I Love You, Colonel Sanders! A Finger Lickin’ Good Dating Simulator
This game, in a mere 100 hours, has taken everything from me…
I have sacrificed everything I know and love, just to look at that colonel smile.
My wife left me with full custody of the kids. My parents no longer talk to me. Im a mere month away from being
Evicted by my landlord. Ive stopped working, just to play this game. This game has ruined my life, but still, I love it. That sweet sweet colonel. The story is Immersive, and a roller coaster of emotions to play through. Ever since helen left me, this has been the one thing that I still find love in. This game shields me from the cold that is this planet. More importantly, the colonel protects me from the world. The sweet colonel. I never needed helen. All I need is right here, flexing his big muscles, making his next exquisite dish, and being the man I always craved.
– Real player with 256.6 hrs in game
Read More: Best Cult Classic Dating Sim Games.
With stage 5 terminal cancer, the doctors told me it couldn’t be cured. I seen this game come up on my recommended list. I thought to myself “With only hours left to live, I might as well spend my time doing something I enjoy” Starting the game I was filled with immediate joy. The characters were absolutely lovable. The story line has the depth that can only be rivalled by very few AAA titles out there. Every click left me guessing “What’s going to happen next?” and “Will I get to try another one of the Colonels chicken wings of pure ecstasy?” Before I knew it, I was in the kitchen, cooking with the Colonel, helping him create Nan’s potato and gravy. It was absolute bliss!
– Real player with 10.8 hrs in game
Umineko When They Cry - Question Arcs
Ryukishi07, you sadistic bastard, I love you.
Before getting this one, I would recommend you to at least try to read the Higurashi When They Cry series. They’re amazing visual novels that have some connection to Umineko’s plot. Don’t worry, they’re not required, but they’re also great stories that, if you finish them, you’ll have a whole different view on some of Umineko’s important characters.
Umineko is a story about sin, punishment, guilt, trauma and especially love. Written by Ryukishi07, who had experience as a social worker, it’s a mystery in it’s core, but not entirely. The content ranges from bittersweet love stories to chuuni fantastic logic and reasoning battles, where arguments take form as weapons. How can you have so many different kinds of dilemmas in one story? Well, just look at the hour counts which people who read this series have on Steam. It’s easily an 100+ experience.
– Real player with 112.4 hrs in game
Read More: Best Cult Classic Mystery Games.
This is a review of the whole of Umineko, not just the Question Arcs. Just so you know.
Mystery stories are, at their core, just one big puzzle. An author writes a story, gives you hints, and typically tells you all you need to know before the story’s conclusion so that you have a fair chance at figuring it out if you’re perceptive enough. Good mystery authors make it possible to figure out the killer long before they are revealed in the story. But it has gotten to the point that many people either don’t try and figure it out, or if they do, their guesses are far more lukewarm, because they know the story will succinctly reveal everything at the end of the story and wrap everything up in a nice little bow. Umineko, on the other hand, does not do this. Umineko lays out clues for you and tells you to figure it out yourself, not directly revealing the answer to a majority of its individual mysteries, and, while giving you more hints to its biggest mysteries, never outright stating the answer. What makes the story even more difficult to solve is the constant questioning of whether what you’re seeing is true or false, and whether or not the murders are truly being done by magic, not helped by the constant seemingly impossible closed room murders. Can you figure out the truth? That’s up to your observational skills.
– Real player with 108.7 hrs in game
Higurashi When They Cry Hou - Ch.1 Onikakushi
First, a brief note to the uninitiated:
This is not a pleasant story, whatever the screenshots may have led you to believe. Beneath the veneer of a cheesy, run-of-the-mill school-comedy lies a cruel world of madness, terror, and violence. Major characters die routinely; sometimes on-screen, sometimes off, but never in a peaceful manner. Nonetheless, it is a highly compelling experience, and very rewarding if you can endure to the end of the series. If this intrigues you, feel free to read on, but those looking for nothing more than a stereotypical anime-harem-style rom-com would do well to look elsewhere. Higurashi may resemble that on a superficial level, but this is a series that delights in letting the reader think they know what is going on, even as it brings the façade crumbling down around them.
– Real player with 33.3 hrs in game
Read More: Best Cult Classic Mystery Games.
TLDR: The thumb is pointing up. That means good.
