Kissed by the Baddest Bidder, Eisuke Ichinomiya Review

My first Voltage review!! 

Though actually the first Voltage game I played was Pirates in Love, which I will review eventually. I'm just kind of obsessed with Baddest Bidder right now since there was so much hype over it and then I disappeared for a while and though the pandemonium on line has died down, my excitement for this game has not.

So you are a maid at Hotel Tres Spades which is apparently Japan's first casino but also like a small city because it has everything in it including dorms for the staff. That sounds like my personal version of hell. Living basically at the place you work? How do you fake calling out sick if your boss is like your next door neighbor??

Any way....your clumsy ass breaks a very expensive statue while you are working in the basement, and next thing you know you're in a cage being sold at an auction for 20 million to a group of very attractive men. You have to choose one of the 5 men to "belong to" I guess, even though it was a group purchase, so I chose Eisuke first mostly because he was the only choice available at the time. Plus he has lovely highlighted hair and the 90s girl in me is a sucker for highlights.

Oh JTT and your frosted tips, be still my tween heart.

**SPOILERS AHEAD**

In the game you may physically choose Eisuke by clicking on his name, but your character doesn't really get a choice in the story. Eisuke gets tired of you waiting to make a decision so he decides that you are his and fireman carries you up to a bedroom. WAHOO!!

He gives you all sorts of rules, like you can't talk back to him, you can only answer him with yes or okay, and you learn that he doesn't waste any time getting down to business.

DONE AND DONE.

But again, you are taking too much time so Eisuke rips your blouse, looks at your chest, and then he walks out of the room without saying a word which is not at all damaging to your self esteem or anything. 

You are shown around the penthouse where you will be staying while being held captive by a beautiful man with a deep love of purple, but on the upside you still get to go to work!!!

Wait....what?!?! I have to go to work during this route? I don't want to go to work in real life, let alone in a game that I am using to escape my real life and my work that I hate.

Plus these bitches are there....

I could have done without these girls completely.

Erika is a bully, and the 2 other girls whose names I don't care to remember just repeat everything Erika says. I wanted no part of them whatsoever because I was having junior high flashbacks and that is never fun unless it is flashbacks to the Backstreet Boys concert I attended where Howie Dorough touched my hand.

This is a reenactment drawing of the time I touched Howie Dorough's hand while he flew over the audience. Oddly enough my aunt that took me to the concert is named Erica, but she is not an evil biotch like the Erika in this story.

There is also this guy at the hotel, who is your boss...

Oh Takahiro, we will speak more about you later.

He is probably the nicest guy ever and I wish he was my boss because my boss usually greets me with a stack of paperwork and a look of general disgust and annoyance instead of a gentle smile.

You learn that Eisuke runs the auction that you were sold at, and they sell all kinds of illegal things like kidneys and green cards and people apparently. Oh, and Eisuke also owns Tres Spades so he's actually your boss's boss's boss which is nerve wracking and wreaks of sexual harassment lawsuit in the making.

So Eisuke has a plan for you.....

And it is a plan I fully support.

He takes you shopping for new clothes so you look suitable standing next to him, tells you a dress makes you look fat, speaks to you like you're a dog, and is just an all around jerk face twat waffle.

He also takes you back to the auction so you can see what it looks like from outside a cage. And this guy is there....

And my first thought was "HE BETTER HAVE A ROUTE VOLTAGE OR I WILL NEVER FORGIVE YOU!!!"

Like seriously, he needs a route. I need him to have a route. A route for him is VERY MUCH NEEDED.

But as I have learned with Leo from Can't Say No, I don't always get what I want when it comes to attractive secondary characters getting their own route even though it makes tons of sense and would probably make the world a much happier place.

DAMN IT.

Eisuke gives you the gift of a pager, and you have 5 minutes to get to the penthouse anytime it goes off. This route is feeling more and more like my horrible job and I don't like it one bit. Like if I could throw my work phone into the ocean and not get fired for it I totally would, so playing a game where the MC is on call is stressing me out.

So Eisuke likes to strut you around, takes you to lots of fancy parties, and is sweet to you in front of people. Behind closed doors though he is a cold hearted jerk. I really wasn't sure how this route would save itself because I wasn't feeling Eisuke at all, even with this CG in the mix...

I am a sucker for a button down shirt with a vest. That seems like his only redeeming quality at this point.

So he's being a jerk, while your boss Takahiro is being lovely and kind.

And my old jaded heart needs lovely and kind, not some purple clad douchecanoe.

You learn that you are pretending to be Eisuke's girlfriend so Carolina, the daughter of a mob boss that is in love with Eisuke, will leave him alone. Eisuke is trying to complete a business deal with her dad so he can't outright say to her face that he thinks she is a disgusting pig, he just says it in other ways...

While Carolina is trying to choose between two different colored dresses, Eisuke tries to be helpful while still being a dick. Not an easy feat.

