Sunday, December 9, 2018

Shall We Date?: Love Tangle+ - Celina Winter Route Summary & Review


I started Celina's route back when she was released in June (which incidentally was pride month btw cough) but I didn't finish until not that long ago because of hiatus. 😂 I downloaded Love Tangle solely for her route because one glance at her and she stole my heart.

Celina Winter is the cool and gorgeous pianist that plays at a jazz bar when she has free time. Otherwise, she can be found managing the nearby cafe. But there's more to Celina and her cafe than meets the eye...

Below will cover an in-depth summary of her route but not any event stories. The Pop'n Sweet Cafe Stories will be covered in another post. To avoid spoilers, skip to "Final Thoughts" below.

Your first interaction with Celina isn't a direct one. Julia meets up with Cody and Joy at the Swing Jazz Club to hear a popular band called Scadoxus perform. However, the band cancels for unknown reasons and the crowd is naturally unhappy. Celina decides to take it upon herself to perform piano renditions of the band's work instead, and Julia stands up for Celina when patrons begin complaining that they wanted Scadoxus, not some pianist. Julia admires Celina's bravery to address and command the crowd, and Celina admires Julia's bravery for standing up to the crowd when they begin complaining towards Celina. ( ﾟ▽ﾟ) The two are formally introduced the next day when Joy invites Julia over to a cute little cafe... which happens to be the cafe Celina runs! Joy the match maker haha Naturally, the two of you begin to hang out more and more afterwards.

Throughout her route you discover that the cafe Celina runs is known Delta Cafe, a place where underworld informants secretly come to trade information. Many people use the cafe for an exchange of information, Earl and even the police included. The cafe originally belongs to Drew - who Celina views as a grandfather and feels indebted to - but is currently being run by Celina since Drew is in the hospital.

The major crux of the story is that Celina believes she no longer deserves a career in music, despite Drew's insistence. When Celina was still new to the double life Delta Cafe ran, she overheard information about a piano concert judge taking bribes. She filed an anonymous complaint about the judge that ended up going viral, unaware that was information privy to the underworld. As a result, people began doubting the judge and the public began wondering Celina's rival only won because of bribes. The credibility of Delta Cafe plummeted as well, though Drew never blamed her for it and worked hard to fix the cafe's reputation. Leaking info, unintentionally ruining one's career, and blaming herself to be the cause of Drew falling ill are the reasons why Celina believes she doesn't deserve a competitive music career anymore and should instead "atone" by running Delta Cafe in Drew's place.
Good life words
However, Celina is forced to return to the professional world when Earl gets a hold of a rumor that a hacker will sabotage a concert with many prestigious guests in attendance... unless Celina enters and performs. Not wanting to take a chance, Celina decides to participate.

As the days go by, Julia and Celina become closer, leading to Celina being the first to confess her feelings. Julia needs time to think but also gives Celina space after Drew passes away. Julia eventually reciprocates her feelings. It's around this time that Celina decides to be a competitive pianist again, saying she couldn't have done it without the support of Julia www.

In the Supreme End, Joy and Celina surprise Julia with a wedding-themed photoshoot. The rings used are only prop rings, but the whole scenario is a promise to eventually get married and it's just super super sweet. (*´∀`*)

FINAL THOUGHTS

I love Celina so much... (ˊ ³ ˋ) It's been a long time since I've genuinely enjoyed a route this much, especially a mobile one. I dreaded the free ticket system because I wanted to keep playing her route lol. I'm someone who normally doesn't dish out money for mobile games, but I caved and bought some gems on sale to help me get CGs. (Which is a whole rant about the freemium system itself but I enjoyed her route so much I didn't care) Currently I don't have her Happy End and I don't feel like paying for it, so I'll come back to this post and add it when I finish it.

You don't actually start a character's route until chapter 5. Chapters 1-4 are supposed to make you choose between Earl and Celina, but there was so much Celina content I forgot I was supposed to be choosing between the two of them LMAO.

Not much of Julia/MC's job was discussed but that's fine with me. There was so much about Celina to discuss I'm glad she was able to be fleshed out so much.

The relationship between Celina and Julia is super sweet. So many "aww cute" moments, especially from Celina complimenting you. (*´◡`) They first noticed each other when Julia stood up to the crowd's complaining towards Celina about an issue she had no control over, and then were later formally introduced by Joy. From there, they began a friendship that, with many girl nights and compliments later, eventually grew to a mutual confession of love. Due to the Celina's past she felt she had to always be strong for Julia and put up a front, but it was lovely to see that gradually melt away and be genuine with her. Even though MC's sexuality towards girls was naturally explored, I appreciate that it wasn't used as an angst plot point. It was also nice that they acknowledged each other as lovers multiple times, this being one of the first of many examples. Slight spoiler, but it was also really nice that Celina gave Julia time to think about her confession, because that's so so important. I feel like it's been a while since I've seen an otome give the player time to think rather than both immediately saying they love each other or demanding their feelings be accepted.
I've come to expect lots of awkward translations when I play mobile otoges in general, but thankfully that's not a problem with Celina's route. The translation was very smooth, and I can count only a handful of very minor typos.

If there was one thing I had to gripe about Celina's route, it's why doesn't Drew have a sprite?? Considering he's such an important character to Earl and Celina especially, you would think he'd be more than a silhouette lol.
Random sidenote: Is her name pronounced CE-li-na, ce-LI-na, or CHE-li-na? (I'm a fan of the first one personally.)

Also shout out to Joy for being best wing man.

For anyone interested, here's a Twitter moment of my Love Tangle screenshots. Other routes will probably get added to it as well, but the beginning is just Celina. Have I mentioned I really love her??

Celina is a big deal for NTT Solmare because she's Shall We Date's first female route, and overall it's obvious that so much love went into creating her story. There was a smooth progression to their relationship, and you won't find any toxic tropes like psycho lesbian or almost bury your gays here lol. Anyway, if you want to read a great wlw route, I'd definitely recommend Celina's route. *(*´∀｀*)☆

That's all for now! Until next time.

P.S. Soft supportive girlfriends!!

Posted by
Labels: , , , , , , , , , ,

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)