Prince Maker 2: Braveness

Author:  Alpha Games
Availability: Free, Download 
Format: Raising Sims (with RPG elements)
Genre: Fantasy
Rating: Teen
My Scores: (Writing: 4, Art: 3, Gameplay: 3)

Found at: http://princemakerproject.wordpress.com/

Summary:

Prince Maker Braveness is part two of a fan-made series based on Princess Maker, although it doesn't require playing part one in order to understand what's happening.  It's originally Chinese, but an English Translation is available (and is, in fact, what I'm basing this review on).  In this game, you are tasked with raising a young boy to become the next Emperor of the Three Kingdoms.  Will he succeed, or will he wind up pursuing other dreams instead?  Will he find love?  It's all up to you!

Review:

The Writing:

This is definitely one of the more story-intense raising sims, and even after several play-throughs and a bit of research, I still haven't uncovered everything. There are several distinct characters that your boy can meet as you progress through the game, and uncovering the secrets of his past unfolds a twisted and convoluted tale of love and politics.  Mind you, the English is imperfect, which can make reading the dialogue a bit of a chore in some places.

The Art:

The art in this game seems to divide evenly between "OMG That's so cute/hot/pretty!" and "Gah! Anatomy does not work that way!"  The main sprites for your boy are well done, at least, which is good, because you'll be spending a lot of time looking at him.  The music is nice, too.

The Gameplay:

There is a lot packed into this game.  There are several different locations you can visit, whether you're just shopping or explicitly sending your boy out for an adventure or a stroll, and a number of jobs and classes to unlock as you play.  There are also at least 6 different people the boy can meet and end up with, aside from you and your maid.  Be forewarned, though: this game is hard.  Some of the endings require triggering events that won't even happen unless you've set things up just right. If you don't have a guide, there will be a *lot* of guesswork over what to do, where to go, and what to say.

This is one of those games that ends up consuming all of your time, because by the time you've finished a several-hours-long playing session, you've come across details that you missed the first time around, or learned something that would have totally altered your strategy had you known, and so you have to go back and start over.  The high difficulty combined with the elusive plot-threads and the numerous endings you can get certainly makes for a lot of replay value.

TLDR:

Prince Maker 2: Braveness is both fun and frustrating.  It has it's flaws, but it also has a well-layered plot and some good fan-service...I mean art.  Art!  *Ahem*.  Anyway, as an English translation of a Chinese fan-game based on a Japanese series, it's easily the most cosmopolitan game on this blog so far, and certainly worth checking out.

Of course, this is all just my own opinion.  Feel free to state your own in the comments. :)

Pytho’s Mask

Author: Emily Short
Availability: Free / Download
Format: Text Game (Interactive Fiction)
Genre: Fantasy, Mystery
Rating: Everyone
My Scores: (Writing: 4, Gameplay: 3) out of 5

Found at http://ifdb.tads.org/ or http://www.wurb.com/if/index

Summary:

In Pytho’s Mask, you are Soteria, an agent of the secret Order of the Phoenix.  A mysterious masked man has invited you to the royal celebration of a comet that appears once every hundred years.  Your orders are to use this opportunity to investigate a possible threat to the king, which may have something to do with the comet...

Review:

Pytho’s Mask is a text game.  Although the more popular term for this genre is apparently “Interactive Fiction", I personally prefer to stick with “Text Games”:  arguably, most of these games are interactive works of fiction.  The main difference is that while most of these games have graphics and clickable items and whatnot, text/IF games deal primarily with, well, text.  The narrator gives you a description of where you are and what’s going on, and you type what you want to do in response.  True, some may have illustrations; but it’s like the difference between a book with pictures and a comic book.  Anyway, since Pytho’s Mask is all text with no pictures whatsoever, the Art score is absent for this review.

I like the writing in this game.  The plot is interesting, the mystery is well-clued without being too obvious, and the strange setting is beautifully detailed.  While some details can seem confusing at first, one quickly and easily gets a feel for this fantastic alternate-Earth.  Better still, the story and setting seem to “bleed off the page”, as it were;  hints of old stories and personal dramas creep in, giving the feeling that there’s more in the distance.  The characters are nicely distinct with strong personalities, requiring only a couple of sentences to establish just what sort of people they are.  And yet, there is more to each of them than meets the eye, for this game is all about hidden facets and dualities.  Also, I like that the main character is a bit like a Renaissance noble-woman version of Batman: Soteria doesn’t just idly solve mysteries as a way to pass the time between harpsichord lessons; she is a highly-trained agent whose job it is to kick butt.

The gameplay, on the other hand, I consider to be middling: not very good, not very bad.  One of the problems text games face is that they are highly vulnerable to “What Am I Supposed To Do Here?!” and its cousin, “What Am I Supposed To Type?!”.  Pytho’s Mask does a fairly good job of prodding you in the direction of the plot.  Admittedly, there are moments where you feel the game putting you on rails, but this is balanced out with times where you get to wander and explore at your leisure.  As for typing, there are blessedly few commands that you will actually need, although first figuring out how to phrase some things was a bit of a hiccup for me.

>Read Guide To Spotting Conspirators
What do you want to read that in?
> ???

Bear in mind, this is usually the fault of the tools used to make the game more than the author him/herself.  I currently recommend TADs, as it has a decent system for handling and creating actions, and it doesn’t ask me what I want to read things in.

One bug that’s more likely to be on the author’s shoulders, though, is the tendency to try to pick up a given book in the library only to later find yourself holding a completely different one.

On the shelves, you notice The King In Yellow.
>Read King In Yellow
(First taking The King In Yellow) It details how to roll out the dough, and what ingredients to use for sauce.
>Inventory
You are carrying a copy of How To Make Pizza.
>??!

Fortunately, things like that do not make up the majority of the game.  If anything, you spend most of the game talking to other characters.  The conversation system is introduced very early on, and it’s actually an NPC who initiates your first conversation.

