OZMAFIA!! Caramia Review

Basically, you the player, default name Fuka, (I keep wanting to type her name as Fuuka thanks to Persona 3 so if I do please forgive me) are in a new world without your memories. And errr.. it’s dangerous and people want you dead? Because the title is OZMAFIA — Oz Mafia. So mafias and fairy tales?! I feel like this bending of genres is something that Japan does well.

So it starts off telling us about the tale of the Wizard of Oz and how Dorothy and the gang went on a journey of self discovery and the like — you know the story by now. And if you don’t, why not give the classic film a try? Or read the book? TBH the thought of someone growing up not knowing the wizard of oz makes my heart ache with sorrow

The next thing we see is a dark alleyway with a silver-haired man with golden cat-iris eyes.

Oh good, maybe he can help —

…..

……………

In this part, it switches between first and third person. This is really, really, annoying to me! I can’t stand POV shifts in anything. It’s jarring and immediately ruins the immersion of the work. Thankfully, outside the introduction, it doesn’t seem to go back into first person and stays in third. Thank Heavens. I think I would have stopped reviewing if that was the case.

In other random things, I hope you know your mafia terms and titles because it’s going to throw them around without half of an explanation.

Signorina/Signorino: Italian for Miss/Mister. Not related to the mafia, but several characters will call you Signorina.

Don: The head of the family.

Consigliere: This is rather complicated. Think of a consigliere as an advisor to the King. In this game, it seems to treat the Consigliere as the second in command, almost as a Capo Bastone.

Capo Bastone: The person directly under the don. How much power a capo bastone wields is up to the don. This rank doesn’t seem to exist in the game.

Capo Regime: A “regime” leader who commands sgarriste or soldato. Shortened to “capo” in the game.

Sgarriste/Soldato: The foot soldiers of the family. They’re the ones being commanded to do the dirty work.

 

Something else that is annoying is how things are built up and taken away. For instance, in the beginning we have several scenes introducing and preparing for a beauty pageant. Then the pageant happens off-screen and we get a few lines about its resolution. This isn’t the only time it’s done. The festival’s duel, the meteor shower party, the bath… it goes on and on. Something is mentioned, it cuts off halfway, we get a quick spoken resolution. Sometimes during a pivotal scene it ends without any sort of real ending. Like, someone will ask a question and the scene ends, then we go to another and it starts with “Oh, that question asked caused x to happen.”

Absolutely maddening! It got to the point I wasn’t feeling excited for anything happening in the story. What’s the point if I know I’m not going to get to experience it?

Caesar, the man from the beginning, started off the story as a legitimate threat and carried a certain amount of weight to his appearances. Then it all goes down the drain during one of the festivals, where he goes from threatening to silly. It’s one of my least favorite heel turns I’ve ever read. So much good juju wasted.

Okay, so this is like, spoilers for one of the endings. Control-f “Final Thoughts” to skip spoilers and go straight to the ratings.

So Fuka is waiting for Caramia to come home, but he’s taking awhile, so she decides to go to the town. She sees him and runs up to him, but she startles him so HE SHOOTS HER.

HE SHOOTS HER IN THE STOMACH.

Up to this point we were in a honeymoon period. It’s a bit out of left field, to say the least.

And to make matters worse, I’m laughing at the ridiculousness of it. Because she was sick before, the medicine she took for her cold would counteract the anesthetic so Dr. Robin Hood can only perform the surgery without anesthetic. He’s going to REMOVE a BULLET from her ABDOMEN WITHOUT ANESTHETIC.

This is dumb. This is so dumb. I can’t even with this storyline right now can we skip ahead to whatever lovey-dovey stuff is in the ending because my sides hurt from laughing.

In short, this is a game where the main character is innocent to the point of blinding stupidity.

What’s that? Caesar wants to kill you and almost succeeded twice? Going to him to “talk it out” is going to end with him killing you. Stop. S T O P why are you going GGGAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH god dammit Fuka.

I don’t know if games having heroines whose sole personality trait is “nice” makes them easier to self-insert or not. Because for me, I end up becoming the older sister going mad from her younger sister making mistake after mistake. I spend most of the time going ‘Damn it, Fuka!”

But on the flip side, Caramia is just as naive, in his own way. But it ends up with a really bland romance. Axel and Kyrie had more “swoon” moments than Caramia did.

So anyway, after shooting Fuka, Caramia has a nervous breakdown. Kyrie tells Caramia used to be a lion, so cowardly he was terrified of his own shadow. But they went on a journey and he gained courage. But now he’s back to being the cowardly lion he was.  When she sees him again, he has another breakdown. One of the choices that appears is “Please get stronger”. Oh my. It’s too much. I’m wiling to throw out disbelief, as I did for much of this route, but this melodrama just takes the cake. So the “Please get stronger” is not as sarcastic as it seems, it’s simply meant as encouragement to go back to being her strong and courageous don.

So how does he get his groove back? By protecting her from a villain that is not Caesar, but another that only appears at the very end of this route. So, well, yeah. That was a bit of a let down. But don’t worry, we get to see Caesar again before the end.

In the second ending, things play out the same, but instead of Caramia getting his groove back, he stays a scared being and becomes entirely dependent on Fuka. That’s… umm… Even though it is his “true self” as a cowardly lion, it’s not his personality as shown the entire story. So it seems as though he’s still broken, and there’s no catharsis. It’s a little creepy, to be honest. I’m sure as time goes on he’ll get his courage back eventually, but the fact it just sort of ends with him scared of a dog and proclaiming that as long as she’s there to hold him, he’ll be able to get through the day… ugh. Even the cowardly lion in the original Wizard of Oz wasn’t that bad.

