some crashes/fixes that need to be taken into account and looked into. Like in Takao's path, his second CG. Although it didn't appear in the storyline it was in your CG gallery when you opened it. It was a shame also, seeing as how he had some of the best CGs in the whole game so far. 

I'm really looking forward to the new character updates which should be soon hopefully and Voltage has yet to disappoint me. I'm so very impressed with their games so far, and I sincerely hope that they don't go bankrupt anytime soon which is what usually happens to smaller Visual Novel cooperations. 

I highly recommend this game for all iPhone/Android users to play, because I'm sure you won't be disappointed. 

Overall Rating: ★★★★