Conversations are mostly handled in dialogue trees.  You first address a character by typing “Talk To (Character)", and then you’re given a choice of things to actually say.  You choose by simply selecting A, B, C, etc.  This helps make conversations easier to navigate, as it solves the “What Am I Supposed To Type?!” problem.  I discovered by accident, though, that you can also introduce different topics by typing “T (ThingYouWannaTalkAbout)”.  It took me a while to figure out what T was supposed to stand for (Talk About?  Tell About?); then I stumbled across a help section that said T was short for Topic.  “Topic Prince”?  Weird.

On that note, some of these characters have unusual names.  While that’s par for the course in fantasy, it brings up the problem of actually being able to remember said names.

>Ask Minister About Venetia
Who?
>Vedalia
Who?
>Viviwhoseewhatsis 
Who?
>The Hussy Hanging All Over The Prince
Who?
>!!!

As it happens, though, the aforementioned Help section -- which I found so late in the game, that it’s embarrassing -- disclosed that, at any time, I could have typed “P” and been given a handy list of all the characters I’d met so far.  Why, oh why, did it not occur to me to type “HELP” sooner?  It could’ve saved me so much headache.

The last minor complaint I’ll bring up is that it’s a bit tricky to keep track of where the exits are.  Some text games have a built-in compass that tells you which directions you can go at any given time:

You are in a dungeon.  Exits are North, South, and Dennis.  
 Exits: North, South, Dennis
>Go North
You come to a room with an inadequately written description. 
 Exits: South, West

The version of Pytho’s Mask which I played (on Frotz) has no such function that I could detect.  Exits were only mentioned as the room was being described (“to the west is a door, and you see a...”), and room descriptions only appeared automatically when you first visit a room.  This means that if you go back to a room you’ve already been to before, you’ll have to explicitly type “Look” (or just “L”) to see where you can go from there.  (Or, of course, you can try going in a direction that doesn’t exist there, and thus be told “You can’t go that way.  You can only go North, South, or Dennis.”)  It’s a minor-to-moderate inconvenience, but it doesn’t make the game unplayable.

There are multiple endings to be had in this game, and at least two different men you can end up with.  Several of the endings fork from the same point.  Basically, toward the end of the game, you have to switch one item with another, and what you switch it with will determine the outcome (And let’s just say you really want to have a grip on who’s who at this point).  Of course, merely figuring out whodunnit isn’t enough to ensure everybody goes home safe and happy...

TLDR:
Pytho’s Mask is a fantastic intrigue flavored with romance and a little action.  It has its share of hiccups, but nothing so debilitating that you can’t finish the game.  “HELP” is your friend, and will save you from much woe.  On the whole, it’s worth checking out.

The Fortune Teller holds up a card.  On one side is an image of a reader agreeing with everything that the girl with the blog has just said.  On the obverse is an image of a reader shaking their head, tossing the blogger out of a convenient window, and going off to start their own blog, a better one, that will have blackjack and hookers.

Love and Order

Author: ? (Seriously, why is it so hard to find credits for these things? If this were my game, I'd want my name all over it!)

Availability: Demo/$19.99 Full Version, Download

Format: Management Sim / Dating Sim

Genre: Mystery / Workplace Romance

Rating: Teen

My Scores: (Writing: 4, Art: 4.9, Gameplay: 4) out of 5



Found at http://www.otomegames.com or http://www.winterwolves.com/

Summary:

In Love and Order, you are Dana Larose, a young woman who just started work as a secretary for the understaffed Crown Attorney's office in a small district in Montreal. In addition to your demanding job and cute coworkers, there's a very mysterious case file that draws your attention.

Review:

Writing:

Right away, I found things to love in this game. It's set in Canada, which is a nice and original change from the usual settings (see other reviews for more ranting on the subject), and enough flavor is given that this actually seems like "Canada" and not "Japan with a name-change". So hooray for that! Also, I liked the little rip-off of the "Law & Order" intro. It was silly, but I liked it.

The game proper made me feel like I was actually in an attorney's office. Granted, I know very little about law and how law offices actually work, so take that assessment with a grain of salt. Still, it was more than enough for my Suspension of Disbelief to work with. What's more, I found it hilarious and, in a way, realistic how the cases your office was handling weren't glamorous cases like "The People vs. Bob 'The Decapitator' McKiller" or "The People vs. Bob McWronglyAccusedForMurderButNobodyBelievesHimNotEvenHisMother". Instead, your office handles cases like "Man accused of harassing chickens." Ladies and gentlemen, the legal system at work.

Art:

The art here is very good and well drawn, though maybe the border lines around two of the boys' hair could use a little cleaning up. The "Change location" screen contains a map that's justified in-game, which I thought was a very nice touch. Also, you can change outfits, which is somewhere between nice and pointless.

Gameplay:

Having only played the demo, I'm reluctant to give an official score on the gameplay, but what I've seen so far impresses me. You can request assignments, and sometimes opportunities for new assignments will be given to you. Doing more tasks means getting more money, but it also means more stress which can mean screwing up and failing the task altogether. It's very well balanced, I think.

The one thing that concerns me is the replay value. From what I can tell, the mystery seems pretty straight forward and linear, which means once that's solved, it probably won't need to be solved again. As for the love angle, there are four suitors, and their paths also seem pretty linear. I don't know how many endings are possible, but from here, the possibilities look fairly small. This wouldn't be a problem if the game were freeware, but since it's a commercial game, this is a very serious point to consider: Is a game you only play 4-6 times worth spending $20 on? For some people, the answer might be "Sure, why not?", but for people more like myself, a game has to be something more than just a fleeting experience in order to make me part with my hard-earned money. With Love and Order, I don't know if it can do that for me.

