Know by heart
“Know by heart…” is a game about accepting loss. The plot, the music, the intuitive gameplay and atmospheric mini-games work together to weave an illusion of briefly returning to one’s childhood and inevitably growing up, the feeling of time slipping through our fingers.
Players will be immersed into the quiet life of a provincial Russian town, where traces and echoes of the Soviet era can still be seen and heard.
Misha, the protagonist, is stuck in his monotonous, dead-end job, until one day the routine is shattered as his school crush returns to town. For the first time in years Misha regains hope of escaping the ennui of his daily life. A brief but tumultuous episode of the town’s life is interwoven with the story of a gang of childhood friends coming back together. It’s up to them to journey down memory lanes and rekindle their friendship, but their memories of the past and the very bonds between them become threatened…
Features
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~5 hours of sentimental adventure
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The atmosphere of a post-Soviet provincial town at the turn of the century
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An emotional plot with non-linear elements and several endings
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Game mechanics representing thoughts and memories of the protagonist
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A collection of evocative mini-games
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Piano soundtrack composed in modern neoclassical style
Read More: Best Adventure Atmospheric Games.
Sea of Solitude
EA is usually known for two things: microtransactions and more microtransactions. As a result, many gamers overlook their EA Original lineup, which features unique indie titles. One such is Sea of Solitude.
Shallow Sea
It’s always amazing to see developers find creative and unique ways of tackling themes surrounding mental health issues. Some succeed, some fail. Sadly, Sea of Solitude falls in the latter camp.
It fails for a couple of reasons. First, the writing. Instead of providing a more in-depth commentary on a particular issue, it opts for quantity over quality. As a result, it only skims over them and does a rather shallow take that boils down to “this is good” and “this is bad”.
– Real player with 6.4 hrs in game
Read More: Best Adventure Platformer Games.
There are a bunch of short little 5 hour games or under now that you can play on the EA 5 bucks a month deal. This game and Unravel 1 and 2 etc. If you pick up the monthly pass to play these games you will knock them out in a single session or a week at most and will still have 3 weeks left to download and play a bunch of other neat games. Sea of Solitude is a once and done game for me so it is a perfect candidate for the monthly pass. But we are not here to talk about whether the EA pass has value or not we are here to talk about this game. So what can I tell you about it? Unfortunately not a lot. Spoilers.
– Real player with 5.1 hrs in game
The Loneliest Summer
Story
Max and Ziggy combat their summer blues by embarking on an adventure that tests their friendship and leaves nothing the same … Venture out to explore the unknown. Bike, dig, camp and collect to uncover hidden secrets.
Game Features
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Bike to explore the woods and discover hidden areas
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Dig for geodes and buried treasure
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Play music around a campfire
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Complete photography quests with your vintage instant camera
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Unlock super secret journal entries as time passes
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Enjoy a beautiful soundtrack
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Watch the cinematic story unfold
Read More: Best Adventure Female Protagonist Games.
Areia: Pathway to Dawn
This is a beautiful light platformer with a touch of a walking simulator. A relaxing and immersive game with a heavy spiritual overtone to it with Hinduistic and Buddhist influences. It reminded me of Ancient Knowledge and other reviewers have mentioned Journey which is on my wishlist.
This is not a walk in the park as you have to work your way through different environments and challenges on your way to enlightenment. That sounds really heavy, but the game is quite light and enjoyable.
Music is lovely with Indian overtones to it, but it did wear thin after a while. I only got half of the achievements despite going back in to hunt for them. Dunno where they were?!
– Real player with 9.0 hrs in game
So this is a tough one, while technically I give the game a thumbs up - you might find it not worth your time.
Quick score: music 9/10, graphics 8/10, atmosphere 9/10, gameplay 5/10, story n/a
This is supposed to be a “deep” game to make you think, reflect etc. in this for me it failed - it offers a few “contemplation points” where you sit and get 2 lines of text, this text while apparently supposed to be philosophical is rather non-sensical and does not make me find any deeper meaning in it - despite me being rather open to such ideas. What make this even worse is a rather unsatisfying ending(I am not even sure what its supposed to mean if anything).. it does have a “to be continued” so maybe in an expansion or update we will get more.