Important Information to Know
This game covers the first arc (Abducted by Demons arc, about 2 manga volumes long) of the story, while it says Ch.1 this game covers the first 4-5 episodes of the show and has something like 12 chapters in the game. This game is a visual novel with about 15 hours of reading. A visual novel is basically a book with relevant background music, sound effects, background art, and character art to enhance the reading experience.
– Real player with 23.1 hrs in game
Umineko When They Cry - Answer Arcs
The second, more uneven half of Umineko. There is some fantastic content in these four arcs, particularly with the introduction of a new character from the fifth arc. Continuing with the ongoing trend of deconstructing the detective fiction genre, the fifth and sixth arcs provide a stark contrast to the preceding ones that reveal further truths, mostly on the rules governing the game board and its pieces. The new character uses the limit of the rules to play with the game boards in novel ways not seen before, and makes for the series' best antagonist. You’ll hate her, but love every moment she’s on screen. Like the games in the Question Arcs, there is an exciting back and forth interplay between characters arguing the logic and reasoning behind what is shown. These two arcs are the highlight of the Answer Arcs, and perhaps of the entire series.
– Real player with 115.0 hrs in game
It takes two to create a universe and undoubtedly it must have taken more than two to create this universe of umineko. After a long journey of exploring theories and techniques of logical arguments and mysteries, it is no secret that the reader must have gained some skills in interpretation and analysis. Although, the creators describe this novel to be fictional and fantastical in nature the story is undoubtedly philosophical. Compared to the first installment of the visual novel, the answer arcs are far more focused on unnecessary details and fights and seems elongated like how a bollywood soap opera would cleverly add endless episodes of drama to just get more room for ads. In my personal opinion this whole story would have ended in in the answer arcs with just two long episodes and I will stand by that. When I was reading the question arcs I felt refreshed and amazed by each episode, but I expected more from answer arcs. The whole two visual novels revolve around this one single incident : the murders of Rokkenjima, when a whole visual novel with like 4 episodes were given based on twisting the same story it would be impossible to enjoy it fully in the 5th or 7th time. I was mainly bored in the 5th 6th episodes and what mostly interested me was the last two. On the terms of the mystery genre and explaining mysteries I have far not read any visual novel that would impress me. So that credit would go to Umineko alone. IT should also be noteworthy to mention that I like Higurashi novels better no matter how repetitive it was- it was different each time with the same setting much better than umineko.
– Real player with 73.1 hrs in game
CROSS†CHANNEL: Steam Edition
Cross Channel is a bit of an enigma. When it starts out, you’re intentionally confused. Scenes seem to occur completely arbitrarily, and you’re not sure if you’re in the past or the present. The MC narrator’s dialogue seems completely insane, and that’s not helped any by the spotty translation. It almost makes you want to throw your hands up and move on.
But eventually as you continue the story, things start to make more sense. The MC who initially seems like a typical VN perv to the nth degree starts to show a more dangerous side, and then even further depth from there. The scenes that take place in the past are now sepia toned, helping you piece together a timeline of past and present. Characters that seemed unpleasant and paranoid are now more easily understood. The underlying mystery of the time loop slowly reveals itself.
– Real player with 31.9 hrs in game
I watched my mom get hit by a freight train when she was 10ft away from me. her broken body was launched laterally at the speed of a fighter jet. the doctors spent two full weeks picking pieces of her bone from my perforated body. I had to go in for a checkup recently and they found a small piece of her cranium still lodged in my lower torso.
the reason why I preface my review with this is that this was only the second worst moment of my life. the worst was spending upwards of fifteen hours reading Moenovel’s botched english translation of Cross Channel. Cross Channel is good, great even, but this translation is cheeks
– Real player with 30.4 hrs in game
Higurashi When They Cry Hou - Ch.3 Tatarigoroshi
**The Snake in the well was happy, for it did not care what was outside the well.
The Snake in the well was happy, for it had naught to do with what happened outside the well.
And you were happy too, for you did not know what happened outside the well. - Frederica Bernkastel**
Just… whoa… Every time, I swear that this won’t either surprise or annoy me, it ends up being a new creep-bomb… Ehm, sorry. This is the third game in Higurashi When They Cry series: Ch.3 Tatarigoroshi. Invoking what I gathered from the publishing information in Manga Gamers forums priorly, the original series consist of 8 chapters, which will probably keep inventing new and refreshing ways to both consternate and creep us out continuously, both with the imaginatively disturbing and the eerily mysterious that serves as the main body of these Hinamizawa stories.