TLDR:

Love and Order is interesting and very well put together. It's one of the better games I've played, and I can completely understand and agree with the authors deciding to make money off of it. It's a high-quality game. What I don't know is if the apparently limited replay value is worth the price they're asking. Of course, it might just be that I'm cheap.

As usual, this is all my own opinion; you might think this game is worth a thousand dollars, or you might feel it needs to be burned and its creators fed to wolverines. Feel free to post your thoughts in the comments section, free of charge. ;)

2nd Teen Story: Xmas

Author: Nyu
Availability: Free, Download
Format: Visual Novel
Genre: Romance (with some Horror/Mystery)
Rating: Teen
My Scores: (Writing: 2.5, Art: 3, Gameplay: 3)

Found at --Apparently, this game has been taken down from its original locations.  If anyone has any information, please share.

Summary:

In Xmas, you are Nguyet Ly. It's the night of December 24th, and you currently have no plans for Christmas. What will you do? And will you find love while doing it?

Review:

Writing:

In my last Nyu Review, I lamented the general lack of information surrounding our protagonist. In Xmas, though, that problem is finally solved; our girl has a name, and she definitely lives in Vietnam. For a game of this type, that is the perfect amount of flavor.

The English is still imperfect and peppered with anime smilies, but it's readable. Also, the story contains actual dialog this time, so hooray! There were still parts where the dialog was cut in favor of a summary, but as these mostly boiled down to recounting what would surely be a long story, it's more excusable.

As for the story itself, it had its share of strengths and weaknesses; but for what it's worth, I actually found myself caring about the characters, and as that is the primary goal of any author, kudos must be awarded. There were parts that caused me to laugh out loud; for example, the fact that Nyuget basically prevents a guy from killing himself by beating him up. That has got to be the most unorthodox suicide prevention method I've ever heard of.

The santa-murderer plot was an interesting change of mood, and possibly genre, taking us from a light-hearted romance into a dark murder mystery with possible supernatural overtones. It almost seemed like it shouldn't be part of this game; the tone is just that contrasting, although it keeps the motif of meeting and hanging out with a cute boy. I actually think it should be extrapolated into a game of its own; it's creepy, interesting, and I would love to see more of it.

Art:

The art is much better than in the first game. I like the style; it has a few elements vaguely reminiscent of manga, but it's longer and thinner, with a bit of sketchiness about it. I really like it. I'm also crazy about the art in the menu and option screens; Nyu seems to have pulled out all of the stops.

The photo-backgrounds are also less annoying. They help establish the setting further, giving us the sense that, yes, we are in Vietnam. They're also interspersed with black-and-white drawings. Personally, I think the lack of color in the drawings makes for a more intense contrast with the full-color photographs and keeps in step with the rough, informal feel of the rest of the game's artwork, but your opinion may differ.

There were a couple points where the anime-esque expressions creeped me out, though. The eyes and mouth would suddenly get too big, too white, and stare out from a body that simply did not match the superimposed face. It was...disturbing.

Gameplay:

The gameplay is simple; there are only two choices in each menu, and choosing incorrectly may loop you back around to someone else's path as a sort of second chance. It doesn't drag like the last game did, though I admit that the change in mechanics compared to the last game did initially feel like a step backward to me. It seems to work, though.

TLDR:

I like this game. While it has room for further improvement, it's a definite step up from Lolipop Love. The mechanics are simpler than the first game, but this allows more story to exist in what would otherwise have been empty space. Overall, it's short and compact, but still satisfying. The Santa murder path was an incongruous yet fascinating change of pace, and I hope the author does something more with it.

Once again, of course, this is all one girl's opinion. Your experience may well differ, so feel free to share in the comments section.

1st Teen Story: Lollipop Love

Author: Nyu

Availability: Free, Download

Format: Dating Sim (Stat-Based)

Genre: School Romance

Rating: Teen

My Scores: (Writing: 2, Art: 2.5, Gameplay: 2)

Found at http://www.creanyu.tk/ or Lemma Soft Forums

Summary:

In 1st Teen Story: Lollipop Love, you are a teenage Vietnamese girl attending school. You've never had a boyfriend before, but now, that's about to change. You have three guys to choose from.

Review:

Writing:

First of all, let me say that my interest perked up when I learned that the protagonist is Vietnamese. This is something you don't see everyday in dating sims; the usual nationalities for characters in this genre tend to be Japanese, American, Unspecified-but-similar-to-either-Japanese-or-American, and Fantasy-Land-ian. Having our protagonist be Vietnamese, then, is a welcome break.

...Or at least, it would be. Much to my disappointment, we get no cultural flavor outside of a few names; and even there, the protagonist herself appears to have no name at all. If the narrator didn't specify that she was Vietnamese, we could just as easily have filed this under one of the "Standard Dating Sim Nationalities" mentioned above (well, except for possibly the fourth one). Now, I'm not saying the game has to take us on a field trip to Hanoi, but a little bit more identity would be nice. For one thing, I don't know if this game is actually set in Vietnam, or if the character is ethnically Vietnamese but living in another country. Either scenario would have its own impact on the character. It brings me back to my complaint about Winter Dance Sim Date: If you have an unusual setup or character hook, don't just blurt it and ignore it; take it and run with it.

As for more legitimate complaints, the English here is horrible, hard to read, and often vaguely reminiscent of internet chatspeak. While that can be excused by the author being young and/or not a native English speaker, the one thing not remotely excusable is the complete lack of actual, quoted dialog. Instead of seeing what characters have to say, we are instead given the information second-hand, kind of like this:

"He said that he liked my top so I thanked him and he said I was welcome." (Not an Excerpt)

That's basically how the dialog is conveyed. Not only do I find it annoying, but it also short-changes the reader. What exactly did that person say? This can reveal so much about their character! To keep with this hypothetical example, there are many ways our "he" could have expressed his liking of the top:

1. "Um...hey, uh...*blush*...that's a....that's a nice, um, shirt you're wearing."

