The Little Mistress and her Loyal Servant.
You are the human servant of a vampire overlord, a former peasant who has been converted into a loyal butler and sustained past your natural lifespan through regular doses of vampire blood. As long as your master lives, you can live forever. And he's immortal, so everything is fine.
Until he dies in an accident, and the only other vampire you can find has been mysteriously turned into child-size form and lacks the strength to keep you alive. It's up to you to teach her how to become a master vampire before your time runs out.
Cute Bite is a spinoff from the Cute Knight Raising Sim series by Hanako Games, released in 2021 after a successful Kickstarter campaign
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This game provides examples of:
- Age-Gap Romance: Played with in all the romantic outcomes, since Buttercup originally looks like a child even though she's older than any of her possible love interests. One of them is only a college freshman and therefore distinctly younger than adult-size Buttercup by the end.
- Ambiguous Situation: After the first few encounters with the Vampire Hunter, Buttercup points out some similarities between them to Saule, and asks the Hunter if they're kin upon overpowering her in battle. The Hunter claims that they're not, because Buttercup doesn't speak her language or share her culture. Due to The Fog of Ages of being a vampire (and one locked in a coffin for centuries at that), it's not entirely clear if Buttercup was one of the Hunter's "People" before her vampirism and forgot, or if the similarities between them are just a coincidence.
- Amnesiac Hero: Buttercup has no memory of her past or even that she is a vampire, and has to be filled in on everything and trained by Saule. Saule's memory isn't much better, since her previous master ordered her not to waste time thinking about the past.
- Appropriated Appellation: The origin of Buttercup's name, since Saule gets it from the Old Master calling pre-Buttercup as "my little buttercup".
- Bifauxnen: The Ballroom Dance teacher, Akari, is one to the point where Buttercup questions the former's gender identity.
- Blood Oath: The blood bond that sustains Saule's life also makes her completely subservient to the will of her master.
- Can't Grow Up: Subverted. While it's suggested Buttercup was first turned into a vampire when she was a human child, Voluntary Shapeshifting powers mean that she's normally capable of appearing as adult as she wants to be. She's only trapped in child form during the game because she's been weakened by captivity.
- Company Cross References: Buttercup can see Rosalie playing a Fictional Video Game called Magical Dairy, which is a play on the name of the Magical Diary series also by Hanako Games:Rosalie: This? It's a simulation management game. It's called Magical Dairy. You run a dairy farm and collect different animals and sell their milk to expand the business.
Buttercup: And that's fun?
Rosalie: It's really cute! You get to pet and brush all your animals, and they wave their little legs and bounce. If you neglect one, it gets cranky. Cranky cows are so adorable! But if they're cranky long enough, they lose hearts and stop producing milk, and then you have less to sell and you can't afford food, and then your unicorns get angry and start rampaging... - Death Is a Slap on the Wrist: Most of the time, losing a combat just means that the vampire goes home and needs to spend a week resting.
- Heal It with Blood: Drinking blood allows the vampire to instantly recharge her energy levels.
- Hello, [Insert Name Here]: Both the butler and the vampire can be renamed by the player. Saule and Buttercup are their default names, but even those are hinted to not necessarily be their original names, only what the previous vampire chose to call them.
- Holiday Mode: Between Oct. 28th and Nov. 1 (or at least when playing on a PC set to that time frame), an additional Halloween-themed target can appear when hunting in town, which awards a special achievement for defeating.
- I Hate You, Vampire Dad: Buttercup was locked in her coffin by the previous master for being 'disobedient'. She no longer remembers what happened and Saule can provide different details based on player choice which often results in Buttercup hating her former 'father' and being glad that he's dead.
- Lesbian Vampire: While it's never explicitly discussed, Buttercup apparently only feeds on women.
- Make It Look Like an Accident: Saule's original Master died when a wall in the mansion collapsed, exposing his coffin to sunlight. While it seems to have been a mere accident, an Insightful and Sensitive Buttercup will start to question if Saule deliberately neglected structural repairs in order to free herself from his wrath.
- Multiple Endings: As is normal for the series, Buttercup can end up in many different careers, with some variations based on her other stats or her romantic relationships.
- Murder the Hypotenuse: One potential reason for why Buttercup was locked away. She stole the heart of a woman the old master wanted to himself, and was sealed away to remove the competition. If Buttercup views Saule as a companion and has enough Insight and Sensitivity, it's revealed that Saule was the woman in question.
- Nightmare Fetishist: Vasilisa, the Lore specialist, isn't just interested in studying the occult, she delights in the eldritch and macabre. She loves grotesque art, carries a tome that might be bound in human skin, and is thrilled at the chance to become a vampire.
- Our Fairies Are Different: Upon victory over the Vampire Hunter, she reveals that she was sent to capture Buttercup and return her to the Queen. Following her reveals that the Hunter hails from a Fairy Queendom, and Buttercup is transformed from a vampire into a fairy child.
- The Renfield: Saule, the butler, who runs the estate and carries out any tasks that need to be done during daylight hours.
- Really 700 Years Old: Both Saule and Buttercup are older than they look. Saule appears to be in her twenties or thirties, but will die of natural old age if the blood bond runs out, so she's probably at least 90. Buttercup looks about twelve when the game starts, but was already an adult vampire before the Butler was hired, so she's many years older than that.
- Sliding Scale of Vampire Friendliness: Buttercup clearly sees herself as superior to humans and has no moral qualms about attacking them, biting them, or stealing from them. However, she doesn't generally kill her victims, only drains them to unconsciousness. She doesn't have to feed very often unless she is exerting herself and trying to build up her strength. And she can feed on animal blood instead of human if she chooses. Depending on player choices, she might end up a very friendly Vegetarian Vampire or might decide to terrorize the world.
- Undead Child: Buttercup is trapped in child form until she gains enough power to change her shape. This has some advantages in convincing people that she's harmless.
- Vampire Hunter: Repeated success in the Hunting activity will lead to one appearing in town, who has the highest combat stats of any encounter but can be fled from. Losing to her leads to a bad ending, while victory can lead to a special ending if Buttercup resents Saule and is willing to abandon her to join the Hunter.
- Wife Husbandry: Some paths suggest that the previous vampire had this in mind for Buttercup, and her refusal is why she was locked in a coffin.
- Wounded Gazelle Gambit: One possible technique Buttercup can use while hunting for blood is to pretend to cry, luring in sensitive onlookers so that she can bite them.
