Mad men in love

The love interests are described as yanderes, but in practice they don’t really feel like it. Yes, they are overprotective of the MC, but they actually have good reasons to be that way! If they weren’t around, the MC would have died on the first day of the game—or even before the story began.

Usually in a yandere route, part of the appeal comes from the feeling of danger as the LI slowly reveals his true nature. He might kill anyone who interacts with the MC, or even kill the MC herself if she betrays his trust. But that’s not really the case in Heart Cage. Most bad endings are fairly standard, where the LI simply fails to protect the MC. Some endings do lean more into the yandere trope, where the LI’s love turns into obsession. But overall, I actually felt quite safe with the LIs. They’re what I like to call ethical yanderes!

Because of that, though, the characters tend to blur together a bit and don’t show much variation within their trope. Yanderes can take many forms: possessive, obsessive, insecure, delusional… but Heart Cage doesn’t explore that range very much. Each character has their own personality and quirks at first, but as their routes progress they start behaving in very similar ways. In a game centered on yanderes, I expected a bit more exploration of the trope, aside from one character who really embodies it well.

Why are six men drawn to my bland MC?!

Orli isn’t a bad MC per se, but I wouldn’t call her a particularly strong one either. We see flashbacks of her childhood, and she basically has the same personality as she did back then: cheerful and optimistic.

She became a detective because of a traumatic event that happened during her childhood, but despite that she still behaves exactly the same as before. Because of this, I sometimes found it hard to stay immersed during the H-scenes or during emotional moments when the LIs confess their love for her. I just couldn’t really see what made Orli so special.

Too much sexy times kills the mood

I never thought I’d say this about an otome game, but Heart Cage has too many sex scenes. And that’s coming from someone who partly bought the game because of that feature!

I’m not even sure that eroges, the visual novels with sexual content aimed at men, have that many H-scenes. The Steam page says each character has at least four, but that doesn’t include the endings. Take Dane for example: he has five endings and two route conclusions, and if I remember correctly only the endings contain sex scenes. So you can imagine how many there are overall.

At first it was fun, and it felt refreshing to have LIs who openly lust after the MC and even do the deed. The problem is that there’s a mystery to solve in a creepy town, yet we keep getting sidetracked by horny men. I was very close to skipping some scenes, but that would have meant missing out on the voice actors’ performances. So I “endured” them (what a true sacrifice!).

Unfortunately, as you complete more routes the H-scenes start to lose their impact and eventually feel like a chore. Considering how many there are, they also lack variety. Most of the time it’s the same setup: Orli lying down with the LI on top of her. Some endings offer more creative scenarios, but those are exceptions. For example, the first screenshot on the Steam page looks quite adventurous, but it only appears briefly in one of the endings.

Despite Orli’s questionable anatomy and the “Hentai” tag on the Steam page (which probably got their because users suggested it), the NSFW scenes didn’t really feel like they were catering to the male gaze. Consent and boundaries aren’t discussed much, but it didn’t make me uncomfortable either. The LIs are also just as naked and vulnerable as the MC in the CGs. Since Orli isn’t voiced, the voice actors for the LIs basically carry these scenes, and they do a really great job. There’s plenty to enjoy both visually and audibly.

There’s also some mild dirty talk, but never to the point where Orli is disrespected. I haven’t read dark romance novels, but I imagine the writing here is somewhat similar: things like “good girl,” “you’re so tight,” or “you already c♥me and I’m not even in yet.” It’s not really my vibe and it sometimes feels a bit porn-adjacent, but that might just be a personal preference.

When I first saw the game on Steam, I was actually a bit put off by Orli’s extremely unrealistic body, which immediately made me think of eroges or porn—not exactly the association I want when playing an otome game.

That said, the men in this game also have unrealistic bodies (or body parts), so in a way it balances out. At this point, it would probably feel strange to pair a less voluptuous MC with these huge buff LIs anyway. Even if the anatomy is sometimes questionable and the proportions look off, I didn’t really mind it. Eventually it even started to feel kind of charming! You don’t often see men built like this in otome games, so it’s a nice change.

A gripping otome underneath

The game describes itself as a mix of yandere, otome, and mystery. Personally, I think the mystery aspect is surprisingly strong and should actually be the main selling point rather than the yandere angle.

The yandere trope can feel restrictive, even though it technically exists on a spectrum. Presenting Heart Cage primarily as a yandere game does it a bit of a disservice in my opinion. The game has its own lore and worldbuilding, and even though it’s a mystery story you’re often left in the dark because many plot elements are almost impossible to predict.

Important revelations are spread across the different routes, so even if you don’t particularly like a certain LI, there’s still a reason to play their route to uncover more of the overarching story. A true route not tied to any specific LI might have been a great addition, since each LI’s story feels quite self-contained. What if Orli never chose any of them? There’s still one route left to be released (Clark, the older man) so maybe that will serve as a proper conclusion to the overall story.

The game also doesn’t follow the traditional otome structure where your choices gradually lead you toward a good or bad ending. In fact, many choices don’t actually matter. In certain chapters, you simply get a bad ending if you pick the wrong option in that moment. For players who enjoy figuring out the “correct” choices throughout the story, this might be a downside. But for someone like me who just wants to experience the story readily, it worked quite well.

There’s also a “tree” system that lets you easily jump between chapters. And if you reach a bad ending, the game sends you back to the most recent choice point. It’s a very convenient feature that makes the overall experience much smoother.

Some minor technical flaws, but still a high quality project

All of the love interests are fully voice acted, along with one additional character (who I sadly would have loved to romance!), and the performances are excellent. Dane’s voice actually reminded me of the English VA for Xavier from Love and Deepspace, with that same breathy tone.

The voice actors bring a lot of life to the scenes, especially the NSFW ones. You can even hear subtle shifts in their tone when their characters switch into a more intense yandere mode. And they don’t just read their lines either—they groan, moan, and even cry during emotional moments. Yanderes aren’t the most sane and stable dudes, so they really nailed it.

When I first started playing close to launch, I ran into a few audio bugs where the music was too loud and the voices were too quiet. But I never encountered the issue again later on. It’s possible that it only affected the early routes (Enox and Luke), or that it was patched afterwards. There are also a few typos and some discrepancies between the written dialogue and the voiced lines, but overall the translation is perfectly serviceable.

As for the art and music, some of the background music and backgrounds might be public domain assets, but they are very well chosen and fit the atmosphere nicely. They blend well with the character sprites and the overall setting. The game also includes chibi illustrations during special moments, which adds some nice variety to the visuals. And there are a lot of CGs. For reference, Enox has more than 20, and Dane has more than 40.

Overall, I had a really great time with Heart Cage, and I’m honestly impressed by its quality—especially considering it seems to be made by a solo developer (if I’m not mistaken).

Making an explicit otome game was a bold choice, and I’m glad the developer went for it because it offers a more mature experience in a genre where that’s still quite rare. I’d definitely love to see another game expand further on this world and its lore!