2. "Hey. Cool top."

3. "Fair maiden, the colors of the cloth that girds thy bosom brings out the wondrous hue of thy eyes and strikes my heart with rapture at thy beauty!"

See? One sentiment, three different personalities. This is why exact quotes are important in character-driven works such as dating sims. And if the lines in the game are exact quotes, then why are there no quotation marks? Is it really so much to ask?

Art:

Once again, I found myself with a non-uniform opinion of the art. I like that it has a paint and colored-pencil look to it; there's a sweet, bright, and informal quality to much of the artwork, and I love the cute little icons that appear when you try to quit from the game. However, the characters' proportions are very off, and they tend to look downright odd to me. Granted, drawing people is hard (oh, how it's hard), and there seems to be some stylization going on here but...well, I'm sorry, I just think it looks off. After much waffling, I ended up giving it a slightly lower score on the basis that the backgrounds are obviously photos run through a Photoshop filter. Yes, I'm aware that game creators often use this technique, but my complaint is that I can tell.

Gameplay:

If you make a dating sim or visual novel, please don't ever make the first sentence "What should I say?". When I first started playing, I thought the game had glitched and I was about to be confronted with dialog options for a conversation I knew nothing about! Fortunately, that was not the case, though it did make for a startling/irritating first impression.

My next major impression here was "Holy Cow, it's the Renpy DSE Engine!" I don't know how many of you are familiar with renpy; it's the game-making program most associated with LemmaSoft Forums (which many of these reviews link to, you may notice). Since its main purpose is actually for making visual novels, a framework was specially constructed for making dating sims: Renpy DSE. I didn't know what to make of this discovery. While the game's underlying structure was baldly obvious (to me, anyway), even introducing a character in a way that echoed the DSE's sample game, there ought to be no shame in using a tool (I've been working with this one myself, in fact), and there clearly was some tweaking done. Still, it was an odd feeling, like that moment when Santa Clause enters the room and you immediately notice he's wearing your dad's belt buckle.

Aside from that, I found the game to be rather slow and drawn out, and engaging in social/intellectual type activities causes the conflicting stat to drop by a ludicrous amount. Going out one time after school causes my IQ to drop several points? Why? Is the park near a noxious chemical plant or something?

TLDR:

The game looks cute, but I found it to be dull and a bit frustrating, both in the gameplay and the writing. It's okay for a first try at game-making, but I wouldn't exactly recommend it to all of my friends. Of course, all this is just my opinion, and you may think that I'm completely off my rocker.

Feel free to discuss your thoughts in the comments.

&lt3

Author: Mole-Chan

Availability: Free, Download

Format: Visual Novel

Genre: Sci-fi / Workplace Romance

Rating: Teen

My Scores: (Writing: 2.5, Art: 3.5, Gameplay: 2.5)

Found at http://lemmasoft.renai.us/forums/

Summary:

In <3 , you are a computer named Ime. Your owner has abandoned you, and so you find yourself working at a facility that traps computer viruses. The latest threat going around is the <3 virus, which causes AIs to fall in love!

Review:

Writing:

For some reason, I was expecting a completely different story when I downloaded this. Ah, well. Suffice to say, the <3 virus is basically just a McGuffin that gives you an excuse to get close to people.

I had a hard time getting into the story, personally. The characters and situations felt a bit under-developed; not flat, mind you, but like we weren't given all the necessary data about them, which made it harder to care. There were too many loose ends and unanswered questions. Why was Ime abandoned? What's going on with Vaquita's owner? Who broke in and why? WHY SMASH THE MONITORS?

I'm also not clear on the exact nature of these computer people. The concept seems to be similar to Chobits, where a "personal computer" is basically an android, with laptops and hand-helds corresponding to tinier androids. The computers in <3 , however, seem to be much more human than machine, and I don't just mean in the romantic "Robots can feel!" sense. These "computers" go out for dinner and eat fast food. They get tired, sleep in beds, and have issues with privacy and "funny business", just like humans. Why? Why do they behave like organic life-forms, instead of charging up, running as long as they have access to electricity, and just powering down in a corner when they run out of juice? This is not answered. For the record, robot-girl Ping from MegaTokyo eats food, but this is explained in the strip: It's a necessary function for a Dating Game accessory to have (since dating usually involves eating), and she is able to internally process sugar into electricity. <3 doesn't address the issue at all, unless I missed something crucial; so I'm left with the impression that Ime is just an ordinary girl with amnesia and a CD slot.

Art:

The art is anime/manga style. It has some strong points, but the score ends up being pulled down by one stupid detail: female anatomy. The women in this game look like they have oranges glued under their necks, near their armpits. It's jarring. You may scoff, but I find it very distracting, and thus it sinks the art score like a rock.

Gameplay:

While quite a few games have a gay/lesbian option, this is the first one I identify as being both GxB and GxG. There are four people you can end the game with, and it's an even split between the boys and the girls. Granted, one girl's ending is platonic, but this is balanced out by one guy's path being so short that it almost feels like a non-standard Game Over.

That guy's path really annoyed me. It was so short, that I barely learned anything about him at all. His ending has Ime comment about him "finally wanting something for himself", but at that point, he hadn't really done anything to establish his character, let alone mark him as being selfless. It was only on other characters' paths that I got to see a glimpse of what the author was talking about. This goes back to what I was saying about the writing; the story doesn't give us all the information we need about the characters.

Also, the game didn't really feel very cohesive to me. There were little inconsistencies, like the fact that one character dies when you don't revisit them, even though visiting them just shows them being saved by someone else. Oh, and this supposedly non-dangerous computer virus will kill you if you don't choose a character's path. All in all, it just didn't line up quite right.