– Real player with 7.0 hrs in game
Deep Abyss
Deep Abyss is composed of independent chapters, connected as one structure.
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It has a unique Control that seems unfamiliar yet simple to get used to.
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Explore the deep sea and space yourself as a diver. Swim through strange yet beautiful backgrounds and music. It will give you a new gaming experience that you have not felt in other games.
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The story progresses in the form of poetry rather than a linear composition. It is a game resembling a small painting where you can achieve poetic and artistic sensibility.
One Day More
Hanna’s only passion is music, but her parents are completely against such a frivolous hobby. One day, Hanna escapes from her problems into the world of her fantasies, where she can do anything!
Go through obstacles, find Hanna’s friends and perform with them at a music competition, but be careful – the unresolved problems will haunt you even in the brightest parts of your dreams…
Solve the puzzle
Skate on the ceiling and tilt the world
Enjoy colorful locations and collect secret achievements
Do good deeds and find out how Hanna’s story ends
Still There
Still There – An Existential Space Adventure
Still There is a unique game in that it combines various elements successfully without sacrificing the quality of any single thing. The puzzles are varied, interesting, sometimes infuriating and always satisfying yet the simplification option means that the meaningful narrative isn’t barricaded behind a difficulty wall and players aren’t prevented from experiencing the culmination of the storyline’s various threads and miss the ending. This shows respect for player choice but also places equal importance on both of the main aspects of the game, reiterating that it is a narrative-driven, puzzle game and not just one or the other.
– Real player with 21.8 hrs in game
More interesting reviews on Fenol Baron Approves Curator Page
Without exaggeration and long conversations, this game is brilliant. I can’t even make many comparisons to her, the closest thing is the 2009 «Moon» with Sam Rockwell. The ideal atmosphere of cosmic loneliness, feelings of one’s own imperfection in front of the impassive thousands of shining starry eyes, tearing oneself away from mother Earth into infinite space. After a personal terrible tragedy, the Earth became too big for the protagonist, and he locked himself in a cage both inside and out, becoming a caretaker of a cosmic lighthouse, dangling somewhere in the endless waters of a vacuum. Gorky, the endlessly chatting cynical computer, and the silent iguana became his only companions here, somehow somehow postponing the final fall into the depths of madness. Well, the routine of maintenance of the lighthouse, which is so complicated that a brief reference on its contents is available on 14 (!) Pages of the manual (and to solve puzzles you will have to read and understand all of them, you can believe me).
– Real player with 10.4 hrs in game
Summer Pockets
So to begin with, this is not a former review for Summer Pockets but rather my opinions and feelings for the game.
To start off, it’s been a year since I finished playing Summer Pockets (April 30th, 2020) and it was hella an emotional ride. I was reading the story with another friend of mine and we literally stayed up until late 3am for almost 4 days. Like hell, our eyes were so tired and almost shutting down by itself but the story keeps getting more and more interesting that we decided to finish a route before heading to bed, that was a really great experience during quarantine.
– Real player with 751.2 hrs in game
A Really Great Story
(tl;dr at the bottom for a brief summary)
If you played Key games before, you probably know what to expect but for them who haven’t, its a good full length 50+ hours visual novel (even up to 100 or so hours if you don’t skip the additional playthroughs common route and complete the game fully). I wont go into details of what the game is about, it is however filled with amazing loveable characters, plot twists (several) and really well written story arcs. The stories cover many genre from Mystery to Adventure to drama to comedy, it has it all. There are 4 character routes and 2 unlockable routes which are both full length. As with all key games, the stories and very well written and with lots of depth, there are lots of sad moments throughout the game and the true endings will completly warp the way you have seen the story with lots of twists and unexpected events and as par for Key, expect some sad heart-wrenching twists throughout the game, you will get hooked and find it hard to stop for the night. Some of Keys best work right here.
