Otome Game Review: Code Realize ~ Wintertide Miracles ~

Intro: Following the events of Future Blessings, Cardia and her brother Finis are now enjoying a peaceful life together in Wales…but could there be something more in London for Cardia? 

Final Thoughts below:

Cantarella: Despite bearing the name of a song about Vocaloid characters trying to roofie each other’s drinks, this was great! After Cantarella’s opera performance, a Peacock-nobleman named Aiguille tries to kidnap her. The gang are on their way home from the theater when Cardia hears Cantarella’s scream. Aiguille gets away and they escort Cantarella home…to her shack. Her dad, Miles, is a gambling deadbeat who wastes all of their funds. The only good he’s done up until now has been in securing Cantarella’s medicine. Cardia becomes fast friends with Cantarella, who invites her to her shows for free and offers to teach her how to sing a famous bedtime fairy tale. This fairy tale is about a princess who loved to sing and a prince who couldn’t walk. The princess sang to the God of Sound in the hopes that her fiance’s legs would be healed. Instead of the God, a wizard hears her song; he casts a spell on the castle and it grows legs so they can travel the world. Cantarella says Miles rescued her when she was a little girl and they’ve been inseparable ever since.

Miles was the former Twilight second-in-command and, ironically enough, went after people who mishandled money. He became friends with a JUSTICE-driven man named Theoprhaste (who was Lupin’s teacher). They witnessed Isaac Beckford’s many failed creations and were ordered to dispose of the corpses. Isaac was now using real human bodies and one of those failures was Cantarella, so she’s essentially Cardia’s sister. If only Cardia found that out! Miles took her in and Theophraste disbanded from Twilight. Theoprhaste stole some of Isaac’s documents and then vowed to meet Miles later in life but he was murdered. Whoops ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Cantarella faints during a show and the gang decides to check up on her but Miles is nowhere to be found. They dig around her place and discover that the medicine Miles had been giving to Cantarella is actually Zicterium, the poison in Cardia’s body. There’s also a metal device in her brain that’s burning up her grey matter. Lovely. Miles says Twilight ordered him to capture Cardia and that he’s done playing house with Cantarella. Right as Cantarella falls into despair, Peacock-nobleman Aiguille drives through her shack with a metal horse and steals her away. Talk about a flashy entrance goddamn. I don’t think they have insurance to cover that…Miles never thought to tell his daughter the truth and thinks that emotionally traumatizing her is the way to go so he only tells Lupin and co after he’s been beaten to a pulp that the poison is actually a neutralizer for the device in her brain. If he can get the timing right the poison will travel through her bloodstream and into the device and render it useless (the poison is zinc-based so it won’t effect her brain). And the 🏆 for poor parenting goes to~

The dandy that kidnapped Cantarella is actually a robot because the real Aiguille can’t walk. When he was a shota he saw Howl’s Moving Castle but no-one believed him so he got a cane and made it all the way to where the castle was. The owner was sadly not the majestic Howl but was instead Isaac the crusty madman. He told Aiguille that the only way the castle could move was if the Fairy Tale Songstress sang in the castle so Aiguille decided to shack up there because his parents died and why go back to a boring house when you can have a castle? Cantarella sings for him and becomes his Calcifer but instead of thanking her he’s all ZOMG it worked and she rages at him because she’s tired of being a thing to be used. And then she gets swallowed into the depths of the castle through a hole that opens up in the floor    Miles and the gang get into the castle to stop it from crashing into London (so are we now in Mortal Engines or is this a crossover fic with Dianna Wynn Jones?). Cantarella somehow fuses with the castle and goes full LOVE IS WAR and starts shooting metal gears at everyone. Miles is pretty much dying as he tries to reach her because she stuck him like a pin cushion but he manages to apologize for being the worst dad ever and then the castle ceases to move for all of time. Queen Victoria seizes the castle and Impey announces that it was actually a toy built for a child? Okay I believe you. Cardia and Cantarella sing a song for Miles and then Cantarella and Miles prepare to leave for France to get brain surgery. Cantarella says that when they return she wants to renovate their shack to invite her friends and when she adds one more person to the list Miles is like ((((；゜Д゜))) when he realizes it’s NEET Aiguille and says his daughter can’t be with a deadbeat socially awkward boy rofl. I ship them so much.