TLDR:

To make a long post short, I was disappointed with <3 . It left too much unexplained; I had a hard time getting into the story and characters, and the boobs on the women seriously need to drop down a few inches (middle of the rib-cage should be about right). Also, while the game's name is fairly clever, its similarity to an incomplete HTML tag caused me to lose half of my saved draft of this post, and that makes me angry. (Edit: Much thanks to my friend Anna for telling me how to get the < / > symbols up.)

Of course, that's just me. You might decide that you like, love it, and/or want some more of it; or maybe you hate this game and think that I wasn't harsh enough on it. Feel free to point this out in the comments!

Secret Santa

Author: Eternal Dreams

Availability: Free, Download

Format: Visual Novel

Genre: School Romance (If that's not a genre, it should be.)

Rating: Everyone

My Scores: (Writing: 2.5, Art: 2.5, Gameplay: 2.5)

Found at http://lemmasoft.renai.us/forums/ OR http://eternaldreamswonderland.blogspot.com/

Summary:

In Secret Santa, you are [Insert Name Here]. Your school has a Secret Santa program, and you've been assigned to get a gift for a boy you have a crush on. Perhaps this is the perfect opportunity to win his heart?

Review:

Once again, we have a proclaimed First Attempt at game-making, and once again, I try not to let that color my ratings, although it is a nice first try.

Writing:

Proof-read, authors, proof-read! Is that so much to ask? The English here isn't as bad as in some of the games I've reviewed; I get the impression that the author is a native English speaker, albeit fairly young (I could be wrong on both counts, though). While it's comprehensible, there are still enough spelling/grammar problems to make my inner grammar nazi cringe.

The story itself is simple and cute, and captures the feelings of young kids experiencing puppy love in a way that feels mostly honest, and only a little bit wish-fulfilly in terms of Haruta's* character. I like the fact that winning him over doesn't result in him instantly falling head over heels for you with hearts and flowers and ponies; instead, he just agrees to give you a chance. Just a chance. It's a small step that grows into something more, in a way that's plausible and beautiful.

*At this point, I must ask, since it's crossed my mind many times: Why do all of these games give the characters Japanese names, regardless of where they're set? I've been chalking it up to the fact that the visual novel/dating sim formats originated in Japan, but it still doesn't make much sense. If any authors/game makers are reading this, I challenge you: Make a game with no Japanese names in it. Maybe have some ordinary Georges, Bills, or Harrys (Harries?), or heck, use names from another country like France or Mexico. For extra hilarity, have the game be set in Japan.

Art:

Well, the art isn't exactly Disney quality, but I don't mind it too much. Yes, it's wonky and out of proportion in ways that reaffirm my "Young author" conclusion, but it's also bright and cute. The over-all effect reminds me of Bomee's My Cup of Tea. Also, the music is nice.

Gameplay:

I'm not quite sure what to make of the gameplay. It's certainly not perfect, but I can't exactly peg what's wrong. Perhaps the best way to describe it is that while a good multi-ending game encourages replaying, this game pretty much requires it. On the first, cold play-through, the options (with few exceptions) seem to amount to "Door #1, Door #2, or Door #3?" You have no idea what's behind any of these doors; why any choice would be better than another. Of course, once you've seen the consequences of your actions and gotten a feel for the characters, the correct options suddenly become a lot more obvious.

TLDR:

Like I said, this was a good first try. Over all, it strikes me as a fairly middling game; it has its flaws, but it's still cute and worth playing.

That's my opinion. What do you think?

Castle Chase

Author: Makio-Kuta and Racheal

Availability: Free, Download

Format: Dating Sim / RPG

Genre: Fantasy/Humor

Rating: PG

My Scores: (Writing:4, Art: 4, Gameplay: 6 5) out of 5

Found at http://www.castlechase.com

Summary:

In Castle Chase, you are Princess Monica. Your future, as it has been planned for you, involves marrying some prince from another kingdom and becoming a queen. That doesn't strike you as appealing, so you duck out from your studies for the day with the intent of going on a date! The problem is, who with?

Review:

My reaction upon seeing the game's home page: Yikes, who let the dogs out? Ugh, the English on this page is worse than a five-year-old's. And what the heck? "Two hour contest"? Is that how long they spent making this thing? Aw man, this is going to suck....

My reaction upon actually playing the game: OH MY GOD THIS IS THE BEST GAME I'VE EVER PLAYED IN MY LIFE!!!

--The following review is brought to you by Esther D. Bum, with many apologies to Doug Walker.--

There's this princess, and she looks like a bizarre anime character, which would suck if this was a romance game, but it isn't really a romance game! It's a comedy!! And she meets this guy who looks a lot like a girl, which is amazing since all the girls look like guys anyway! But she only looks bizarre when she's talking, because the rest of the time, she's a cute 8-bit rpg character like from the 80s or 90s! I was an 8-bit rpg character once, but then I got eaten by a turtle! And the music is all midievally and stuff!! It's amazing!!!

So the princess wants to go on a date even though dating doesn't exist yet, and everyone is like "NO! STAY IN SCHOOL!" But she says "Screw you I'm the Princess! I'll do what I want!" And she walks around the castle looking for someone who wants to date her, because she doesn't know princesses are hot stuff, and every time she talks to somebody, plot happens! And sometimes the plots are sweet and sometimes they're hilarious, and sometimes they're sweet AND hilarious, like chocolate-covered clowns!!!

So she's walking and walking and then she walks some more, because the castle is really, really big, and it's just like Legend of Zelda except that she doesn't fight anything! Or smash any pots! So it's not like Zelda at all! And she finds these objects everywhere and she gives them to people to make more plot happen, but some of the objects are red herrings, and one of them actually IS a red herring! So she walks around and sometimes people follow her, and different things can happen based on what she did and who she talked to, and then she gets an ending and the game is like "Okay, You're Done!" HOORAY!

This is Esther D. Bum saying CHANGE? You got change?? Aw, c'mon, help a girl out!!!