– Real player with 89.5 hrs in game
Aquadine
Overview
Aquadine is a story about friendship, family, finding hope in the hard times, and most of all, the secrets we keep and the manifold chaos they sometimes bring on us if we don’t reveal them to the right people, or if we don’t have said people in our lives. The store page description tells you that at least the main character of the story is hiding a big secret, but beware! He’s far from being the only person in this town with secrets! This VN is mostly billed as a comedy, but it really brings a roller coaster of emotions. You will laugh, you will cry, and you will probably gasp at multiple points. Aquadine is also a kinetic novel of sorts, which honestly is usually a turn-off for me because it usually means that you, the player, have no control over the direction and outcome of the story, and you are placing yourself solely in the hands of the writers and hanging on for the ride. This is probably also the reason why the game has no achievements, and why it has been so unjustly overlooked. But let me say a few things about why I think that was a good move for this game, and why I think that makes it better than the average VN. First, you won’t have to spend a long time with this game re-doing old parts of the story trying new decisions to try to get different endings. You just read through all the routes and you’re done. Second, you just read that right. Even though it’s a kinetic novel, there are still multiple routes! Once you finish the opening common route of the story, you will reach a character select screen that presents you with 4 routes, each of which focuses on the given character and imagines how things might go if Robin were to enter into a closer relationship with that character. Only one of these routes is canon (you’ll see), but they all serve to give you a lot of background info on those characters, and are where most of the world-building happens. And when you finish all 4, a new option will appear on the main menu, which is the final route to the true ending. Third, the ability to focus on telling the story the way they wanted to in each route, while not having to allow for different combinations of decisions, allowed this developer to create a story that was more consistently high quality than any of the indie VNs I have played before. So you won’t have to worry about parts of the story being given less attention or not being paced well. During my time with Aquadine, I went from seeing it’s potential but being skeptical, to seeing it come closer to my expectations, to having every expectation far surpassed in every way, to even being left speechless by the quality of parts of the story. I know you won’t be disappointed either.
! Actually, there is one thing I was disappointed by, and it’s the fact that I have some unanswered questions after the true ending. Maybe they’re leaving the door open for a sequel? I can only hope so.
– Real player with 36.8 hrs in game
After finishing Aquadine I can say with the utmost sincerity: It’s not getting the award for Sound Design.
A long gameplay later I managed to finish the game, I had fun for about half the time while the rest felt either disappointing or not that much engaging. Unfortunately more things in this game drag it down than elevate. Sound side of this is pretty poor, voiced lines get irritating pretty fast (I wish Grandpa would just shut up) while background sound at times is just too loud (Elisabeth bike ride hurt my ears). Music was average but I played without any sound with my own music in the background, thanks to the game’s overall sound design that did not encourage listening to it. In the graphics department the game looks quite beautiful but I do wish it offered more “places to visit” because at times it really undermines the story (with Cameron route for example). I would take the voice budget and put it into more graphics and add more characters (Cameron route could use a few more visible characters). At different times we will see full-screen static images, those are well done.
– Real player with 35.7 hrs in game
Broken Legends
“When the evil rises, and the goodness sinks, it may be impossible to go back. But what you say, but what you do, there is some goodness inside of you."
Have you ever wanted to be the villain in an RPG? Well, Broken Legends is the game for you! Broken Legends is an Adventure RPG where you control a possessed 16-year-old. His name is Malum, and whatever is possessing him is turning him into a villain! Will you stop this force or become it? This choice will yield 2 different endings. Warning: Game Contain FLASHING LIGHTS
GOOD VS EVIL
Most of Broken Legends is about discovering your evil side and fighting it using your good side. There are three witches in the game: Kindness, Wisdom, and Power. Power was the original witch, though. Will you kill them? Or will you threaten them and end up in prison…?
SAVE IT ALL.
Because Broken Legends has two different endings, you can save the world from yourself. However, being nice does not come without consequences! The force possessing you is persistent. You might try to escape punishment… even prison.
DESTROY IT ALL.
If you were to let the force possessing you take full control, the world would be in possible danger. But you don’t care. Create the destruction of the entire world, all because of you.
Features:
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Become a villain.
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Start a massacre.
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Be possessed.
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A compelling and unique story.
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Let all the houses burn to ash.
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An ending to save people from you.
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Sadness.
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Great soundtrack.
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A mixture of styles.
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Where you are the villain.™
