Office Lovers

Genre: Visual Novel

Players: 1

.

Review:

Office Lovers is a Visual Novel released on PC in 2016 and ported to Nintendo Switch in 2020. More specifically, this is an Otome game that has players taking the role of a young woman working a low-level position at a makeup company. She finds herself suddenly and inexplicably thrust into a position of importance on a major new project for the company, rubbing shoulders (and of course lips) with some of the most important figures within the company.

So… before going on, I should address the elephant in the room. This game’s topic matter is deeply unsettling on multiple levels. It’s inherently questionable for a game’s story to feature multiple men in positions of power not only salivating over a young woman whose fate rests in their hands, but using their positions of power over her to essentially force themselves on her. That the protagonist is flattered and excited by their advances after the fact, and doesn’t seem at all upset at the extreme sexual harassment going on here, is just a bit sickening.

But okay, look, I get it. This is fiction, and I’m sure that for some girls, being pursued by men in positions of power over you might be a fun fantasy.

However, even if we forgive the questionable nature of the game’s premise, the way this game depicts the men treating the unseen female protagonist of this game is troubling. There is a lot of “negging” going on in this game. These men are constantly criticizing the woman’s appearance, questioning her capabilities, arguing that they think she doesn’t even belong in the important position she has been thrust into without warning or preparation. If this game didn’t include romantic entanglements, I could see this as more akin to a videogame take on The Devil Wears Prada, making the point that the woman’s lack of care about her appearance sends a clear signal that she doesn’t care about the product her employer produces. However, when these criticisms are coming from guys who are all fighting for her affections, it can’t help but seem manipulative in a really sleazy way.

In his first appearance, the very first prospective love interest in the game actually tells her, “you’re pretty cute, but you shouldn’t frown so much. Wrinkles don’t suit you.”

Wow. Just wow.

As if this wasn’t enough, the guys in this game seem to have no compunctions about touching the game’s protagonist whenever they feel like it, caressing her face, grabbing her to get a better look at her. At least one of the prospective men forces her into a kiss with him without her showing any interest in him prior to this.

I said earlier that I can give some leeway to a game for catering to a fantasy, and I’m not trying to spoil anyone’s good time by telling them what they can and can’t like… but I feel like this game sets a dangerous standard for what sort of conduct is acceptable in a workplace, and I feel like it goes well beyond the “wouldn’t a fling with the boss be exciting?”

At least on a technical level, this game has decent enough writing, and the 2D artwork for the characters’ portraits is good. This game also uses some nice, relaxed music to back things up, although it’s nothing especially memorable. Also, I will take a moment to note that both the gamepad controls and the touchscreen controls work well. Really, if the story being told wasn’t so bothersome, this would be a decent, if somewhat disposable, Visual Novel.

Here’s the thing, though… the Nintendo Switch has plenty of Visual Novels, and many of those are Otome games. As such, I hesitate to recommend Office Lovers even if “workplace fling” is a fetish of yours. The guys in this game keep sending up red flag after red flag, and if this story were told in real life it would be a horror story that ends with a massive lawsuit. Unless this doesn’t bother you, stay away.

tl;dr – Office Lovers is a Visual Novel about a low-level employee who finds herself suddenly placed in an important role in a new company project, and drooled over by multiple powerful men within the company. The quality of the writing and artwork here is good, but the actual behavior of these men in positions of power is a disturbing string of red flags. Even being somewhat forgiving about this game’s nature as a fantasy still doesn’t keep this from being an extremely cringey experience.

Grade: C-

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