----

Seriously, this game was a lot of fun once I figured out the keyboard commands. (X is inventory and S is use, by the way; or at least it is on my copy.) Also, this is the last time I shall attempt to rip off Doug Walker's "Bum Reviews".

Frozen Essence

Author: VenusEclipse

Availability: Free, Download

Format: Visual Novel

Genre: Fantasy

Rating: Teen

My Scores: (Art:3.5, Writing:3.5, Gameplay: 2) out of 5

Found at http://unbrokenhours.com/

A big Thank You to Anviel for suggesting this. :) Ray mentioned it too, though I didn't see that comment until after this post was written. Thanks anyway, Dude!

Summary:

In Frozen Essence, you play a girl named Mina/InsertNameHere. You've spent the last 1,000 years sealed away, and during that time, you've completely forgotten who you are. Now somebody's broken you out, other people are chasing you, and you have no idea why any of this is happening.

Review:

The Writing:

I've been very ambivalent about what kind of score to give the writing, so take the number up there with a grain of salt. First of all, let me just say that I'm a sucker for original worlds. The drawback of such settings, however, is that they tend to require a ton of exposition, which the reader/player may not enjoy.

The story itself, while interesting, is hard to follow on the first run-through. You spend much of the game not knowing who anyone is, what's going on or why, and your character is in the same boat. So, points are given for immersion, I guess, but then taken away for the hinderance to comprehensibility. What makes it worse is the English. I'm guessing that the author is not a native English speaker, based on the strength of the substance but the weakness of the form. Like Requiem of the Abyss, imagine taking a good book; only this time, instead of running it through Babelfish, chop it up to make a nice salad. It makes an already mysterious story even harder to keep up with. After my first play-through, I was ready to give it a 2.

That said, the game becomes immensely more enjoyable on replay. The background is solid (minus a minor inconsistency about whether the East is the Earth region or the Air region), and there's a kind of thrill from catching a subtle reference that you missed or didn't understand the first time around. The more endings you get, the more you understand the world you're in, and the more satisfaction you get from the story.

Be forewarned, though, this story is long! It puts the "novel" in Visual Novel. One thing that annoyed me slightly about the game was the way the endings would seem to be drawing to a close...and then the story would continue. This cycle would repeat a few times until I was practically shouting "SOMEONE KILL HIM, ALREADY!"

The Art:

Bonus points to the creator for composing music instead of just yanking something off the "free music" shelf. Not only is it a nice touch of effort, but it's one that paid off. It captures the story perfectly. When someone walked in while I was playing this and asked what tone of story it was, (Drama? Comedy?), I replied, "Just...listen to the music. It's exactly what the music sounds like."

The backgrounds and special pictures were very lovely. However, the effect was ruined as soon as I saw Rune. The characters, while not bad, are sometimes a little wonky. I almost feel bad saying that, though, since it's clear that a lot of effort was put in. The art is anime/manga style, as seems to be usual for Visual Novels, and it's worth mentioning how deceptively difficult that style actually is; though stylized, it still requires a firm basis in real human anatomy, and is far less forgiving than most western cartooning styles.

There are quite a number of poses and backgrounds, though occasionally, it's obvious that a backdrop has been recycled. All in all, I think the most egregious flaw in the art (and I use the broader definition of "art" in this review) is the "Thwap" sound effect. It often sounds like people are randomly hitting Mina, themselves, and each other. What's really hilarious is the way Oryon keeps slapping himself during battle, due to an unfortunate combination of the "thwap" and a hand-clutching-chest pose.

The Gameplay:

The game is easily divided into two parts. Part one has you choosing your suitor, and part two has you playing out that character's ending. Part two has a bit more of a Kinetic Novel feel than part one -- lots of reading, with very little interaction. However, the level of interaction in either part leaves something to be desired.

Much of the initial interaction basically boils down to dialogue trees, and you explore each branch in order to get the exposition I mentioned in the Writing section. For the other interactions, it tends to be immediately obvious when you've chosen a "wrong" answer (e.g., you make Rune leave in a huff), which causes me to simply reload and choose a different track instead of exploring to see how the story unfolds with that choice in effect. (On the other hand, this may be better than simply making a character "unwinnable" without telling you, so take that as you will.)

There's also a sense of "railroad tracks" in the game, which rather annoyed me. It's one thing to have a series of events that must always happen, but it's another thing to "override" the player's choices. I outright hated when my choosing "Tell The Truth" resulted in something to the effect of "Oops, Telling the Truth sucks. I'll lie instead!" If you were going to have her lie anyway, then why even ask me?!

TLDR Version:

To sum it all up, Frozen Essence has a number of strengths and weaknesses. It benefits immensly from Multiple play-throughs, and the Death ending is easily the most fun and cathartic after you've gotten the other endings and seen the crap these people put Mina through. It could definitely be much improved with a good proofreading by a native English speaker, though. All in all, I think this piece shows some excellent potential, and I look forward to any future works from this author. Also, the Water path definitely did not make me cry. Not even a little bit. ...I need a tissue.

Fatal Hearts

Author: ?

Availability: Demo/$9.95 Full Version, Download

Format: Visual Novel

Genre: Thriller

Rating: Teen

My Scores: 2 out of 5 ( Writing: 2, Art: 4, Gameplay: 1)

Found at http://www.hanakogames.com

Summary:

In Fatal Hearts, you play a teenage girl named Christina. Her friend's parents are acting weird, girls are getting murdered, and she keeps dreaming about a strange guy. Can you solve the puzzles, find love and not die?

Review:

I have to admit that I didn't get very far in this game. In what little I have seen, the writing seems to run the gamut from okay, to cheesy, to "What the heck was the author thinking?!". The first line that gave me pause was a comment by the narrator that her mother doesn't let her wear makeup, which is "probably why I still don't have a boyfriend." ...Honey, that is not how love is supposed to work. But okay, we're in the first-person perspective of a teenager here; I suppose I can accept that she's a little bit stupid about these sorts of things. But then, we come to another scene that just breaks my suspension of disbelief in terms of sheer stupidity...

