Obey Me! – FREE RPG Card Game Review
A little before the Christmas holidays I found out about a new app called Obey Me! through a marketing post that randomly showed up in my Instagram feed. While I did talk about Otome games on this blog before, I haven’t downloaded any new app recently due to the Pay-to-Win gameplay that affects at least the 90% of content from this category. Still, whenever I see anime related posts I automatically click out of curiosity. Noticing the general high rating and good reviews, I convinced myself to download it and try it out for some time. What is there to lose anyway, when you can get something for free?
App title: Obey Me! (One Master to rule them all)
Developer: NTT Solmare
Compatible systems: iOS, Android
Playable on PC: Yes (via Bluestacks emulator or other similar applications connected to your Google Play account)
Note: This review is spoiler-free!
Although the app can be considered an Otome/Romance game (the title is in fact listed into the Shall We Date? series, which I honestly never played before), it is mostly described as a card/RPG title. Obey Me! came out on December 12 and includes a good number of chapters containing main quests and visual novels still on development, leaving the story open for more to come.
While there are in-game purchases and a VIP subscription (I’ll talk about this specifically in a moment), you can actually play the entire game for free. This honestly sends it to the top of my list right now, because I’d rather buy the whole thing once or support companies at my own pace instead of feeling forced to buy something just to unlock additional story content that I can barely keep to myself (*cough*Love365*cough*).
Plot
The game’s prologue begins with you as the main character receiving a mysterious letter from the Royal Academy of Diavolo, which states you have been chosen to take part into their Exchange Program. A voice calls for your help out of nowhere, echoing in your mind from the darkness: “Save me”, it says, “The bad guys caught me. You are different, so I’m sure you can save me”.
Upon waking up in a completely foreign environment, you find yourself surrounded by good-looking demons in their world as you are forced into the mentioned program strongly wanted by Lord Diavolo himself, in order to let his kind, angels and humans peacefully coexist with no bloodshed and re-write history.
A few dialogue choices will pop up as Diavolo and one of the seven brothers, Lucifer, introduce you to the upcoming tasks you’ll need to accomplish for an entire year, with no chance of going home until you’re done with the program. The other brothers of sin will make your acquaintance right after the main introduction and you will also have to closely work with these characters in the upcoming future using text interactions through your new demonic device.
Who does that mysterious, desperate voice belong to? Is there a particular reason for you to be chosen, when you don’t even seem to have any magic hiding in you?
As you proceed with the assigned tasks and start living with your new friends in the House of Lamentation, you keep hearing the voice calling out for you and echoing along the stairs connected to the off-limits attic.
Interface and general Gameplay
Compared to other standard Otome games, in this one you do not have specific routes to choose from for now. You can complete different tasks to increase the intimacy with all demons, on level 5 the characters will act more interested in your persona and start giving you calls or texting more. In Obey Me! the MC has no confirmed gender, allowing anyone to enjoy it with no distinctions. Your original location in the human world is also left untold, which allows you to come up with anything you like.
The entire game will be played through your D.D.D. phone, where you can check the active chats, missed calls, open tasks and limited events.
You can select any of the demons to keep you company in the home screen from the Majolish menu, they are fully animated and particularly talkative, whether you tap on them or not. You can also unlock additional costumes playing dance battles and winning special cards required for that specific reward.
The Mail app is where the game’s news and notices will appear, along with random presents such as AP to fill up your bar. The Akuzon app is the actual game shop where you can buy special kits, Devil Points and items to speed up your progress. However, like I said before, Obey Me! will not force you to pay unless you really want to. You will still obtain everything eventually by grinding more with dance battles and completing tasks, it just takes much more time and dedication to save up points and Grimm.
The 😀 Jobs app allows you to send your demon friends to work in different facilities, earning additional money and more intimacy points at their completion. Devilgram is the Instagram-like account the demons use to share their photos and private stories, which are locked behind keys that you need to get in order to read them all.
To Do is the app you want to check for daily missions and other special tasks required for items. It is recommended to play as many battles as you can to clear the missions out faster, but also to boost your active cards and level up.
Under Schedule you can see the ongoing events and check their expiring date.
Contacts is the place for all your unlocked cards and you can increase their rank as well with Grimm coins and objects for the Devil Tree containing skills. The cards have different levels from N (weakest) to UR (most powerful). Nightmare is a sort of raffle where you can draw at least three cards every 24/48 hours for free, otherwise you have to use either Grimm or Devil Points/Vouchers to win more.
Some of the cards that you can receive with dance battles are split into pieces (50 to 80), thus you’ll need to get them all to merge everything together and use them in your teams. This unfortunately can take a very long time as well, especially if you can only obtain them in Nightmare with lucky draws.
↑Your Tasks↑ is where the story chapters are located; the Normal mode contains the lessons with books for story chapters (they will become harder with each lesson), the Hard mode features dance battles only with just a few additional story segments here and there.
Dance Battles
You can form different teams and choose the one you want in battle. The game will automatically pick the strongest cards from the list and put them together for you, but you can change them manually if you want a different combination. While the strongest and most rare cards are the UR ones, you should have as many SSR as you can for better results. The Memory Cards add in more skills to your team. Demon Cards are usually based on specific themes you can read about on Devilgram.
