Collar x Malice for Nintendo Switch

 Switch
Metascore
77

Generally favorable reviews - based on 6 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 4 out of 6
  2. Mixed: 2 out of 6
  3. Negative: 0 out of 6
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  1. Noisy Pixel
    Jul 8, 2020
    85
    Collar X Malice is an absolutely fantastic visual novel. It has a strong narrative and a compelling cast of characters to work within its intriguing mystery. The title uses a whole bag of interactive tricks to pull you into its uncertain world, and it works wonders, with the masterful visual style being the icing on the cake. Now I’m all caught up in anticipation for Collar X Malice Unlimited coming later this year.
  2. God is a Geek
    Jun 19, 2020
    85
    Collar X Malice is a great way to get into otome games with its gorgeous art and excellent music and the perfect game to play before Collar X Malice Unlimited arrives this year.
  3. 4P.de
    Jul 10, 2020
    80
    Quotation forthcoming.
  5. Nintendo Insider
    Jun 26, 2020
    80
    Collar X Malice still remains an entertaining visual novel and remains my favorite Otome game to date. So much of what it does appeals directly to my interests, and I’m glad it has the chance to get the recognition it deserved. I feel it’s the perfect introductory Otome game because the mystery is interesting enough to appeal to casual visual novel fans, and Otome fans can enjoy both that and the great cast of guys. Takeru is the best of course, but you’ll just have to see that for yourself.
  6. Meristation
    Sep 23, 2020
    70
    Collar X Malice is not only your traditional otome, it reflects on concepts like justice and police in a very compelling way.
  7. NintendoWorldReport
    Jul 6, 2020
    70
    If you’re OK with dealing with text issues—or will speed through too fast to notice—then Collar X Malice is going to hook you. The themes may be disturbing to some, and the M rating the ESRB gave it is definitely deserved, but it left me thinking for a long time after I hit the title screen for the last time. Sometimes, that’s just what I need.

User Reviews

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User Score
7.4

Mixed or average reviews- based on 7 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 5 out of 7
  2. Mixed: 1 out of 7
  3. Negative: 1 out of 7
  1. yangshoe
    Apr 27, 2022
    6
    This review contains spoilers, click full review link to view. not a very memorable game for me, the only good thing was shiraishi. his romance route was filled with angst and character development. i wish he hadn't killed mikuni. but i was really moved that he took care of the heroine when she lost her memories, and they were at least able to get a goodbye before he went to prison. i hated sasazuka and okazaki's routes. and it didn't make sense to me that a guy like sasazuka who adored his mom so much would be such a rude little beotch to the heroine. so while i feel sorry for the death of his mother, i also hate him. yanagi was okay, he's the one who saved the heroine when she was a child, and it seemed they were destined to be together. i just didn't like the seiyuu and yanagi's character overall feels too dull. enomoto is an interesting guy, he's funny and he adores the mc, so i like him. but still, the plot surrounding the x-day incidents seem too heavy for the heroine, who somehow was only relegated to a role as an assistant officer that picks up phone calls and performs daily patrol. her role is so minimal. but she's regarded highly upon by top staff lmao and even got to hang out with forensics who tell her classified things. it's just not believable to me. i had high hopes for this game. the graphics and arts are amazing, but i would still recommend other games.… Full Review »
  2. Tortor
    Jan 18, 2022
    8
    Ok had to re-do my review. My initial impression of this game was all wrong. This is really good, it just took me a re-play to understandOk had to re-do my review. My initial impression of this game was all wrong. This is really good, it just took me a re-play to understand this. At the start though, i found that it took forever to get anywhere with the plot. A good chunk of the start of this novel is spent on world and character building that seemingly takes forever to set up the plot. So my impression was a bit impacted on the fact that it really just took too long for my liking to get started and because of this the pacing just felt off to me. I didn't really understand all that was going on initially and had a weird impression that it all felt sorta half baked and the plot payoff wasn't worth it. That impression though completly changed after a replay and getting to see other sides of this story and holy wow I am blown away now by the writing and how much more is exposed with each replay. The half baked plot that i initially experienced starts getting other puzzle pieces added to it from the story lines of the other guys that makes everything feel more cohesive. I knew games like this require a few replays at times but it really wasn't all that clear initially what exactly this game was planning to deliver with those replays since it isn't built into the story to tell you that it's required. There's no time traveling mechanic or plot device telling you that the plot opens up on replay like what other visual novels do. Instead the character just goes through the same motion upon replay, with no memory, it's as if it's just an entirely new game and experience but you as a player can put pieces together on your own. This is kinda odd as replays don't give the characters more to work with since to them it's just like starting a new game so it's really only you as a player who is taking it all in for yourself. It would have been much cooler if the main character could be impacted by replays as it does feel pointless overall to the characters but to the player it definetly was still cool to see. The writing is amazing though and something I'm going to remember. It took a while to appreciate but once I understood what was required to get the most out of this, I just absolutely love this. Keeping my old review believe, it was my initial impression when I finished this on my first play through. ::::


    Takes about 8 hours to get interesting. This extremely long introduction and set up was really exhausting and just the start of the poor pacing throughout this story.

    The feeling of choice also feels flimsy. There are a LOT of cheap death scenes. You'll get death scenes for the most trivial, unexciting and meaningless stuff. Essentially if you pick a choice that isn't right or written into the overall story then the story will kill off the main character. Sometimes they kill them off by just randomly finding the most pointless ways to die, from a character you just met and in a totally avoidable way and still it provides nothing to the overall narrative or experience other then inconvenience. It feels cheap and a waste of time.

    This is also filled with a lot of fluff dialog that stretches out the story. What could have been done in 30 minutes always manages to get stretched out to 4 hours. It's exhausting after a while and the payoff just doesn't really ever feel worth it.

    The plot honestly feels like it could be wrapped up in a movie but because of how much this is stretched out this manages to find a way to make what should be 2 hours of meaningful plot content and makes it out to be 40 hours.

    I wouldn't recommend this to anyone other then the most patient and die hard of visual novel fans.

    Its good, it's just not really worth all the time for the plot that's delivered. The plot is interesting but not THAT interesting and sorta feels way too simple trying to mask itself as complicated. The characters are the best part of this for sure though and I honestly kept playing more for the benefit of getting to know the cute anime guys and to feel like I didn't waste my money. If I think about it long and hard though, i could definetly have received my fix for cute anime guys from a different source more efficiently.

    As cute as these guys are to get to know, the slog you have to put up with of fluff content just isn't worth it. Watch an anime instead or find a different more faster paced visual novel    … Full Review »
  3. blisslovesotome
    Jan 4, 2022
    10
    Amazing storyline and cute characters! Takeru Sasazuka is my favorite love interest.
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