Collar x Malice

 PlayStation Vita
User Score
7.5

Generally favorable reviews- based on 14 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 9 out of 14
  2. Mixed: 3 out of 14
  3. Negative: 2 out of 14
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  1. milkychan
    Aug 21, 2017
    9
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. It's an understatement to say that Collar x Malice is a well developed visual novel otome game. The artwork is stylistic and detailed, unique among Otomate's games. The story is immersive and addicting, in that it's enjoyable as a suspenseful mystery visual novel, and as an otome game. Each route provides a different perspective and ending to the story. Furthermore, each character is well written and dynamic--allowing audiences to run into dead ends and failure. As an otome game, it's rare in that the protagonist doesn't conveniently have amnesia. Not all of the men are clinging to the protagonist, and each romantic route develops in a different way. I could even say that the romance is only a third of the game, but the bonds built through the suspenseful and dark atmosphere makes the romance touching and even heartbreaking [rather than sickening].

    I would also like to point out, one of my past favorite bands Plastic Tree that has been around since 1993 composed beautiful opening and ending music for the game. It's surprising that they chose a visual kei band--a very well known one, and one that is even unique among visual kei for the vocalist's style to compose music since there's so much stigma surrounding visual kei. The game even lightly touches on the topic of visual kei. The developers could have chosen any other band that exclusively makes music for games/anime, but the fact that they decided to collaborate with a well known band really amazes me.

    Now to touch on the topic of why I didn't give the game a full 10/10. If I were playing the Japanese version, I would have given it 10/10 without any doubts. However, Aksys did a very poor job in translating this game. I understand that translating from Japanese to English is difficult(considering it's part of my job as well), and it takes creativity to transform sentences to seem natural while maintaining the characters' personalities. However, Aksys made huge mistakes in Collar x Malice.

    The biggest one, is of "Souko Yoshi tani"
    In Kageyuki Shiraishi's route, the protagonists illustrates a diagram with people connected to one of Adonis's crimes. One of those people is "Souko Yoshi tani and is written clearly as "Souko" in the diagram. However, in the text dialogue, everyone refers to her as "Misako Yoshi tani Despite the multiple times where the voice actors clearly say "Souko Yoshi tani," the text dialogue writes "Misako." There is never a "Misako."

    Another is when Takeru Sasazuka tells me to "shut up," but the name tag says "Aiji Yanagi." Although the voice actor of Takeru Sasazuka is speaking, Aksys mixed up the name with "Aiji Yanagi."

    Despite Aksys's claim to be strict and have a team that collaborates on making sure a game's themes and ideas are portrayed clearly and accurately overseas on their Japanese site, playing through Collar x Malice will show you that Aksys had a small group independently translate this game with no collaboration whatsoever.

    Happy 1 year anniversary to Collar x Malice. Let's hope that Aksys fixes the huge mistakes that they overlooked.    … Expand

Awards & Rankings

8
#8 Best PS Vita Game of 2017
7
#7 Most Discussed PS Vita Game of 2017
12
#12 Most Shared PS Vita Game of 2017

Critic Reviews

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Metascore
74

Mixed or average reviews - based on 7 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 5 out of 7
  2. Mixed: 2 out of 7
  3. Negative: 0 out of 7
  1. Gaming Age
    Sep 21, 2017
    50
    For that matter, I don’t know that I’d quibble too hard with anyone who looked at the damsel-in-distress and the obnoxious characters, shrugged, and wanted to play anyway. The game practically asks the question, What if Danganronpa were a romance novel? — and if you’ve ever wanted to see how that plays out, Collar x Malice offers an intriguing answer.
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  2. RPG Fan
    Aug 21, 2017
    83
    If I were to offer a film critic style soundbite, I would say that Collar X Malice is a slick, stylish, and sexy thriller. The story and characters held my interest and the sense of danger kept me on the edge of my seat. It had its tropey "because anime" moments, but no more so than your garden variety summer blockbuster. If you enjoy visual novels, definitely check out Collar X Malice.
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  3. God is a Geek
    Aug 21, 2017
    80
    Collar x Malice is one of the best otome visual novels I’ve played with lots of things to shake up the formula for the better but some typos in the text sour the experience.
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