Amnesia: Memories came out in English in 2015 for PS Vita and Steam. I bought it fairly blindly as a supportive otome fan who wanted something other than the myriad of Hakuoki rereleases we were getting at the time. Code:Realize ~Guardian of Rebirth~ and Norn9: Var Commons would not come out until later that year so when Amnesia landed in summer of 2015, the slate was clear and I was ready, buying the game on the very first day of release.
It... was not quite what I expected given that my only previous experience with otome was Hakuoki and Sweet Fuse. The game was unusual in some ways in that the game director even said they wanted to try a game where the player starts out already in a relationship, but what got me was that my first route was Toma's and my previous games would not prepare me for what his route would be like. (I won't spoil it in this post, but if you want to read my thoughts at the time, they're here.)
I've since come to terms with the fact that some people find characters like Toma entertaining in the same way that some people bring out the popcorn at the sight of internet drama, so I can understand why they have a fanbase, but I doubt characters like him will ever be to my tastes.
But the thing is, even though I bounced between loving, hating, and being irritated with the various routes of Amnesia: Memories, those feelings were so strong that it led to me starting the current format I use for discussing multi-route visual novels on my blog, because I just had to have a outlet for this crazy game. One blog entry wouldn't be enough. I had to dedicate one post to an overview and then one to each love interest so I could really focus on what I wanted to say.
It's not my favorite otome, and might barely make my Top 10 should I put one together at this very moment, but when I played the trailer for the Switch ports of Amnesia: Memories and Amnesia: Later x Crowd, damn was I taken back by about seven years. It was the music (and Kent's sweet half-month anniversary cake). I hadn't heard it in years, but it just brought back all the warm fuzzies from the routes I did like.
Older games get new console ports all the time, but the thing is Amnesia: Later x Crowd was never translated and visual novels are among the most laborious games to localize since they're 90% text. Most otome fans assumed that Amnesia: Memories just didn't sell enough at the time it released so Idea Factory never brought over the fandisks (Later x Crowd is a combination of Amnesia: Later and Amnesia: Crowd), and it didn't seem like that guess was far off the mark since Idea Factory stopped translated otome entirely until just last year when they released Cupid Parasite.
Most of the localization focus has been on new titles, the ones that just came out in Japan within the past year or so. This is the first otome license to reach back to an older title that has simply been ported.
There is a part of me that is quite gleeful about this. After all, that trailer did take me back and I do have positive memories about the first game. But on the other hand, I'm not quite the same player that I was back then. Because it's not one of my favorite games and I'm backlogged, I'm not likely to shell out Day 1 like I did seven years ago, since I don't love it enough to pay for a pricey limited edition and I know I won't play it right away.
But the nice thing is, the otome market has been growing steadily and there are plenty of fans who are thrilled to have a chance at both Amnesia games the very moment they're available. We've come a long way since nobody knew what otome was and it was just a handful of English speakers trying to make their purchasing power known. I can wait on this one out without worry, because there are already a half dozen other otome games that have already been announced for translation.
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