Collar x Malice is an otome visual novel (one that is targeted at the female audience) for the PlayStation Vita. In this game, you play the role of a heroine, default name Ichika Hoshino, but you can input any name you wish. She is a police officer stationed in Shinjuku and part of the Special Regions Crime Prevention Office, otherwise known as a glorified call center worker handling the complaints hotline. She gets attacked one day and has a collar attached onto her. There is poison in the collar that will kill her if she tells the police.
However, because of these events, she is also involved with five ex-police officers (all love interests) and joins them to investigate the X-Day Incident. The X-Day Incident is a series of attacks that occurred in Shinjuku, on a frequency that is approximately once per month. The perpetrator is a group known as Adonis, they are staging various attacks including murders and explosions in a classroom, killing many. Adonis claims to be passing down judgement on people for their crimes, judgement that the police has failed to provide.
As a result of the attacks, the government quarantined Shinjuku, as well as providing all the civilians weapons to defend themselves. Thus, it is a dangerous place to be and even more so when you are party of the police force. The story is told via dialogue and inner monologue of mainly the heroine, but various other characters as well at certain points. You will also be able to select different dialogue options which will slightly alter the course of the story. The main impact of the choices you make is the determination of your love interest, and whether you get one of the multitudes of bad endings the game has.
There are five love interests and you can enter three routes at first, and the remaining two will unlock once you have completed any one route beforehand. Ken Okazaki is an interesting person, he is skilled at hiding his presence and then popping out when you least expect it. He always smiles and has a charm surrounding him. Naturally, he is part of the police force, in the Security Police department, specialized cops whose main job is to protect important people. Based on Ken's background, he should have nothing to do with X-Days' events and yet there he is monitoring the former police officers. While his behavior and personality is supposed to be unusual and quirky but charming, if you think about it, it is actually quite creepy. He is effectively stalking and monitoring the heroine 24/7.
With the next love interest, Mineo Enomoto has exaggerated mannerisms and his dialogue is inspired by olden Japan, specifically the Sengoku Era. He is shy around women and thus he doesn't seem to get on with the heroine in the beginning. Of course, he starts to get more comfortable around her as they investigate the X-Day Incident together and it is actually quite a sweet relationship. Mineo's more intertwined into the victims of the X-Day Incident than some other characters, making him a deeper character with believable motivation.
Takeru Sasazuka is a cold brusque man, who is an expert hacker and loves sweet things. His frequent insults and cold demeanor make him unlikable at first glance and that impression doesn't actually change much. You do wonder how the relationship with the heroine will turn out and how she will defrost him, he is easily the worst love interest in the game.
Kageyuki Shiraishi is another matter-of-fact man. He is extremely analytical and at first, seem to lack (and disregard) feelings. Of course, the heroine will once again break through that barrier to see someone who has more depth and someone who actually does car. That said, the route is filled with predictable cliches and scenes but has a little bit more humor in it thanks to the heroine's coworkers forming a "coalition" that's against Shiraishi. The group tries to one-up him but fails spectacularly. There is a pretty big plot twist in this route which affects how you view certain characters.
The fifth and final love interest is Aiji Yanagi and is more akin to the game's "true route" in that you finally uncover the secrets of Adonis. Aiji himself is reserved yet powerful, and he is hiding a deep past, on that intersects with the heroine's. The pair is quite good together and thus is the longest route in the game.
Each route takes around five hours depending on your reading speed. It's a bit longer than your typical multiple route visual novel and at times, the pacing is slow. The biggest offender is when you know the ending is coming up but it seems to drag on for just a tad bit too long. Each route investigates a different suspect in the X-Days Incident and eventually, leads to the same conclusion of finding Adonis' headquarters. However, each one reveals only a little bit about the mastermind and it takes all the routes together to finally reveal the truth. This does make each route structured in exactly the same way though.
This is a visual novel so the gameplay completely revolves around reading. The story is intriguing enough for you to push through even if you dislike the romance components. As the story takes place completely in Shinjuku, the backgrounds aren't as crazy beautiful and out there as other visual novels. There are expected visual novel options such as text speed, text skipping, voiceovers (the game has Japanese voiceovers with English subtitles), CG stills and a glossary.
Bonuses include a short story for each character that takes place after each ending, as a type of epilogue to see how the relationship is developing. There is also a music player and other "appendix" type options like playing voices and viewing the artworks again. The translation is pretty good but there are some editing issues such as half a sentence would be in one section, then the other half is in the next after you press a button to go to the next piece of dialogue. It makes it weird and breaks the sentence awkwardly.
In an effort to inject some more interactivity into the game, there are Trigger Mode sections where it is a simple quick time event replicating the heroine shooting her gun. Then there are point and click sections, showing the scene of a crime and you can select certain objects to get exposition. It's still not very interactive and you can't advance until you've selected everything the game wanted you to. Overall, Collar x Malice packs in plenty of content and a solid story. While it may not be as gripping as say Steins;Gate, it is still one of the better otome visual novels even if you aren't part of the target audience.
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