In the tale of Cinderella, one of the most iconic and enduring elements is the curse of the stroke of twelve. This curse, placed upon Cinderella by her fairy godmother, serves as a crucial plot device and adds a sense of urgency and tension to the story. The curse dictates that Cinderella must return home before the clock strikes midnight, or else her enchanted transformation will end, and she will once again become a lowly servant girl. This creates a race against time for Cinderella to enjoy her magical evening at the royal ball while also ensuring she can make it back home in time. The stroke of twelve symbolizes the inevitable return to reality, reminding Cinderella that her escape from her mundane life is temporary. It acts as a reminder of the limited time she has to truly experience the happiness and freedom she desires.
Bad End: Mythros is all welp if you won’t do it I’m out and Rod confesses to Lucette before he vanishes at the stroke of midnight.
She wakes up to ikemen sensei beside her and kisses him to wake him but Waltz strides in to tell her about her plans for the future and advertises his route to learn how he broke his curse lol. Bad end Hildyr makes Lucette give back her powers and it turns her into an empty shell so Waltz stays with them because he believes he can break her curse but he never can.
It acts as a reminder of the limited time she has to truly experience the happiness and freedom she desires. The curse of the stroke of twelve also represents the societal constraints that Cinderella faces. In her normal life, she is bound by the expectations and limitations imposed upon her by her stepmother and stepsisters.
Otome Game Review: Cinderella Phenomenon
Intro: Crown Princess Lucette awakens on the streets in rags, cursed by a terrible spell. In order to break the Fairytale Curse, she must complete 3 good deeds – but she has never been anything but distrustful, bitter, and selfish. How can she manage even a single good deed? To make matters worse, this curse has completely stripped Lucette of her title. In order to reclaim her rightful place, she must break the curse, learn a few lessons and maybe even snag an ikemen.
Final Thoughts Below:
Parfait and Delora warn Lucette that a witch is in the castle looking for her because her mother, Hildyr, was the witch who terrorized the people after starting the Great War. She’d killed a human and fell into darkness. So Delora cursed Lucette to see if there was good in her.
Some hos badmouth Opehlia and Lucette tells them off, realizing Ophelia knew she was Hildyr’s daughter and she’d been awful to her. She gets her 2nd piece and Rod shows up.
Mythros wants Lucette to be the next mahou oujousama. She’s all PEACE but he says Rod will die after Viorica’s wedding. He vanishes as Rod walks in and she yells at him for not telling her about the consequences of his curse. He kisses her and Sebby’s all (ʘᗩʘ’) Mythros promises to break Rod’s curse in return for something on her birthday.
Good End: to break the curse, Rod must either win Viorica’s ❤ or to kill her. Em is under a spell and gives Rod a knife. Lucette tackles him GO GURL and Delora bursts in to freeze him to the ground. Mythros oneshots her and Lucette jumps in front of Rod so he stabs her shoulder – oof. Her last deed was to break Rod’s curse, which breaks hers too. Delora was playing possum and owns Mythro’s ass. The next day, Lucette’s life is back to normal. Because they’re step-siblings, they have to hide their feelings and arrange to meet outside in the woods in secret ლ(ಥ Д ಥ )ლ
Bad End: Mythros is all welp if you won’t do it I’m out and Rod confesses to Lucette before he vanishes at the stroke of midnight.
Karma: cursed with the Beauty’s Curse, he dresses as a woman to ward off women who fall madly in ❤ with him by a single glance. He’s skilled with the sword and trains Garlan and Julien at night, constantly asking Garlan when he’ll confess to Julien. I liked how he taught Lucette sword fighting. Once upon a time he was Brugantia’s Crown Prince. He was vain and selfish, and one day he tossed a woman away after a week – but he dun goofed because she was a witch. And she cursed his ass.
Someone tries to kidnap Lucette and Karma saves her. She goes to thank Karma and walks in on him changing and sees a rose on his chest. She’s almost taken to the King after she’s caught eavesdropping on some knights but Karma saves her. She gets him away from a gaggle of women and gets her 1st good deed.
Karma shuts himself in his room so she buys him a rose locket to cheer him up. She walks into his room and he kabedons her asking why she’s here and she throws the locket at him. He returns it but she’s all I got it for you and he’s all O.o Alcaster forces the king to resign and they go to rescue the royal family. Karma transforms into a beast when she’s captured by Varg.
Good end: She recognizes him after he shows her the locket and is like I swear I didn’t eat Karma I’m him and she confesses and breaks their curses. Alcaster murders his son Fritz, and the King throws Alcaster in jail. Karma leaves to show his family he’s alive and for her birthday he returns while she tsuns to him about his flirting and how he owes her. He pushes her down in her bed and starts to icha-icha but a Maid starts knocking on her door to come out for lunch. She starts to open the door and Lucette’s all you shall not pass. Bad End: She fucking stabs the beast to death and discovers it’s Karma as he dies.
Rumpel: a shameless flirt with amnesia who collapses on the streets in the beginning of the game and is taken in by the Marchen overseers. His journal will fill out with each memory he regains until the curse is broken. If he can recall his name, it will break automatically. Not much happens for most of his route until the end.
