Review: Genso Manege Is the Brightest Dark Otome Game

Appearances can be deceiving, and Genso Manege is an otome game that is a prime example of it. While it involves a young woman working at a shining amusement park, magic, and colorful characters and environments, the backgrounds and storyline can sometimes get pretty dark! Everyone has an involved background, so much is going on, and there are serious moments, yet the aesthetic means there’s still fantasy and hope present in any possibly grave times. 

Emma is a young woman who ended up orphaned when her father died years ago. What exactly happened? She’s not sure. She doesn’t remember. However, he left behind a manege (merry-go-round) music box for her that she treasures. She’s been living with her childhood friend Arnaud ever since and hiding the fact she’s a witch, something feared and hunted down. She takes a chance and visits the La Foire du Reve amusement park that’s in town after hearing about it, even though there are rumors about people dying en masse once it leaves. 

It’s after Emma visits that she learns the truth. Almost everyone working at Reve isn’t just doing so for fun. They have to. They’re trapped. A witch’s spell bound everyone to the park. Because of an interaction Emma had with the manege at the park, the man in charge named Hugo realized she’s a witch and could potentially set them all free. That is, if she trains and works at it. Her magic is unstable and unprepared. So she ends up working at the park in Genso Manege the hopes of breaking this spell, and naturally finding love with one of the otome game’s love interests in the process.

Right from the outset, I loved the direction Genso Manege takes. What’s happening in Reve is serious business, gilded in varying pastels. While characters might seem merry and bright when at work, like Crier, Hugo, and Lyon, there’s more going on! The pacing is handled well, so secrets trickle out in satisfying ways. What’s going on isn’t blatant, so I even felt a bit surprised by some of the twists and turns in the routes. Also, while some characters do feel like they were designed to appeal to certain otome game love interest “types,” like Arnaud, Crier, and Serge, I feel like the execution of their storylines and personalities helped them feel more unique than others of their ilk. I often find myself only really loving two or three routes in most dating sims, but this is one where I generally like everyone.

The art direction is also honestly amazing. The quality of the CGs is really lovely, so much so that it’s one of those games where I didn’t want to take too many screenshots for a review for fear I’d “spoil” it for anyone reading. The character designs all fit the storyline, time period, and feel right in place with everyone else, even given the nature of their experiences and how they ended up at Reve. It’s ephemeral, in a way, and all feels very magical. 

As much as I like it though, there is one thing that I feel holds Genso Manege back and keeps it from being an otome game I can read for hours. The UI isn’t great! The text boxes are shades of purple, and the font is white with either dark purple shadows or outlines. Regardless of which one you choose, it can be quite difficult to read for extended periods of time! I wish there’d been an option to make it a solid, darker shade of purple, as the transparency option doesn’t help even at its highest level. There are also a lot of times when you’ll have a huge text box space that goes unused, and I almost felt like a slightly larger font might have helped.

Here are some examples, showing how the border and shadow font options look both with no transparency and fully transparent text boxes with some non-spoiler text.

Also, while the story is great, the “minigame” element isn’t. There may be times when Emma is focusing and collecting her power. The first time this happens, it means tapping on the Switch touch screen to hit enough stars within enough time, then tapping “A” when a star outline overlaps with a star. It isn’t fun and adds nothing to the experience. The visual novel elements here? Great! Anything else? Eh. It’s fine and I’ll go through it to keep going, but I’m not going to probably even remember there was a minigame element in here when I think back on it three to five years from now.

I really wish the UI in Genso Manege had been handled a bit differently, as it ended up being an otome game I both really enjoyed and couldn’t often play for extended periods. Some minor adjustments would have made a big different in terms of readability. However, it is absolutely a wonderful story with charming characters in every route. Mages did a wonderful job with it, and I’m so glad it’s a title PQube picked up.

Genso Manege will be available on the Nintendo Switch and PC on January 31, 2025.