Reflections ~Dreams and Reality~
If I were to describe Reflections ~Dreams and Reality~ in three words, it would be short, cute, and light-hearted.
Art and Sound
The sprites, backgrounds, and CGs were nice. About half of the CGs were chibis. The amount of chibi CGs each character has varies, but they generally range from one to four. Everyone except Solmaris and Peony was limited to one regular CG per ending. The music was pleasant but could get a little repetitive. The partial voice acting was a nice touch. It helped when trying to imagine what the characters sounded like.
– Real player with 22.6 hrs in game
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Love this game, only played through twice at time of this review, and as always first time around was a “bad” end. But honestly it wasnt horrible and i wasnt left feeling surprised it turned out that way or even worse, confused as to why. Was easily able to figure out where i had gone wrong and nail it the 2nd go around.
The characters are all interesting, the art style is simple and clean but still lovely for all that. There’s little in the way of voice acting, and i found what little there was of it annoying at times. But the music was calming and enjoyable so i didnt turn the volume off. The romances are of the innocent first love types, without anything that would trigger an adult or mature only rating. This is sweet fluff, think Cinderella. While there are alot of unhappy dark things mentioned, its all in the past once the game gets truelly started.
– Real player with 17.0 hrs in game
Game of Love
Overview
In this story we follow the life of Alice, an unremarkable student other than for her position as a valuable member of the school volleyball team. For the last couple of years, Alice has had a crush on her long-time friend Mark, and she suspects he feels the same, but he never makes the move to ask her out; leaving her unsure of his feelings and intentions.
Most of the girls in the school are infatuated with Raphael, the handsome and mysteriously alluring idol and member of the boys' volleyball team; including Alice’s best friend Emily. As the story progresses, Alice is approached and asked out by Raphael, marking her as a target for jealous looks, back-biting and even threats of violence against her.
– Real player with 7.6 hrs in game
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Game of Love
Developer: Golden Castle Studio
Publisher: Golden Castle Studio
Pros:
1. The store page says its realistic and well, it pretty much is. It has happened in reality and has potential to happen again. To summarize the plot, Alice is the protagonist and is a normal girl aside from being a part of the volleyball team. The popular guy Raphael starts to talking to Alice and things eventually go on a series of events from walking Alice home to a more affectionate actions such as kissing. When this starts happening, Alice receives a barrage of threats that get worse over time and she’ll have to start getting to the bottom of things if she wants to make it stop.
– Real player with 5.0 hrs in game
Rose of Winter
This is a perfect little hot chocolate mug of a game. It’s a sweet, short, comforting set of love stories that now lives permanently on my hard drive to replay whenever I need a pick me up.
Rosemary is a goshdarn delight, good at her job but frequently awkward and always adorable.
The boys are fun and varied, and the road to romancing each of them is VERY well written and designed. In most other otome games, the choices tend to be either obvious or frustratingly arbitrary. In Rose of Winter, the choices hit that sweet spot in between: logical but not blatant. I got it wrong sometimes, but when trying again and really thinking over the guy’s values and worldview, in hindsight it would make perfect sense.
– Real player with 12.8 hrs in game
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This is an adorable romance visual novel. It’s fluffy and light, but still enjoyable.
The art style is damn cute and the protagonist is thick. Like, not thin. THICK. Thick thighs. Thick torso. A nice, round face. For all the inclusion I yearn for, body size variety is particularly scarce in video games. Not just for the protagonists, but for romantic interests as well. Bonus points: there are dark-skinned characters.
The romantic interests are an elf (who’s quite small), a dragon (who has a humanoid form), a beastkin (mostly human-looking), and a human. Unfortunately, they’re all men. Each romantic interest has a good ending and bad ending. It’s quite easy to figure out both. The romance development does happen rather quickly, but I must forgive it, as I know indie devs don’t always have the luxury of making their stories as long as they’d like with limited funds/resources. However, the protagonist and romantic interest characters are developed enough to enjoy the story and experience romantic feelings. Romantic scenes are cute, and while there is insinuation of sexual happenings, there aren’t any adult CGs or even much description. I’m glad to say that, for the most part, there aren’t any problematic behaviors from the characters, and for the times there are, the behavior is corrected by the end of that character’s route.
