Otome Game Review: My Vow to My Liege

Hello and welcome to another Otome Game review! It's been a while since I did one and also it's been a while since I completely finished another Otome Game. I decided to lessen my backlogs first before diving into the new releases, I went ahead on my Steam account and spotted My Vow to My Liege. Are you ready to do anything to fight for your destiny?

Game Details

Release date: September 22, 2020

Developer: YETU Game

Voiced: Yes (Chinese)

Language: English, Simplified Chinese

Platform: PC (Steam)

Other Game similarities: Hakuoki (in terms of having a historical, heavy plot)

The Story

The story is said to be set during the Spring and Autumn season, the Kingdom of Ng's royal family has deep ties with the Great Dragon God. The sacred vow had been going on for generations until 5 years ago, the previous King of Ng discovered that the Great Dragon God had evil plans to use them (their souls) to conquer the world. By this, the said king, his family together with the Shi family (the strongest family of mages) decided to break this sacred vow. 

Sadly, almost everyone who participated had been wiped out. The current king, HeLu passed his throne to you, the player and now known to be FuChai (her brother) as the new King of Ng. As FuChai disguised to be a man, she needs to face the struggle of war, the role of being a king, and fighting for her destiny to end the sacred vow to save her clan and her own life.

My Vow to My Liege for me is more on the Chinese drama side. It contains action scenes related to the war, mythical creatures, mage powers, soldiers, royal family, and more. If you do enjoy a game with a heavy plot, I would personally vouch for My Vow to My Liege.

The Characters

Shi YiGuang - He's 19 years old and FuChai's childhood friend. YiGuang comes from the Shi family and is the current leader of the Shi clan. YiGuang is known to be popular for his medical skills and his mage skills had been useful during almost all the fight scenes during the game.

YiGuang is a gentleman, kind, and pretty straightforward about what he feels. My impression of him is the "OP (overpowered) Guy" in the game because his powers are really strong. I somewhat felt like without YiGuang, FuChai will be having a difficult time dealing with the mythical creatures that will come her way.

GouJian - He's 21 years old and the current king of Yue, the kingdom which had been an enemy to Ng. After Ng defeated Yue,  GouJian surrendered and became a slave for 3 years. And as we all know, slaves during this era faced so many hardships and this gave GouJian the determination to get his revenge.

GouJian, sigh, he's my favorite character in this whole game! A love-hate relationship with him throughout the whole game is definitely on the table. His route gave me so much to think about because you can't really guess what he's thinking. He's sly, arrogant, and determined but he's also romantic. The switch that happened on his route (no more further details as its a vital scene on his route) made me love GouJian more <3

ChenFeng - He's 22 years old and has been adopted by HeLu to be FuChai's playmate now turned to be her dependable bodyguard. ChenFeng is calm and has loyalty to FuChai. But due to his personal feelings, he became vulnerable to different circumstances.

ChenFeng for me is my least favorite among the four playable characters. Although I understand where he is coming from, I felt that the romance in his route has been quite forced. ChenFeng had been a puppet most of the time which kinda saddens me because I am seeing his potential but his route didn't give him justice, for me at least.

Wu ZiXu - He's 37 years old and the current prime minister of the Kingdom of Ng. ZiXu escaped from the kingdom of Chu, to where he's the only survivor after his whole family was assassinated. ZiXu had become loyal to the royal family of Ng and is the one guiding FuChai to help her in her role as a King.

I honestly love how both ZiXu and FuChai are aware of their age differences but this has never been an obstacle for them. On ZiXu's route, we discovered all his challenges and FuChai's struggles and I really think that both of them complimented a lot. ZiXu has trust issues with people around them, especially at GouJiang. He's collected and is willing to do everything for the Kingdom of Ng and for FuChai.

Music, Art and Game Navigation

Imagine buying this game during the sale (I got this for only Php 188.00) and can give you such immerse experience that you honestly didn't expect. The characters are fully voiced (also the side characters), and the character visuals are beautifully made although the CGs are less compared to other games. I wanna give my biggest two thumbs up to each voice actor. They honestly did a great job!

Source: Steam

In terms of translation, I didn't notice errors in the composition of the sentence. It's pretty understandable as well if you read and get the context. You might be blown away with all the names, terms, and such so I suggest looking at the relationship option on the game to see the characters or jotting down some notes.

Music-wise, wow. I admire the game for having good background music and the sound effects are aplenty. Not as ridiculous as other games from Otomate in which the character is said to be walking but the footsteps are like they are running (lol). Fight scenes and mythical creature sound effects are honestly good. How I wish that the game can also provide at least some illustration of the mythical gods and their counterparts for added visualization.

Game navigation for me isn't good though. The skip unread text option isn't working well unless you play the game from the start. It's kinda annoying sadly because I don't want to have my unread text be forcefully skipped because of this option.

Aside from that, some errors are noticeable such as some dialogs are not voiced, the background scene transition error, and such. For me, it's not bothersome but is worth mentioning.

Overall ratings and final thoughts

4.1 / 5.0

I expected less but I got so much. My Vow to My Liege is a great addition to the Otome Game collection and experience so buy it if you haven't!

I like that us being FuChai, we can see all her struggles, decisions, feelings, and other things and it honestly makes the whole game more interesting. How will she react to people who want to abuse their power? Will she trust people to the extent that her troops and her kingdom might face their doom? How will she overcome her own insecurities and her destined fate? Will she be ready to throw everything so she can save herself rather than save her people? Will she be able to completely destroy the sacred vow in order to destroy the great god?

We can see so much in this game and how the story unfolds in our eyes. Although I've been seeing some loopholes in the plot or forced scenarios, especially at the end but I still enjoyed the roller-coaster ride.

I didn't expect that I read such a game with a heavy plot and good romance. If you want to explore such visual novels from Chinese Developers and you want to immerse yourself in some Chinese drama then what are you waiting for?

Date finished: 03 July 2022

Personal recommended playthrough: ChenFeng > YiGuang > GoJiang > Wu XiZu

Favorite character ranking: GouJiang > Wu XiZu > YiGuang > ChenFeng

I tried my best not to go into heavy detail to avoid some spoilers. I used this guide I found on Steam for the game walkthrough. Thank you so much for reading!