Rumpel was unable to save some of his patients, so he sought out a witch, who took his memories. He was engaged to a woman named Bria. Rumpel refused payment for his services as a doctor, plunging him and Bria into poverty. Bria went to a nobleman he saved to collect payment since Rumpel refused it. The man asked her to sell herself and they had an affair. Bria and Rumpel decide to move on and he learns his name is Chevalier. After confessing, Waltz says the witches have started a coup on the castle.
Good end: Mythros reveals her mom isn’t dead and he’s going to revive her. Her friends rescue her and Waltz broke his curse and is now a smoking ikemen. Mythros grabs Em and starts strangling her. Chevalier baits him into raging over 9000 and everyone rushes him. Mythros tries to stab Lucette but Parfait jumps in front and dies. Chevalier shanks Mythros in the neck. She wakes up to ikemen sensei beside her and kisses him to wake him but Waltz strides in to tell her about her plans for the future and advertises his route to learn how he broke his curse lol. Bad end: Lucette sneaks around to shank Mythros but he spells knights to kill her and Chevalier jumps in front.
Fritz: Lucette’s personal knight and son of Sir Alcaster. I was interested in his route from the start but damn do the childhood friend/body guard tropes always get the short end. He’s cursed with the Big Bad Wolf but for the longest time I was convinced it was a spin on Jekyll and Hyde. She stays with him at his house but of course shit happens and she’s constantly running away from him or the Marchen cast. His route explored what happened if she didn’t grow attached to the Marchen’s aka she doesn’t break the curse through good deeds, people die for her, her mom is resurrected, and she fucks up big time.
The worst offender was I came here for Fritz and I stayed for Varg. See, I like the nice guys. Yeah, they ain’t terribly interesting but I’d much rather THAT than some dude constantly trying to rape you, murder you, stalk you, lock you in cages, etc. but that’s a personal opinion. See, Varg is Fritz’s dark side that manifests to help Mythros out and because he’s Fritz, he comes to care for Lucette. He’s just super emo and stuff. Despite how Garlan, Delora, Parfait, etc die, I had hopes for Varg because as much as I loved Fritz, we knew nothing about him. We were supposed to just float on the trope he was but it didn’t sail. Add to the fact that Lucette’s mother abused her so badly to the point she couldn’t trust anyone and it made NO SENSE that she was all I trust Fritz with my life!!
Good end: people die and Varg decides to let Fritz come back because he loves her, meaning he’ll die. Lucette is all GOOD and then later she talks about getting rid of the whole class system so she can marry him without being judged. Bad end: Mythros and Varg corner them in the tunnels and Varg shields her from a spell. He tells her that a dog will always ❤ his mistress so it’s best that he dies rather than come to terms with how she’ll never choose him ಥ_ಥ
Waltz: the true route and has the Neverland curse so he’s a shota for most of the game until you play his route and BAM he’s a nice piece of ikemen. He was a witch and Hidyr’s pupil but because his parents refused to hand him over, she killed them. He lived with her at the palace and snuck around to play with Lucette and cheer her up. Hildyr found out and forbade him from being with her, then erased Lucette’s memories of all the bad things she’d done to her. Waltz calls Lucette his “little star” because she was the one beam of light in his dark days.
I kind of feel like they fell a little fast for the plot but then again it said she’d been at the Marchen for 4 months? He teaches her how to open her ❤ to others who want to get to know her and her kindness is what propels her to gaining support from the town when Hildyr comes back and kills her father, Alcaster, and then holds Waltz hostage. I loved how she kissed him first.
Good end: she goes to save him and Delora and Parfait come too. She lies to her mom to get her to come down the steps and then one shots her. Parfait sends her off to whatever hell the bitch deserved to go to and then Lucette becomes Queen. Annice and Rumpel apparently are getting it on lol and she breaks the Fairytale curse for the whole town. And Parfait fucking dies ლ(ಥ Д ಥ )ლ Waltz makes her go through the town to the palace because the townsfolk planned to welcome her with bouquets of lilies and all of them apologize for being racist dicks.
Her family dress her up as a bombass Ojousama and Waltz is all DAYUM and then the game has to end with an epilogue if you weren’t ready to accept that this was Canon. Bad end: Hildyr makes Lucette give back her powers and it turns her into an empty shell so Waltz stays with them because he believes he can break her curse but he never can. All in all a good route and he was so sweet. ❤
Final Thoughts:
I’mma Bomb Ass Bitch
For a FREE otoge by Dicesuki, I have to say I was pretty much floored. I’ve played a lot of kusoge-and those were commercial otoge. Then we get this. Dicesuki certainly is making a name for themselves and oh boy am I ready for their FD. So, why was this so good?
Heroine:
Lucette is a lovely young woman who makes me so happy. She was raw, flawed, and human. Sure, she acted like she had a stick up her butt in some routes *coughFritzcough* but hot damn. I loved how she gave no shits when her man was like BUT YOU COULD GET HURT she was like SO COULD YOU and she didn’t just rush in blindly (unless Bad End). She really made this game what it was and I was just as invested, if not more, in her as a character as I was with her love interests. Ugh she makes me so happy. Just play the game for her.