– Real player with 10.8 hrs in game
That Which Binds Us
That Which Binds Us is a nice visual novel. Nothing exciting, not the game I’d like to replay again but cute enough to deserve a positive review, I guess.
I can’t say I liked art very much. The backgrounds are blurry but it can be seen in a lot of VNs. Sprites may seem a bit weird at first glance, but you get used to it quickly. I really enjoyed that new feature for me–you can try out different backgrounds, outfits and other things for your sprite in the gallery, it’d be awesome if it were possible to hide those options to make screenshots the way I want.
– Real player with 13.9 hrs in game
A cute romance VN with just the right amounts of plot, mystery, and magic. There’s a lot of content to go through with it, even just with the normal playthrough and NG+, so it’s worth its price. The art style is nice to look at and the music, although limited to just a few tracks, sets the mood perfectly no matter the scene. 7.5/10, Definitely recommended.
– Real player with 10.5 hrs in game
C14 Dating
This game is fun, friendly, and sweet in the right amounts. I bought C14 Dating when it came out, then got busy with other things. It’s been a delight to get to play it now for the first time (January 2021). I enjoyed the game and would recommend it to anybody who is in the mood for a slice of life, mostly non-angsty story with a bit of thinking thrown in. While the story itself doesn’t focus heavily on the diversity angle, it’s nice to see representation of both disabilities and less typical potential love interests. I fell completely for the (very) tsundere, overly-diligent Kyler, but I ended up being fond of everyone.
– Real player with 48.3 hrs in game
I am disappointed in this game. I’ve purchased a number of the Winter Wolves game in the past and never had a problem. But this game seems to be glitched up for me. I basically tried to pick the Deandre route so many times following the guide for the Deandre route. But it seems to be glitched up. I tried it a number of times with minigames active, but that seems to end up still with alone route doing well in the field of archeology… Then I tried with mini games off, which still ends up with the alone route but with character deciding to try a different field.
– Real player with 40.1 hrs in game
Changeling
I’m afraid I won’t be able to find the right words to express how much I enjoyed the game! It was a stunning experience! I’d like to play more otome games like this. Changeling really is one of the kind!
Its greatest feature for me personally is the length. I’ve played long visual novels before but I don’t remember any otome games among them. There’s a common route and routes for six love options, each of them is about 100,000 words (approximately 700,000 words in general). That was amazing! Lots of content, lots of choices, lots of endings… It was long enough to make me feel deeply attached to the story and characters. I was living through all those events with them.
– Real player with 128.8 hrs in game
10/10
I have never written a review before, but I felt obliged to do so in the case of this game. I have played a lot of other visual novels such as Amnesia and Cinderella Phenomenon, but Changeling truly is something special; it is easy to tell the creators put a lot of love into it. I never expected it to be able to bring me to tears at some moments, while also making me laugh out loud at others. This game has six 11 chapter long routes that begin after a four chapter common route, and each of them manages to be engaging in their own way that the game remains as entertaining during the 6th playthrough as it is during the first. Gameplay wise, each playthrough should take a minimum of four hours (this of course assumes a very fast reading speed). Below, I’ve listed what I think is the best order to play the routes storywise along with some very light spoilers that shouldn’t reveal any important plot points:
– Real player with 78.3 hrs in game
Chronicles of Tal’Dun: The Remainder - Act 1
This is the first chapter in the story and new chapters will be released in the future. It’s pretty short, but it packs in a lot of beauty and story-building.
The characters are very mysterious and surprisingly fleshed out considering how short the story is. The music is beautiful and the art is amazing. This story also has characters that use different pronouns (they/them, xe/xir) and it’s refreshing to see.