Edit:

Now that I’ve played through Kyrie and some of Axel, I went through and did the “transfer” endings.

Transfer endings are basically when you start off playing one guy and end up with another.

With Kyrie’s transfer endings, I wasn’t fond of how they came about, but enjoyed the endings themselves. It’s the same with Caramia. I’m not personally fond of being the subject of a netori situation (though I suppose it’s netorare in the pov of the jilted lover) and considering how much I liked Kyrie’s character, hurting Kyrie to be with Caramia hurt too.

And it was all so odd to read. For Caramia, who was always Mr. Sweetheart, to suddenly steal his friend’s girlfriend away is a strange departure from his character. Even though Kyrie and him get into their fair share of verbal spats, I feel like deep down they’re good friends and those arguments are rooted in love.

It goes against the bro code to do something like that, you know? Not to mention how can you even face the other party afterwards? It’s one thing if the transfer happens before you start dating. But to do it while you’re dating? So you’re essentially cheating on them?

Sorry, I just don’t do romance like that. It’s not my cup of tea, I don’t like it, I don’t want to read it.

//That said//

Once the endings get rolling and the awkwardness of the situation fades away, they’re action-packed and full of exciting scenes. One thing I found rather humorous was a scene where Caramia is tied up because he could go berserk since Hamelin is back in town. One of the choices for Fuka is “…how fun.” In the brothel route, she shows a strong inclination towards being a Dom, so it was funny to see it referenced here. Though I suppose if you play Caramia first, it would be that the brothel route is the natural extension of this.

Anyway, though the two transferred endings are certainly steamier than the true love endings, I still prefer the true love endings by far.

The other routes to take are love triangle. So there’s Caramia and Axel and Caramia and Kyrie fighting over Fuka. In the Caramia/Axel triangle, there’s another scene where he compares his feelings for Fuka to a father and daughter.

What in the —

• that is just freaking creepy
• how is it possible to look at him as a love interest when he said he thought of you as a daughter
• don’t give me that “he doesn’t know” nonsense as many books as homeboy reads he’s bound to have read a romance or two
• does he think fathers and daughters want to kiss each other or hold hands in a romantic way
• why did they include this dialogue
• oh god it’s even worse in this scene than the first time I saw it

I liked Kyrie/Caramia love triangle more than the Caramia/Axel one because the Axel route hinges on a contrived situation to make drama. But Caramia shows a mature and serious side we rarely see from him, so that was a good thing.

Final Thoughts

I feel like for this route, it should be called “Good juju wasted.”

Caramia is upstaged by the side cast constantly. In the beginning, it’s Axel. In the end, it’s Kyrie. He’s almost the equivalent of Fuka. When proclaiming why they love each other, the first thing is always “Nice”. “He’s nice.” “She’s nice.”

There are plenty of moments that we are given a chance to see how much Caramia cares for her. This leads me back to the single worst decision the writer made — cutting all the moments short. Things are built up and squandered. Intense scenes end halfway without a resolution or reaching a climax. It ends up feeling like we didn’t end up knowing Caramia well, despite having more than enough opportunity to know him. When all your conflict is solved off screen, it leads to a dull story with half developed husks of characters.

It’s sad, because Caramia has all the traits to be a great hero. Boundless courage. Unlimited kindness. The flippant way he would approach dangerous conflicts, knowing that he would come on top. His vulnerable moments where he struggled to voice his feelings. All of those are a recipe for a great story. And it’s all squandered.

What I did like were the side characters — amazing. And I liked how her amnesia wasn’t a big deal. There wasn’t a big emphasis placed on her past or discovering who she really was. This makes me hope that the subject will be approached organically in one of the other routes.

He’s better in some routes than others, but I feel like he’s best in his True Love endings, because the Caramia there is probably truest to the character he’s established as, and not as the character the plot made him to be. I know that sounds weird to read, but when he acts differently in the story scenes exclusive to his side rather than how he acts in the story scenes that are part of the overall general game, I feel as though he’s written out of character.

 

Favorite Moments:

The fact that this had a TON and I mean TON of good moments and ultimately fell short is heartbreaking. The side characters in this are A++. Witty, quirky, interesting. They are the shining beacon of hope for a better future.

L O L Gretel is such a errr bitch! It’s hilarious!

 

I do like it when characters are in glasses, I admit. That’s my fetish

We don’t get many blushing sprites and the first one we see is kinda a huge spoiler so I didn’t screencap it…

 

She got an upgrade! She was called “Signorina” the entire game, but now she gets umm… I guess it would be like “Sweetie”? I feel like it’s one of those things that sounds cuter/sweeter in Italian than a straight English translation.

 

I feel like Fuka looks weird in all the CGs.

 

KYRIE IS A NATIONAL TREASURE AND HIS SNARK IS THE BEST THING IN THIS GAME SO FAR

 

Poor baby ;_; too bad this tender scene is ruined by the fade to black (I now despise fade to black and will never ever ever do it in anything I write)

 

I did love this particular sprite though. It’s masterful in terms of movement, showing his flippant attitude, and in general looking badass.

 

OH MY GOD THEY ACTUALLY COMMUNICATED PROBLEMS and it’s ruined by fade to black

 

This was from far more innocent times. Before I knew what lay ahead… before I knew what potential would be squandered.

 

 

 

 

Special thanks to Annette for her walkthroughs, which allow me to upload these reviews in a timely manner.

OZMAFIA!! is available at MangaGamer directly or through Steam.

Other OZMAFIA!! Reviews:

Caramia
Kyrie
Axel
Pashet
Scarlet
Hamelin
Manboy, Dorian Gray, Alfani
Robin Hood
Caesar
Soh
Final Game Review