Finis: and Cardia have restored their mansion in Wales back to its former glory and are now enjoying life as brother and sister. Saint Germain and Hansel often stop by to indulge in sweets and tea. One day, the newspapers announce that London’s buildings are mysteriously toppling over like dominoes. But it becomes clear that Isaac’s inventions may be up to no good. Cardia and Finis head for London but Hansel intervenes. He says that Idea fears Isaac’s heritage will somehow cause another catastrophic event if they get involved. Cardia convinces Hansel that they must stop whatever Isaac’s done and they fly the Ornithopter to take down the Mother Knocker. Meanwhile, the mini Knockers are busy tearing down London. Isaac built Knockers to be helper machines for razing down obstructions in order to rebuild London, but the Mother’s signals went haywire. Finis jumps out of the Ornithopter and while Hansel takes out the Knockers, he terminates the control for the Mother. He and Cardia decide they’ll shape the future into one Isaac would’ve wanted before he went insane. Later,  Queen Victoria appoints Finis as the head of Daybreak, a replacement for Twilight. Their goal is to manage Isaac’s legacy. Since it takes too long to travel between Wales and London, Omnibitch lets Finis use Idea’s Forest of Fog. In order to monitor him, Hansel joins Daybreak as the Intelligence Agency Daybreak Tea Sipper lol. As they’re celebrating Finis’ employment, Cardia announces that there’s a new addition to their family and Finis is (ʘ言ʘ╬)ー＞(ノಥ,_｣ಥ)ノ彡┻━┻because he thinks she’s marrying someone from her harem. When he finds out the new addition is Sisi he’s so relieved he orders their dog to attack Impey. Poor Impey wasn’t even considered a possible suitor for Finis to worry about

Sholmes: was a letdown in the first FD…and that disappointment rolls into this one too.  Cardia’s poison is still an issue so Fran is hard at work looking for a cure. Sholmes takes Cardia out for a fancy dinner date and serenades her on the violin. She ends up chugging a ton of wine so he carries her home and on the way some guy hands Sholmes a vial. Who is he? Why did he give it to him? How did this happen? Welp I sure don’t recall that being in the last two games and it’s been a good while since I played either of them so if they answered those questions I’ll never know. After her Horologium starts spazzing out Fran says they don’t have time to reconstruct the gem and she’s going to destroy London. So she heads out to get the gang and finds NEMOOOO in the sewers meowing like a crazy cat in his cardboard house. Nemo joins forces with Impey and Fran to alter the mysterious vial of poison to neutralize her own poison by having her “die” aka sleep for an unspecified amount of time. Before she peaces out, Sholmes proposes to her. Then a whole YEAR passes and Sholmes kisses her awake. She tells him she dreamed about doing a lot of stuff with him and asks what he wants to do now that they can touch ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) but we can’t let that Cero rating be too spicy so instead of saying what we all know he truly wants, he’s like let’s hold hands and make out rofl. Too bad we learn that while Cardia was getting a beauty sleep Sholmes was out doing some badass stuff that we’ll never get to experience like putting Lupin behind bars *sigh*

Impey: On his way home from visiting Nemo in jail to talk about science, he finds Saint tending his to front yard and they discuss how lonely the mansion is now that most of the gang have gone their separate ways. Saint asks Impey if and why he likes Cardia and this sends Impey into one of two existential crises phases. Impey’s always called girls cute and he’s never thought twice about it but with Cardia he’s unsure what’s going on. Cardia meanwhile reminisces over the days she spent with Impey and wonders what “love” really means so she asks Finis to tell her he loves her. He tsuntsuns after he does so and she says it’s not what she expected. She finds a package from Impey and co. containing an Impey plush with a recording from the gang inviting them over for Christmas dinner. A snowstorm delays their arrival so Impey goes to pick them up. Finis knows Cardia likes Impey so he lets them have some alone time. Impey starts complimenting the scenery and Cardia calls him an idiot because she thought he was talking about her rofl. After dinner she finds him working outside and asks him to say he loves her so she can confirm that the love she feels for him is different than the love she feels for anyone else. The poor guy barely gets a moment to answer her because she grabs his face and tells him she loves him. Impey’s so shocked he falls down into the snow and hightails it to Nemo. Nemo decides not to scream like a banshee for once in his life and is like son you done messed up big time get your ass back there so Impey hightails it once again and invites Cardia out on a date. He takes her to the Glass Palace and then they press a switch that Nemo had given him to celebrate when he got out of prison. Fireworks light up the sky and Impey takes the moment to tell her he’s been using the L word too casually but with her it’s the only appropriate word he can use.

Impey Epilogue: Impey is off on business for several days so Cardia decides to find as much research as possible in order to fly to the moon with him. She leaves him a note that says she’s going back to her parent’s house which sounds like “I’m leaving you” to Impey when he gets back and finds it. He goes to Wales and ends up tackling her to the floor pfft. One of the CGs looked so raunchy out of context it was hilarious. She explains that she’s not divorcing him but wants to help him out he kisses her as punishment for making him worry. Then he takes her out to star-gaze because he took one day longer on business since he was looking to buy her a wedding ring. He only has the ring because if she holds it up to the moon, now the moon is her stone. They vow to get to the moon and make a new ring from moonstone.