If they make the next chapters cost money, I would pay for them because I love this so much. 10/10
– Real player with 3.5 hrs in game
This is one of my absolute favorite visual novels. Esoteric, foreboding, and romantic vibes beautifully written and rendered in digital ink. Playing and replaying (which I’ve done several times now) gives me a feeling similar to watching Mushishi at 3am or reading too much poetry before bed: strange, melancholic, and sort of comforting all at once. Goes well with tea.
– Real player with 3.4 hrs in game
Degraman: Act I. Vincent
Serial release of the game (according to the routes of LIs)
An ambiguous story, do not wait for ready answers to all questions
Tender romance blossoming against the background of an oppressive, cruel plot
What can change in the life of an ordinary girl when she meets mysterious kidnappers?
Maybe this is a chance to find a harem with incredibly attractive guys?
Or the opportunity to end the invisible war for the salvation of all mankind?
And what if this is a trap in which the heroine is just a bargaining chip in the game of immoral superhumans?
Only you decide how the fate of the heroine will be decided and whether she will survive, choosing between evil and even greater evil.
The total duration of the game is more than 5 hours
40+ CGs
Vincent is your love interest
9 endings, 5 of them are bad
Flower Shop: Winter In Fairbrook
As a fan of Visual Novels, I for one, was ecstatic when I got the chance to play this particular VN. It’s one I’ve sort of been lusting after for a couple of years now, so you can bet that as soon as I got the opporitunity to play the full thing, I took it.
This VN is sort of like a typical stat-building YN; you might have to try to guess who which stat is for, but if you spend enough time with each of the guys, you’ll be able to tell based on their personalities. And not only that, you need to help Susana, the owner of the flower shop that you’re helping out, with the flowers. Every morning you tend to them, and it’s up to you, the player, to decide which strategy to use.
– Real player with 24.6 hrs in game
Much like Summer in Fairbrook, I bought this game on sale, and yet still find it difficult to recommend to anyone, other than those firmly commited to the genre.
And much like it’s predecessor, Winter in Fairbrook leaves much to be desired.
To say the game is bad would be like saying a small piece of chocolate cake is bad (assuming that you enjoy chocolate cake). It’s still cake, it’s still good, but it is grossly unsatisfying.
The writing leaves much to be desired. Very much like Steve in the previous game, Natalie is a vapid, ignorant, immature, petulant, and lazy girl, who is instructed by her parents to find a job over the holidays, in the hopes of teaching her some discipline (They had already cancelled her cellphone due to bad grades, and are now threatening to take her new car away). Luckily, her room-mate just happens to be Clara from the previous game, and she sets Natalie up with Susana to work in the flower shop.
– Real player with 12.1 hrs in game
Gods of Love: An Otome Visual Novel
I typically don’t read or write reviews, because I think everyone is entitled to their opinion and the world has enough people that feel compelled to voice theirs without adding mine to the mix. However, this time, I’ve chosen to make an exception.
I’ve never played an otome visual novel, but after watching titles such as Dance with Devils and Brothers Conflict on a streaming site (apparently they are also games, but I have not played those), I found myself interested in the genre. I’ve played several of Y Press Games titles, so I decided to give this one a try.
– Real player with 52.3 hrs in game
Looked through my notes and found out I actually didn’t write a review for this game. So here I am organizing my thoughts from half a year ago playthrough xD
I backed this novel on Kickstarter. I was lured by a pretty art mainly. I had to support the chance to romance those handsome gods. Believe me, I wanted to love the game. I still think the idea is amazing, unfortunately its realization kinda failed.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1965419669
If you are fine playing something lighthearted, just for the sake of gazing at stunning Gods, this game may be not that bad. It’s also a good choice if you are an achievement hunter. Despite the dev’s policy to sell the guides, there’s a free steam guide now. So, during the sale one can buy easily skippable story and add one more ‘perfect’ game in the steam profile.
– Real player with 34.3 hrs in game