Picture this:

Last night, your friend ditched you and went off with some complete strangers. This morning, you get a call saying that someone was found dead at the place you last saw her. You are now worried that your friend may have been killed. At this point, your mother comes right up to you and, not knowing about the call, asks you if you would like a ride to some place. How do you repond?

A: Tell her that you don't want to go right now because you're worried about your friend's safety.

B: Say "Mom! Thank goodness you're here!" then tell her about your friend and ask her for help.

C: Say NOTHING AT ALL to the adult standing right in front of you, and handle it yourself, even though a violent, federal crime is involved.

If you guessed anything except C, you are smarter than our protagonist. I mean seriously, what the crap?! I could buy leaving Mom out of the loop if she was gone and you didn't want to call and bother her, but when she's Standing Right There and asking you something? That is the epitome of stupid. It might be more palatable if there were at least an option for telling her, so that then we could just blame the player. But no, talking to the adult doesn't even cross our makeup-obsessed teen's mind.

So enough about the writing, then: On to the art! The art is decent and anime/manga style. I have nothing more to say about the art. Moving on, then:

I hate the game play. Words cannot express my utter loathing for it! Any attempts would probably include the words "vomit" and "bowels" and "ripping it to shreds and then setting it on fire." Readers of my earlier posts might have picked up on my slight dislike of minigames. Well, in Fatal Hearts, every chapter has one, and they are necessary to advance through the game. These "puzzles" range from "annoying" to "impossible and annoying". The first one is reminiscent of the Gemini minigame from Wonderland Sim Date: move annoying crap out of your way. That's it; there's no mental challenge at work, just lots of click-and-drag. At the other end of the spectrum is the puzzle that frustrated me so much that I finally just quit the game altogether:

You have stumbled across a dead body, and need to run away before the police see you. (Yeah, this part just cemented for me that the protagonist is an idiot since, given that she'd just arrived and hadn't touched anything, even a cursory crime-scene investigation would clear her almost immediately.) But anyway, you have to guide Christina through a maze of bushes, keeping the bushes between you and the cop at all times. If the cop sees you, she will move toward you, and she can move twice as fast as you can. This puzzle is probably doable and there's probably a walkthrough online detailing a long and complicated series of back-looping paths, but I don't care enough to look. What really grates my cheese about it though, is that after I lose this puzzle, I don't get taken to a Bad End or a story that branches from me being caught; I get "Oh, you've lost. Here, let's just reset that puzzle for you:" and my agony begins anew. What's more, there is no "Skip Puzzle" button, just me losing and losing until I finally chuck the computer out of a second-story window.

In summary, this is the worst commercial game I have ever played. The art is the only real redeeming quality, but considering that they're charging money for this thing, the art had better be decent. I consider this the commercial equivalent of Dating Sim Academy, with the notation that at least DSA was free and I could finish it! (note: The author of DSA has done better games, some of which I've discussed on this blog, so I feel justified in continually tearing it.)

Now, as usual, there is room for disagreement. Maybe you have more taste for puzzles than I do, and maybe your suspension of disbelief is stronger, or you can justify the protagonist's actions. I can't. I hate this game. But, feel free to try it out and share your thoughts in the comments.

Re: Alistair

Author: ?

Availability: Free, Download

Format: Dating Sim

Genre: School Romance / Mystery

Rating: Teen

My Score: 3 out of 5

Found at: http://lemmasoft.renai.us/forums/ OR www.sakevisual.com

Summary:

Re: Alistair is a stat-based dating sim. You play Merui, a gamer girl obsessed with a MMORPG called Rivenwell Online. Another player has stolen your kill and claimed your prize, and you've since discovered that this player is one of three people who goes to your school. The problem is, which one?

Review:

I definitely want to give the writing bonus points right off the bat for having Merui be a gamer. After all, the very reason this blog was started was because of the misconception that girls don't game, so this is a welcome aversion of that old tripe. More generally, though, I think the characters are decent; the story is solid, and I like the way the emails and the gaming sessions are handled.

The art is likewise very good. Once again, it's based on anime/manga stylings, so a heads up to those of you who aren't fans of the genre. Presonally, I like it, and I enjoy the style change between the real world and the game.

The gameplay itself is something I'm a bit more ambivalent about. First of all, let me applaud the fact that the mystery of Alistair's identity has only one correct answer. You can end up with any of the three boys, but who you end up with does not in anyway influence who Alistair turns out to be. As for ending up with the boys, though, therein lies the problem...

This is the first truly stat-based dating sim I've ever played; while Festival Days had some Stats, they mostly influenced how much money you could earn, and other things that more or less became irrelevant once you cracked the system. In Re: Alistair, though, your stats determine who you end up with...I think.

The fact is, I'm not quite sure how it works. At first, it seemed pretty obvious to me: You have stats for Social, Network, and Intelligence, and your suitors are a Popular Jock, a Computer Guy, and a Smart Classmate. I initially assumed a direct correlation, then, between each stat and each guy, but single-mindedly pursuing one stat/guy resulted in *nothing*. If there's a combination that needs to be reached, I'm not sure what it is. According to the forums, success apparently lies in buying many, many objects, but there's no real clues for which objects to purchase (Except for one item suggested by each guy, but that's apparently not enough). At some point, I actually *did* get a good ending for one of the characters, but frankly, I'm not sure how I got it!

That's what really bothers me: I don't know how I got that good ending. I'm completely baffled. Personally, I think that if the player doesn't know what they did right, then something is wrong.

To sum it all up, Re: Alistair is pretty, well-written, and I have no clue what it wants from the player. WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM ME, ALISTAIR? WHAT DO YOU WANT???!!!!

*Ahem* Sorry. Perhaps you'll have better luck with it, though. Feel free to try it out and share your experiences in the comics.