System: Easy interface. The Holy Skip-to-Next-Choice has blessed us all! Thank you, Dicesuki. There were a few times where I tried to skip and it crashed, but they’ve addressed this on their FAQ. There was some lag as well when there were moving things on the screen, such as in the bad endings and in Waltz’s route with the lights.
Art: Sprites are great but the bgs were gorgeous. Like I kept wondering if this was all a RickRoll and some ugly ass bgs were gonna replace them later lol but no. The CGs were a little wonky though. The side profile ones were really WUT so the artist needs to work on that but the rest were really good.
Music: The op was a little hard to listen to if I’m being honest. Sorry, didn’t look up the male singer. He was good in some parts but in others I was like HMMMM but hey. The ost was pretty forgettable but it worked so I can’t complain too much.
Characters: In otoge, you’ll be hard-pressed to find decently well-written female characters. This one delivered! We had about 8 if I’m counting correctly. And all of them passed the Bechdel Test holy crap *applause*. I adored Em and normally she’d be the MC (glad she wasn’t) but she was so precious. Parfait was likewise precious and while Delora was vastly more entertaining, I hold a soft spot for our fairy. Annice isn’t as developed and HOLY SHIT Lucette you should’ve done more to make up for what you did to her. That was the one thing that buggged me.
The love interests were really good. Dicesuki has said on their page they dislike yanderes so for me that’s great news! But if you like that stuff, you’ll likely find Fritz’s route really entertaining despite some of the drawbacks it had. Rumpel was cool but I never was attached to the guy. Same with Karma, but I did really enjoy his story. Fritz dear Lord. Boi, I had such high hopes and then his route was basically “I came for Fritz but I stayed for Varg.” Waltz is the canon route and I did like him. He was sweet, caring, adorbs, etc. but man Rod just captured my ❤ with his tsuntsun. Of course, I prefer how bomb ass Lucette was in Waltz’s soooooo yea.
In order from most fav to least (though I didn’t hate any of them yay!)
Rod>Waltz>Karma>Fritz>Rumpel
Overall this was a really good game for FREE. I repeat, IT’S COMPLETELY FREE. You can get it on Steam, Android (though there are still problems with it they addressed on their site) or their website where I HIGHLY encourage everyone who liked their game to consider supporting them. It doesn’t have to be much. I gave them $5 since I’m broke but I wanted to show them I appreciated all their hard work, time, and effort for us. The FD is going to be $10 and I will gladly slap that down for them because this was really good. Was it the best otoge I’ve played this year? No. But it’s pretty damn good if I do say so myself. The writing was beautiful, lush, and I love Lucette.
If you’re looking for something similar, I’d suggest trying out Nameless for a darker fairy tale spin. The Zettai Meikyuu Grimm titles are also well received and feature Grimm fairy tales and voiced, strong heroines. I plan to review one very soon. And of course, the Alice in the Country otoge as well as Code Realize if you want a really awesome, likable cast.
What did you think of Cinderella Phenomenon? Will you be getting the FD?
If you like what you see please follow or share. Thank you!!
The curse reflects the fleeting nature of the freedom she obtains through the magic of the fairy godmother. Furthermore, the curse of the stroke of twelve highlights the importance of time management and self-discipline. Cinderella must exercise caution and control to ensure she does not indulge in her newfound freedom for too long. This amplifies the message of the story that perseverance and responsibility are essential qualities for achieving a better life. Overall, the curse of the stroke of twelve on Cinderella serves as a captivating plot device that adds tension and urgency to the story. It symbolizes the limited nature of Cinderella's escape from her oppressive life and underscores the importance of time management and self-discipline..
Reviews for "Beyond the Ball: The Curse's Impact on Cinderella's Life"
1. Emily - 1 star
I was extremely disappointed with "Curse of the stroke of twelve on Cinderella". The storyline felt rushed and lacked depth. The characters were one-dimensional, and I couldn't connect with any of them. The dialogue was cringe-worthy, and the acting felt amateurish. The special effects were cheesy and didn't add anything to the overall experience. Overall, this movie was a complete letdown and did not live up to my expectations.
2. Jacob - 2 stars
I had high hopes for "Curse of the stroke of twelve on Cinderella", but unfortunately, it fell short. The plot was predictable and didn't bring anything new to the table. The pacing was off, with some scenes dragging on while others felt rushed. The acting was mediocre at best, and I couldn't help but feel like the actors weren't fully invested in their roles. The visual effects were lackluster and didn't add any magic to the story. Overall, while it wasn't the worst movie I've seen, "Curse of the stroke of twelve on Cinderella" failed to leave a lasting impression.
3. Sarah - 2.5 stars
I was excited to watch "Curse of the stroke of twelve on Cinderella", but it left me feeling underwhelmed. The plot had potential, but it was poorly executed. The pacing was inconsistent, and some scenes felt unnecessary or dragged on for too long. The performances were average, and I didn't feel a strong connection with any of the characters. The visual effects were decent but didn't elevate the story in any way. Overall, this movie had its moments, but it ultimately failed to captivate me or leave a lasting impact.