Sword Daughter

Sword Daughter

I guess this is one where I wished steam had a number or star rating rather than a good/bad option. I bought it some time ago, didn’t particularly like it so put it down for a while and picked it up again recently but found more of the same. Overall I’m coming down on the negative side of neutral with regards to it being a game book written in the 80’s. It’s not the worst thing I’ve ever seen but it has some significant problems with the story.

Firstly some of the graphics are nice. They’re in a consistant style that suits the game book. I didn’t find the music that intrusive (although I turned it right down after a while and it got repetative) and the sound effects are ok.

Real player with 6.5 hrs in game


Read More: Best Based On A Novel Fantasy Games.


The first line of this story really should have been: Once Upon a Time. Had it started this way I doubt there would have been so many comments/complaints about character development and short storylines. Truthfully what fairy tale really does have in-depth character development or that much of a plot?

Storyline: Tyrna, a young woman (a maiden) has been trained by her father all her life to be a warrior. On the way to the Warrior Games (a tournament to basically earn the right to be called a warrior) the caravan is attacked by orcs. She is knocked unconscious fighting orcs and because of this is the only remaining survivor of the massacre her father dies in. Gavin, a half-elf/half-human ranger (on patrol) comes upon the carnage and revives her before the orcs return or wild animals find her. Of course it is love at first sight, what fairy tale does not have love at first sight. The adventure and mild romance (mostly of the happily ever type) begins here.

Real player with 5.0 hrs in game

Sword Daughter on Steam

Dear Althea

Dear Althea

About this game

This visual novel, full of decisions and repercussions, is a fun reinterpretation of the novel “Dear Faustina” (1897) by British author Rhoda Broughton. Each chapter is filled with beautiful, high quality artwork that illustrates all the situations and moments you will experience alongside the charismatic characters. The art that you will be able to see has been made with special care in the representation of the British Victorian era as well as taking into account the class difference that is present at all times. The entire video game has 51 chapters that you will only be able to see if you play all the routes and enjoy the nine endings of the video game.

Story

In Dear Althea, you play as Althea Vane; a young upper class British woman whose life is turned upside down after the death of her father which causes her family to fall apart along with her future. She will be forced to choose a new future, a place to call home and a group to belong to. To get there she will have to face all sorts of situations in Victorian London, but love and romance will fortunately abound and make her quest more enjoyable.

Choices matter

You will find that the choices you make will change the story from the very first chapter, even if they change there will be many of them that will affect the story in the long run. In Dear Althea, your choices can affect not only your fate, but also the fate of other people. They can also change your relationship with other characters and open up new routes of dialogue that will change the dynamics of relationships.

Diverse relationships

You don’t have to fall in love with anyone or enter into any kind of romantic or sexual relationship in the game, but depending on your choices you can enter into a relationship with up to four characters that fall within the LGBT spectrum, however you don’t have to choose just one relationship; you can enter into a variety of polyamorous relationships.

In this video game, consent is discussed and encouraged in all aspects of relationships between characters. In romantic relationships there is no obligation to have sex, and refusing to have sex has no negative repercussions.

Characters

There is a great diversity of charismatic characters in “Dear Althea” but there is a clear division between upper class and working class characters. As a protagonist you can decide from the first chapter and throughout the story which group you are more sympathetic to. Defending characters from one class or the other can have repercussions.

Puzzles

If puzzles are not your thing you can skip them without missing any important plot points; however, there has been a lot of effort in the creation of the puzzles to make them all diverse. They have been integrated in the best possible way into the storyline as well as being completely set in the era in which the story takes place.

Typography

The typography has been created to help people with dyslexia to identify letters more easily. It is based on the typeface that appears in the original 1897 book.

Endings

There are a total of nine completely different final chapters, many of which are the result of decisions that took place several chapters earlier.Due to the branching of the story, finishing a single route can cause you to miss even twenty whole chapters that belong to the other routes, so the title invites replayability. Also, as a final surprise, there are some small post-credits scenes that will change depending on the decisions made throughout the story.

Duration and text

Counting all possible decisions, the game has 112408 words and (although it is not finished yet) I estimate that approximately and depending on the decisions chosen, the game can last about 5 hours.


Read More: Best Based On A Novel Drama Games.


Dear Althea on Steam

A Little Lily Princess

A Little Lily Princess

I absolutely loved this romance sim. It was very delightful and interesting.

There are 4 romance routes, and 2 friendship routes. It involves stat raising, but it is not tedious or annoying.

It takes place during the Victorian era in London, England. That is a vague time frame considering Queen Victoria ruled for 63 years. However, since the book this visual novel is based on was published in 1905, I would assume the story took place late in her reign before she died in 1901.

The young protagonist arrives at a boarding school for girls after living in India her whole life; do remember that The British Empire ruled over India for a long time. She is a tad out of place in her school for having grown up in India, and for also being half-French; The English and French are long-time rivals, after all. Although, elitist English aristocrats would have prejudice against anyone who wasn’t completely English anyway.

Real player with 34.9 hrs in game


Read More: Best Based On A Novel Dating Sim Games.


This was a rather unique experience for me. I’ve played visual novels before, and I had a cursory knowledge of the source material going in.

In short, this is a visual novel retelling of the story “A Little Princess.” It takes a few liberties with the source material such as Miss Minchin’s sister being completely absent, and they created one character wholecloth.