Van: after Future Blessings’s disastrous miscommunication fest I was praying that Otomate would do something different and thank goodness they did! On their way to London, Van and Delly stop by Wales to see Cardia and Finis. They wait a few hours in the freezing cold so Cardia invites them to stay the night. While Delly andd Finis hang out she busies herself with sewing gifts for the gang. Van pops in and asks to help out since there’s not enough time to finish them all. He insists he doesn’t need a gift but deep down he’s like why did I say that of course I’d like one from her. They’re both too shy to do anything so even with Finis practically telling Van hey my sister likes you and I know you like her and I’m not going to cockblock you, Cardia is once again the only one who has the balls to confess. She had asked Lupin and co. for advice regarding her feelings for Van and they said to tell him and then they’d each get to punch him as payment. So Cardia goes outside, gives him the gift she’d made him and confesses she’s in love with him. Van’s like NANI and then he hugs her and is like I’m so glad you told me (because we all know he never had the balls to) and but I throughout all I could think about was how Future Blessings made it canon that these two can’t communicate properly and how it will be an ongoing problem for their relationship. Yikes.

Van Epilogue: Cardia tries on dresses and when the fated wedding date arrives, Shirley strangles the life out of her torso with the corset. Unfortunately just as Cardia steps outside a bunch of men in suits grab her and throw into their car. Van arrives super pumped to see Cardia and learns that his bride was snatched so he races to where she is. In another church, an impatient groom tries to force Cardia closer to the altar but my queen isn’t having any of that. She throws him to the ground and then Van bursts through the doors and starts slinging men through the stained glass windows – only for the gang to stop him because the people that kidnapped her are all actors. The bride never showed so they panicked because the actress was gone and when they saw Cardia they thought it was her. They get married and Van’s flowers somehow injure Impey.

Fran: works as a Doctor in the poor area of London and even though the Gordon family wants to see Cardia, they never do. Once more Otomate proves Future Blessing’s Mafia story was indeed ‘Another Useless Story.’ Fran’s mom writes to him all the time like someone in a Jane Austen novel saying that he needs to find a woman pfft so he ends up venting all of his feelings for Cardia in a letter to his parents like this is fine. Welp sorry precious boy but it’s not so fine after all because of course his parents are like we’re coming down to see your bride-to-be right now! Fran begs Cardia to be his pretend lover for Christmas which pisses her off because he starts off with his plea for help as if he were confessing his feelings to her and she’s all┣¨キ(*ﾟДﾟ*)┣¨キ …. ( ◜◡＾)っ╰⋃╯死にたいのか？They decide to practice being a couple for a few days in London and when they get to Saint’s place, everyone knows it’s an act right away. Everyone except for Impey, who thinks his world has just ended. The day Fran’s parents arrive, they enjoy each other’s company and ice skate together. They’re awaiting his parents’ arrival when Cardia is like boi I like you and he’s all well snap I like you too and she’s so stunned she’s like (-_O) until he kisses her to prove his feelings for her. Yay? Then he says he wants to have a family with her and that he loves her so much and – like breathe my dude, chill. You only just confessed good lord. His parents show up and now that they don’t have to pretend to be a couple anymore everything goes smoothly. It was cute but it was also super rushed and Future Blessings did a MUCH better job with his route rofl what was this?

Fran Epilogue: he and Cardia aren’t married but they call themselves husband and wife anyways. She works as his assistant and during breaks when everyone leaves they ichaicha. Cardia admits that she’d like to get married someday so Fran worries about what to do. Queen Victoria notices he’s not acting like himself and demands that he explain what’s wrong. After he does so, she says that if he can prove to her how much he wants the wedding she’ll find a way to get one for them as soon as possible. We never get to see how Fran convinced her but as soon as he does he proposes to Cardia and then they celebrate their wedding a week later. Apparently Fran never mentioned this to his parents so they’re not present at their son’s wedding.