 Also can we talk about how when Carolina showed up my first thought was that she sort of looked like me, and that's awful because all they do is make fun of her and she's a crazy stalker crazy person? And also she's apparently fat, even though she's not really at all?

My self esteem hurts.

So Carolina kidnaps you and tries to make you smell bad with skunk scent or something so Eisuke will hate you, which makes as much sense as I guess the whole premise of this game, but Eisuke and Soryu stop her just in time. Carolina then falls in love with Soryu, and alls well that ends well.

Oh except Carolina then sees you on a date with Takahiro and runs to her daddy to tattle on you, which causes Eisuke to make a grand display of affection in front of everyone in the lobby of the hotel.

SEE?? SEE EVERYONE?? WE ARE TOTALLY IN LOVE AND KISS AND EVERYTHING!!

This apparently is good enough for Carolina's dad, the deal or whatever they were working on is intact, and then Eisuke shoves you against a wall and kisses you again inside the elevator.

And suddenly I find myself falling for Eisuke, because all it really takes is a makeout session up against a glass walled elevator in a pricey hotel. It's the little things, you know?

And then he does this, and I'm right back to not liking him so much.

But then the backstory and Soryu swoop in to save the day! Eisuke isn't a bad guy, there is a reason for everything he does....except I don't really think there was a reason that he told you that you looked fat in that dress other then he actually thought you looked fat in that dress....but he is basically a nice guy. 

That other girl he auctioned off? He was saving her from an abusive boyfriend! The auctions he runs that sell stolen things illegally? It's so he can find his long lost family member! Ripping open your blouse and running away disgusted at the sight of your chest? He was trying to see if you had burn scars because then that meant you were his little sister!

WEIRD!!!!!!

You find most of this out one night after getting wasted and staying in the same bed as Eisuke.

And you basically fall for him after spending the whole night staring at his sleeping face like a crazy person.

Nope, not creepy at all.

And just as you start to fall for him, he finds a new girl and banishes you back to your work dorm.

Oh......okay then.

Takahiro is there to pick up the pieces...

The answer to that question, no matter who is asking at what point in my life, will always be yes.

And Takahiro even asks you out! You need time though to think, because why wouldn't you need time to choose between a guy who is loving and caring and a guy who just broke your heart and was never really nice to you anyway?

Then Soryu shows up again to remind you that Eisuke is the main character of this story, so even though the writers on this route went a little off the mark with his plot line and made him not very likable, you still have to choose him eventually. Duh.

Soryu is the best wingman in the history of wingmen.

So now we're back on track, even though I'm still not totally onboard with this route.

So you end up getting kidnapped, again, because you meet a man that says he knows where Eisuke's long lost sister is. Except he doesn't really say that at all, you read into it like an idiot and end up in an abandoned warehouse. Obviously Eisuke and the boys show up to save you, and a whole complicated plot is revealed involving embezzlement and contracts and mobsters and stuff I don't really care about.

You learn Eisuke broke up with you to save your life, which was pointless because you almost got killed anyway, and then you have to make a choice.

So you obviously choose Eisuke because that's how it's written. 

And it's a good thing you chose him, because he sure is romantic.....

Thanks?

Good to know?

His words say one thing, but his face says "I'm going to fucking murder you in your sleep. Keep one eye open, bitch".

And then you guys go up to the penthouse where I finally thought I was going to get something resembling satisfaction from this route.

Yay!!!!

Double yay!!!!

And then you go the bedroom and that's it. No more sexy times. You wake up the next morning and they elude to sexy times, but then all you do is have a little chat followed by Eisuke kissing you while holding your face with his alien fingers....

His fingers are ridiculously long and talon like.

And then....

WOMP WOMP

I dunno guys, I am torn over this route. The story was interesting and Eisuke is certainly pretty, but I never really felt any kind of connection to him and the whole thing was just kind of meh. I got that he was actually a nice guy underneath it all, and he did everything for a good reason, and I guess he cares about the MC, but it just didn't translate that well to me I guess. I think it's a good route to play to get introduced to the characters and the whole back story of the auction but it just wasn't my favorite.

I think probably because I am so tired of Eisuke types in my personal life that playing a game with one of them made it less than fun. I am however pumped to play all the other routes because the rest of the guys seem really awesome. Especially the slacker detective, and I am probably one of the few people in the otome fandom that loves the older dudes. BRING ON ALL THE AARP CARD CARRYING MEN, PLEASE AND THANK YOU!!!

Wendy's Otome Rating Scale

3.5 fangirl screams out of 10

Preferred snacks for Eisuke's route;

Carbs. All the carbs. I can't get over this fictional character's fat comment to another fictional character because I have issues that run so very deep, so show him what's what by eating all the breads.

A Pina Colada, because they make me happy and they also make me love everyone, so any help feeling something towards Eisuke in this route is a good thing.

Hawaiian themed pancakes. The MC eats them with Takahiro at one point and they sounded freaking delicious and I want some right now.