Being a visual novel, there’s really not much that you can expect from the game. The interface is clean, the mechanics are explained well enough, though the RNG element can make it frustrating if you’re shooting for a specific ending. Jessie’s route, for example, requires a high number of high count skills, while characters like Mariette and Becky tend to have lower costs. It also completely goes out the window in the second have of the game, where you can completely cheese the system.

Real player with 18.8 hrs in game

A Little Lily Princess on Steam

Game of Thrones

Game of Thrones

A great mature RPG.

  • Very good, tight, quite lengthy and powerful story (with a fair amount of twists and multiple endings)

  • Interesting main and side characters

  • Good (sometimes perhaps a little too strict) to very good voice acting (and plenty at that)

  • Nicely written, believable dialogues (there are light dialogue trees too)

  • Thick character and world lore (accessible to people new to GOT by codex/encyclopedia pages ingame)

  • Nice music (composed by the TV show composer, it seems)

  • For fans: Familiar places (King’s Landing, The Wall, …) and cameos (Joer Mormont and Varys have their looks and voices from the TV show)

Real player with 66.8 hrs in game

Foreword: I didn’t read the books yet, because it mostly wouldn’t be healthy to do so and watch the show the same time. First you’d of course spoiler yourself, second you’d be unsatisfied with script author’s decisions, as usual. But no matter if you’re a fan of the show or of the books, it’s just happening in Westeros with the famous characters near you. Yet, there’s a bitter truth about this game: Not everything that shines is gold.

Real player with 56.6 hrs in game

Game of Thrones on Steam

Orwell’s Animal Farm

Orwell’s Animal Farm

This game explains nothing about its gameplay (after multiple playthroughs I’m still unsure of what the Animalism stat does) and appears to be a buggy mess of RNG. Dead animals can still comment on events occurring (Napoleon and Boxer appear to be the biggest culprits) or show up at the gravesite despite being dead (such as the Cabal of Pigs ending where Snowball and Napoleon have died, but Napoleon is at the grave). You can run into problems where you have plenty of supplies and want to repair the buildings but you can’t until the option presents itself, or similarly where you had the opportunity to harvest with multiple animals to fill the supplies to their maximum but suddenly only one animal can be chosen and you have far less than usual. Sometimes it skips letting you plant for next year which makes supplies much worse and no longer lets you plant on subsequent years, even if you have the supplies to do so.

Real player with 12.9 hrs in game

Introduction

George Orwell’s dystopian and satirist literary work undoubtedly influenced, and still influences, a lot of other creative people, who are inspired by his themes, and use them for their own work. However, having a full videogame adaptation of his work is something else, and now we finally got it with Orwell’s Animal Farm, which adapts the original allegorical novella. This text-based game tries to capture and expand the book’s themes and experience a bit by adding several story choices. There is not much more to this game, as you could say it is similar to a visual novel. Is it a good addition, though? Well, let us dive into the review to find it out!

Real player with 6.6 hrs in game

Orwell's Animal Farm on Steam

The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings Enhanced Edition

The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings Enhanced Edition

This game was made for Team Triss 😍!

And oh yeah, its a great rpg in the Witcher franchise, you wont be disappointed!

Real player with 130.8 hrs in game

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Real player with 98.1 hrs in game

The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings Enhanced Edition on Steam

The Witcher: Enhanced Edition Director’s Cut

The Witcher: Enhanced Edition Director’s Cut

It’s a good game, closing in on great. Story is really good, graphics is decent or even good considering it is pretty old(you can’t pull of Witcher 3-graphics with a EE) and the background graphics, like the sky in Murky Waters, are really good. The combat flows well for being somewhat turn-based, it feels odd at first but past the Prologue you get the hang of it. The way you gain skills when leveling up is interesting but in the end get to many low and mid skills, there is not much chosing to do.

Real player with 471.0 hrs in game

Ok, I like this game.

First, if you play this game, don’t expect a AAA experience; you wont find it here, even by 2008 standards. You also find that good voice acting in this game is scarce, but the voice acting is overall passable. Combat will feel wonky when you start playing, but one you get used to it, it will feel pretty good, to the point where you may actually prefer it over Witcher 2’s combat (I know I do). Unlike the Witcher 2, this game doesn’t feel watered down because consoles; this was a PC only game and this was all CD PROJEKT could muster at the time. The first chapter will feel pretty mediocre (although you wont be there long) until the end of it and the swamps in the second chapter will make you want to stop playing (and you will be there a while and you’ll be there several times), but other than that, the game’s areas are pretty good. In particular, I liked Chapter 4’s areas the most. Game graphics are both good and bad; environments and some character models are well done, while others just straight up look cursed. This game can go for less than £1 on sale, so there is no way that I would say that this game isn’t worth it; because it is worth it. It also sets Witcher 2 up well and potentially nets you some slightly better equipment for starting that game, which is useful if you play the Witcher franchise on the hardest difficulties (Hard, Dark, Death March!). Oh, and make sure you stock up on Swallow in this game; it’s kind of essential.

Real player with 168.7 hrs in game

The Witcher: Enhanced Edition Director's Cut on Steam

Glisten to your heart: The courage within you

Glisten to your heart: The courage within you

Glisten to your heart is a gentle, relaxing game with some great advice. It has a great sense of humor (especially if you like breaking the fourth wall!) Altogether, it took me 4.5 hours to complete. This game is worth far more than its current price tag. Hoping to see more from this dev!

Real player with 4.6 hrs in game

courage is my waifu

Real player with 3.1 hrs in game

Glisten to your heart: The courage within you on Steam