Saint Germain: Omnibitch gives Saint some time off so he Marie Kondo’s his mansion and tosses out Impey’s things because they don’t bring him joy. One of those items is a device that sounds an alarm if someone shady is near Cardia and it goes off as soon as Saint gets close to it rofl. When he goes to clean Cardia’s room he starts tripping balls and sees an illusion of her at his window speaking to him. Poor guy realizes he’s lonely af so he invites everyone over for a Christmas party. He makes Guinevere and Hansel help him decorate but that night it snows so badly he thinks no-one can make it to his party. Then Impey crashes his Ornithopter through his window. While Cardia is in her room Saint comes a-knocking. She’s at the window just like in his illusion and he panics. He runs over and hugs her. He says he wants to always be with her and then is all oof that was desperate so he tells her dinner is ready and then leaves the room. Cardia spends dinner speaking to everyone and notices Saint is standing near the open front door admiring the snow. Right as they’re both about to confess to each other Omnibitch arrives. Otomate plays a menacing track for this scene and I was about to throw my controller at my tv if she tried to cockblock and make my son lose any chance at happiness but she’s all I’m here for the party and I’m giving you an unspecified amount of time off so Merry Christmas. Like holy fuck woman a little late with the mercy here. Saint takes Cardia out on a secret date. As Cardia and Finis prepare to return to Wales, Saint asks her to live with him in front of everyone and says he’ll be Finis’ brother in-law pfft. Cardia gets on the train and then Saint says she forgot something; she leans out of the window and he kisses her and tells her not to forget it and that if she doesn’t come to visit him soon he’ll steal her away ♡( ´ ▽ ` ).｡ｏ♡ Too bad we don’t get a kiss CG…

Saint Epilogue: purchases the Gloria ship from the mafia route and renames it the Duo Gloria. It is on this ship that Saint and Cardia plan to have their wedding and then sail around on for their honeymoon. The night before, Hansel takes Cardia with him to meet Saint, who is already with Omnibitch. Omnibitch says they will no longer be targeting Cardia because her poison has been completely healed. She also says they can’t attend their wedding but they can give them a blessing in return. Omnibitch thanks Saint for all of his many hundreds of years of service and for being a family to her (bitch you legit would kill him if you thought your predictions said it had to be done) and the best present of all is that Saint will NEVER have to ever speak to Omnibitch again! Like I get that to him she was like a mom and stuff but good lord she tortured the poor man time and time again good riddance lady. Saint says he’ll give her one wish today: anything she can think he will give it to her, be it a castle or something else. Cardia says he’s already given her so much: friends, a new life, etc. so all she could want is to live a happy life with him. He’s all┣¨キ(*ﾟДﾟ*)┣¨キ and they kiss but once again we don’t get a CG. Holy fuck Otomate. Welp at least Idea won’t be messing with them again.

Lupin: Future Blessings had me all (´▽`ʃƪ)♡ for the gentleman thief and he did it again. Lupin misses Cardia so much he starts failing at all of his jobs. He decides to write to her but he never receives a reply so he goes to see her himself. Cardia’s in bed when Lupin arrives with Sisi dressed to the nines in Santa and reindeer get-ups. He asks why she never responded to his letter and it becomes clear she never received them. Finis bursts into her room because his traps weren’t enough to stop someone from getting in (Lord this boy going home alone on all the guys?). Finis apologizes because Impey had sent so many letters to Cardia that he decided to stockpile them all and hand them to her in one go. And in so doing Lupin’s few letters were lost among Impey’s. Lupin whisks them both to London and he and Cardia wander around for a while. Lupin’s about to confess to her when he’s interrupted. After they get back to the mansion, he tries again to confess but he has to stop himself because they have an audience. Fran and Saint wait until she goes inside to tell Lupin that they have her letters and they’re all trying to get them together. They figured that if the two couldn’t see each other or contact each other, one of them would finally make a move rofl. Lupin once again tries to confess but Delly’s looking for Cardia to tell her a story. Lupin decides enough is enough he’s going to kokuhaku so he kabedons her and pretends that he’s alone as he tells Delly he hasn’t seen Cardia. Problematic as kabedons may be I eat that shit up so I was (｡・//ε//・｡) Delly leaves and Lupin takes to the Church rooftop where they confess to each other. They kiss and Lupin why are your eyes open in one of them?

Lupin Epilogue: Cardia asks him about his parents but he doesn’t remember them. The one person he does remember though is Theophraste, his teacher. So Lupin decides to go on a honeymoon with Cardia and takes her to his hometown, Paris. They look around for a little bit before he takes her to visit Theophraste’s grave. After, the French police surround them so she and Lupin make a majestic getaway. I’m a little disappointed with this epilogue because I was expecting a lot more but then again he was biased for every single game so I guess it was about time he got the short end of the stick.