Spirited Heart

Author: ?

Availability: Demo/$19.99 Full Version, Download

Format: Raising Sims

Genre: Fantasy

Rating: Teen

My Score: 2.5 out of 5

Found at: http://lemmasoft.renai.us/forums/ OR http://www.winterwolves.com/

Summary:

Spirited Heart is a raising sim, much in the style of Princess Maker. You play a girl in a fantastical setting, on your own for the first time. Work jobs, take classes, and see what you end up becoming.

Review:

First of all, let me just express my appreciation for the art; it’s clean, it’s professional-looking, and I quite like it. The layout’s nice, too. All in all, I give the art a 4. It is anime-based, as many of these games seem to be.

The writing is decent, and I like how the creator justifies the stat changes in-story. I particularly like how you can tweak some of your character’s stats by reliving “past events”, ala Choice of the Dragon. As an aside, why is it that fantasy settings have silly-sounding place names? I can’t really fault the game’s creator here, but it’s something about the genre that struck me while I was playing.

So, we have nice art and good writing, and then it all gets shot by the gameplay.

I HAte the gameplay here, with a capital ‘H’, and an ‘A’ for good measure. On the one hand, it’s cool that you can pick one of three races, choose her general background, and then further tweak her history if you like. That part is great. But as for the game proper, everything is much too random.

Want to work a job? Roll a die to find out if you did well enough to raise stats and/or get paid. Want to find romance? You have six potential suitors: Just keep hacking away at certain jobs and hope their associated Random Events eventually show up. Repeat until your health is low and your spirits are crushed, then waste your time and money resting so that you can start all over.

Granted, it’s fairly realistic to meet someone randomly. However, once you’ve become aware of that person, it should be easier to intentionally track them down to initiate interaction; especially when you know what places they frequent! In other words, if Elf Boy really does sing at that bar every single day, then I should be able to just click something like “Go Talk to Elf Boy” or “Invite Elf Boy over for beer”, instead of just mashing the “Work last job” button over and over until the game’s D20 (or whatever it is) finally lands on Elf Boy’s magic number. The problem with having every aspect of a relationship left up to chance is that it is, though statistically rare, entirely possible to roll an entire string of 1s, which means that no matter what you do, the relationship won’t progress at all. That. Sucks.

All in all, this game had some good ideas; and the addictive nature of multi-ending games means that, if the full version were free, I’d probably have played through it a few times despite the frustration. In my opinion, though, it’s not worth paying for. I don’t even know* what the price of the full version is; but as it stands, I wouldn’t give a dollar for it.

Of course, all this is just my opinion. Others may find the game more enjoyable than I did. Feel free to try it out and discuss your experiences in the comments.

*ETA: After writing this post, I looked up the price for the info section at the top.

Fantasia: Requiem of the Abyss

Author: ?

Availability: Free, Download

Format: Visual Novel

Genre: Fantasy

Rating: Teen

My Score: 4 out of 5

Found at http://lemmasoft.renai.us/forums/

Summary:

Fantasia: Requiem of the Abyss seems to be the middle part of a trilogy (as I found out belatedly). You play Valen, the daughter of a demon lord and a human woman. The evil Thanos has struck the land with famine, causing nations to go to war, and must be stopped using a blue orb. Your new friends will help you.

Review:

Despite being the middle chapter of a series, I had no problem diving right into the story. In fact, I didn't even *realize* I'd started with the wrong chapter until I was well committed to it. The story itself is quite involving, complex and neatly woven together. The characters are individualized and engrossing, and I find myself feeling for them. The only fly in this ointment, and it's a pretty hefty one, is the English.

Imagine taking your favorite book, running it through several languages on Babelfish, and then Translating it back to English. That's how bad some of these chapters get. With a little thought, you can understand what the author is saying, but the effect is like picnicking in a beautiful meadow when all the mosquitoes are out. The setting is lovely, and you've brought some good things to the table, but...oh man... *swat* *swat* *swat*.

I'm a bit more ambivalent about the art. When I first saw it, there was something about it that I didn't like; something I still can't put my finger on. It's fairly consistent with itself, so I honestly don't know if its just a style that I don't care for, or if the artist is actually doing something wrong somewhere. To be fair, though, once I got deeper into the game, I started deciding that certain characters were cute and/or hawtsome, so make of that what you will. Also, there's a good range of poses and expressions for each character, and the scenery is quite lovely.

Now for the game-play: ONE thing prevents the gameplay from getting a perfect 5, and that is the fact that, in the version I downloaded at least, the solitaire minigame is broken. That's it. Everything else about the gameplay is perfect.

The story changes and branches according to the choices you make, but the branches are kept neatly tied into the main story, and there are certain landmarks you will always hit no matter whose path you're on. It's not too linear, but not a sprawling mess of infinite branches either. (I made one of the latter, once. It wasn't pretty.) Yes, there is a section with minigames, but there is no rule that you have to play them in order to progress. I was impressed to find that the results of the arm-wrestling match were in fact randomized, as I discovered when I tried to cheat by save-scumming. Er....I mean...ah well.

What impressed me most, though, was that unlike some works I've played, the past did not change according to your choices! I hate when that happens in games: You're Prince Charming's long-lost sister in Ending A, but Ending B has you getting married and, I assume, miraculously being NOT related to each other. (Cute Knight is the mentioned offender here, but there are others.) Past events should not simply change, and in F: RotA, they don't. The characters' histories are solid. If you pursue character X, it doesn't change the fact that character Z still loved you all along, which gives the endings even more emotional impact. The only things that change based on your choices are your future and current circumstances, which is as it should be.

In short, I loved this game. I got hooked playing it. It has two big flaws, as noted above, but the characters are great and the story is compelling. I don't know if the prequel comes close in quality, and I don't know what the sequel must be like, but this is an excellent game.