The dance battle is entirely in Chibi form.
You can see how much strength your team has against the opponent one in the comparison panels, but the fate of your battle is mostly decided by your opponent’s skills, which could intercept your attacks and prevent you from filling the right bar in time.
Pink hearts will pop up on the screen randomly during the battle too, you need to grab as many as you can to gain more points. Also tap fast on your characters to activate their combos when a green flame appears around them with a “ready” sound.
If you manage to fill the bar before the timer runs out, your match will end with three stars and more special rewards when included. A few lessons also feature an additional story chapter that needs a specific amount of collected stars in order to be opened.
At the end of most dance battles you will get a surprise guest; one of the three demons from your team will offer you 3 interactions with a generic comment about the outcome. Just like you do in the homescreen, you can either give them one of the edible items in your inventory (they will sparkle if that character likes them) or with taps. Be sure to tap the right areas or they will dislike your interactions and the intimacy level will not grow.
Each battle needs from 5 to 8 AP, otherwise you won’t be able to load them. The app gives you 3 free ads to watch daily should you want additional AP and play more, but they generally don’t take too long to load if you decide to wait instead of watching clips or using Devil Points to add new ones right away. AP can also be won via quests in the To Do app, or gifted by one of the surprise guests if you succeed with the interactions and they feel particularly generous.
If your strength isn’t high enough to continue the story, you can either play older battles all over again to level up more or purchase glowing sticks with Devil Points. They will shake in front of the stage and cheer for the selected character whenever you activate a combo, increasing the points and letting you win a battle that you’d normally fail if your team can’t to do it on its own. Even if you finish with just one star, as long as you pass the limit you’re good to go.
Glowing sticks can also be received through tasks, daily bonuses and limited events.
VIP Subscription
The Obey Me! developers recently implemented the VIP pass on the app, which offers a few perks in exhange for a monthly payment on your part:
• 60 Devil Points (+100 if you stay subscribed)
• VIP login bonus
• Max AP + 20
• Player EXP x2
• Two Extra in 😀 Jobs
• Higher drop rate in 😀 Jobs
• Exclusive VIP Items Sale
Unfortunately, as it is the VIP subscription is (in my opinion) not worth the price for what it gives. The overall cost seems to vary depending on your currency and location; for some specific Countries the final cost is absolutely insane. If you live in the US or are from Europe, the pass will be respectively $10 and €10,99 monthly.
The additional DP can be useful considering how many you have to use, but since you need at least 270 to get SSR or UR cards from Nightmare with the guaranteed method, they can be consumed pretty fast.
The VIP login bonus doesn’t seem too different compared to the normal daily one either and the additional AP can barely let you play a couple more dance battles before running out.
The extra EXP points also don’t seem to be effective, at least in my case. I tested the free version of the VIP pass for a week and I can confirm my levelling up process felt pretty much the same.
Two extra slots for jobs are useful if you want to earn more money and extra stuff at once, but I would need much more than that to pay for a monthly subscription. The VIP doesn’t offer any sort of perk for cards, nor exclusive items for free that you’d normally need to buy without subscription (there are only sales). In other words, I feel like the VIP as it is doesn’t really give me many benefits and it is particularly expensive for what it does. I think there’s room for improvement on that front and many users would be willing to pay the price if they could have an exclusive way to draw good cards more often.
Overall considerations
This game is an absolute must-play if you like anime, RPGs and card games. The story has a lot of neat elements about demonology and angelology, so I totally recommend it to any Supernatural fan out there. If you cannot afford the in-app purchases you can still enjoy the entire story without paying a cent, even without UR cards in your team. There’s no such thing as special dialogue options locked behind paid content. The characters are really likeable and well designed. They all have different personalities representing the seven sins and the animations make the entire visual novel more lively.
Since the MC has no design and they are described in first person from the player’s perspective, there are no CGs into the story. The pictures are reserved to cards only and the Devilgram accounts. While I do love getting special images througout the main events, I also like the fact you can interpret the main character however you like.
The intimacy level doesn’t seem to do much apart from calls, it will not affect the story at all as it is. Hopefully this will start influencing your progress a bit more in the future, although I assume at one point they may simply split the main plot into routes.
The battle events will offer you new cards and side stories, very convenient if you need to level up and want to still enjoy the game while new chapters are under development and no main lessons are left for you to play.
This game is by far one of the best you can find among the Otome category. The Obey Me! developers are pretty open to feedback and they answer your inquiries fast enough with detailed assistance via email.
The general writing is pretty good, maybe a bit rushed at times, but all in all quite enjoyable. The story is captivating and includes a bunch of honorable mentions (although a bit altered for copyright reasons) for well known anime series like Neon Genesis Evangelion or movies like Harry Potter.
It got angst, but it can also be pretty hilarious! 👍
Personal rating story and app-wise: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Personal rating gameplay-wise: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
UPDATE 9/21/2020: The game mechanics have changed a bit recently and I feel like a brand new post for it is required. Stay tuned!
See more Otome recommendations here.
See other Otome apps developed by NTT Solmare here.
EDIT 06/11/2021: I made an updated post for this game over here! The article includes some f2p tips and a new review based on the current gameplay changes.