Triangle Dates: You choose two people to spend the day with and it usually involves the two guys competing for Cardia’s attention but everything’s done in a very good-natured manner. On top of this you get three special events – one of them involves a “date” with Aleister excuse me while I barf up all of my sanity. Aleister and Cardia go to see Nemo who has a new invention to show off and without spoiling, Nemo is revealed to be an ULTRA IKEMEN. The kind where neither man nor woman can resist his charms…well if he’d actually speak normally and didn’t screech every time he spoke haha. There’s a ton of combinations and the stories are very short but if you can’t get enough of the gang or one of them in particular you’ll be sure to find everything in these little dates.

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Final Thoughts

Otomate Bless You

Otomate realized they did an oopsie by releasing Future Blessings where all but one of the guys got the promised wedding that had been advertised to fans. On top of that they threw in a mafia story which was an utter waste of time. Wintertide Miracles attempts to rectify those mistakes by acting as both a prequel and a sequel to Future Blessings. You could skip Future Blessings but then you’d be pretty lost about what was happening. I’ve skipped over a few categories such as artwork, music, the heroine, etc. since I’ve already covered those in the previous two games and they’re pretty much the same.

System: You don’t need a guide but if you want the platinum you should make use of the quick saves and quick loads to record all of the terms in the glossary.

Localization: some glossary entries trailed outside of the text box and the translations/line edits weren’t looked over as much as they should’ve been. There were countless times where sentences were flat-out confusing to understand and I had to reread them. Compared to the first two entries in this series, I spotted more typos, mistakes, etc. than I expected to and it really bothered me. Some people may be able to overlook it but it eventually got to the point where I had to stop taking screenshots of each blunder because it happened so often.

Characters:

Cantarella is another fantastic character and it’s great to see more female characters in this game. If Shirley had been utilized better perhaps she’d be another awesome addition. Speaking of Shirley, what was the point of her being in this game? Other than a nod to Future Blessings there’s no point for her to even exist.

Sholmes’ entire route was disappointing. Cardia isn’t present for the coolest parts which are summarized for her in a few lines. Like wow all I ever wanted was to become Sleeping Beauty and never do anything. Thanks.

Impey was surprisingly adorable. I loved how Otomate questioned why he likes Cardia when he seems to like all girls because Impey actually had to sit down and think about things for once. He was also a total ikemen like sir I don’t know what happened or how you did it but I approve.

Van just doesn’t get the best routes despite how popular of a character he is. I really like him and this game had me shipping him and Cardia but the fact remains that miscommunication plagues their relationship. Future Blessings made that canon and that carries over into this one hahaha…

Fran. You can’t make your parents be such a huge part of your life only to not invite them to your own wedding yikes. 

Saint finally gets a break! Every game has been a constant “you can have SOME happiness but you have to go through tons and tons of trauma!” while Omnibitch pretends to be some kind old lady but we all know she’s a psycho murderer. She legit stresses me out. Thank God Otomate realized that constantly torturing Saint and Cardia isn’t what the fans wanted so if you like Saint as much as I do, you’ll be very happy to see that he finally gets his happiness. At the cost of no kiss CGs…

Lupin is too much for my heart. I wasn’t a fan of him in Guardian of Rebirth and then Future Blessings had me like (´▽`ʃƪ)♡ so I was looking forward to his route. There was a lovely kabedon scene and I’m weak to that trope no matter how problematic it is so I was over the moon. Unfortunately his epilogue is pretty boring. Who knew the day would come when Otomate gave that bias to Saint, their Despair Scapegoat?

Least enjoyable to most from left to right:

Sholmes>Van>Finis>Fran>Impey>Lupin>Saint>Cantarella

Overall this was a huge guilty pleasure for me. I stand by the opinion that Code Realize is one of the best otome games available, but I can’t exactly extend that same sentiment toward its fandiscs. So unless you love CR you may not like this entry as much as I did. Sadly, Sholmes’ “route” is so threadbare and shoehorned into these fandiscs that I can’t imagine he was thrown into the mix for any other reason than the fans wanted him to have a route. And I was one of those fans! Van remains a character who is better off helping Delly on his mission. The rest of the guys are great and I’m so grateful that Cardia’s brother, Finis, was given so much development. He’s so darn precious. I’m glad that Saint is finally free of his despair trademark because he doesn’t need any more pain. If you’re a fan of CR you should absolutely pick this one up. If you haven’t played Future Blessings I’d recommend playing it before starting Wintertide Miracles. I can also advise just reading through my spoiler-filled route sections for Future Blessings if you’re unsure which fandisc you want. Doing so would really help you decide if those routes are worth your money or if you should just get Wintertide, which guarantees a satisfying, happy ending for each character. I’d recommend getting this for the PS4 if you have one. You can pick up a copy of the PS4 game here and one for the Vita here. 

They come as both standard and limited editions. Included in the limited edition:

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What did you think of this fandisc? Which routes were your favorites?

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