– Real player with 37.1 hrs in game
Higurashi, with this release, has possibly become my favorite series of all time. Every release adds something, has a different flavor, and never gets boring. This one leaves even less room for setup than before, knowing that, because you played the other two chapters, it doesn’t need to waste its time with introductions. By chapter 3, the plot is already in motion, and things are starting to get incredbily sad…and creepy.
Let me warn you: This episode is depressing. If you can’t take representations of child abuse well, then I would suggest you stay away from this. It isn’t the most detailed description/situation out there, but it’s enough that it gets the point across and is extremely depressing (and disturbing). So, with that out of the way, let’s get into the basic plot of this chapter!
– Real player with 26.0 hrs in game
SOULS
A good story that can make player’s sticked into it, and keep playing to the end.
Player would probably get complex emotions througout the whole story, from depress, anxious, anger, to relief.
The writer of the story put a lot of afford in descripting character’s psychological thought, which made the character nice.
The BGM of the game is AMAZING, suiting the story very well.
The Graphics of the game isn’t that appealing, but acceptable. Some of the background CGs do actually scared me with the combination of story and BGM all together.
– Real player with 19.8 hrs in game
I had just posted a review on this just a bit ago, but after some thought, I think this should only be recommended to people familiar with visual novels and have the patience to overlook the countless grammatical errors and subpar translation.
I did finish the game. In one session even. I engrossed myself in the story enough to overlook the errors. The plot had some good twists and the game kept me guessing til the end. However, there also tend to be some pretty big plot holes/unanswered questions
! like why it seemed like after the father was absorbed, it went straight to an elementary school instead of, for example, his previous place of work? And if it was because of the stench of negative emotion, why was everyone there so miserable?
– Real player with 8.9 hrs in game
Higurashi When They Cry Hou - Ch.4 Himatsubushi
Higurashi is a mystery. There is no point in reading only one chapter, and no chapters can be skipped. I’m assuming if you’re here, you’ve read chapter the previous chapters and you want to read more. Thus, this review will just inform you about three things I feel all people getting into Higurashi should know.
One: A patch for every chapter exists to add voice acting, new portraits with lip sync, and a different OST. You can find it here: (https://07th-mod.com/wiki/Higurashi/Higurashi-Part-1 –-Voice-and-Graphics-Patch/).
– Real player with 17.5 hrs in game
It took me eight separate occasions to try and finish this game. It also took me going to an entirely different country to fully complete and even think about it. For example:
Why had it taken me so long? Why could I never seem to make it past chapter three?
I think the answer lies in the fact that this kept being advertised as a side/bonus story and I didn’t want to believe them and because I didn’t– I guess I got a little disappointed.
My first issue is that it’s a lot shorter than the other entries.
– Real player with 10.4 hrs in game
Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney Trilogy
amazing, show stopping, spectacular, never the same, totally unique, completely not ever been done before, unafraid to reference or not reference, put it in a blender, sh1t on it, vomit on it, eat it, give birth to it
no further explanation needed, its a legendary game with high affordability
– Real player with 120.7 hrs in game
When you deductive reasoning
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– Real player with 106.0 hrs in game
The Song of Saya
I got this game both because people are trying to compare it to Doki Doki Literature Club and because I’ve heard of its explosive popularity when it was (re-)released.
Right off the bat, to clear the air, there is absolutely NO COMPARISON between the two games. They are on their own separate tiers, respectfully.
I was excited to play it since it immediately started out with the horror. Though, when it gives us the option to choose to censor the gore and such, I expected to see it ALL, but that is not the case.
! For example, in the case of Fuminori driving his head down into the axe, and Koji dreaming of him in that state, we are not allowed to see it because it is actually censored , weirdly enough. Saya gets violated, and we see it while she’s in her “human” guise and, while I’m glad I didn’t have to see that, I was surprised to see it so censored. Not only that, some of the voice acting was taken out for that part, in what I assume to be another form of censoring so that it wasn’t as disturbing? But, what about the voice acting that’s done when Yoh is being violated when she clearly refuses–both when she has her mind and when she loses it? Lastly, what I was most disappointed with was that the game refused to give us any CGs of the full body of these disgusting “aliens.” Was it to add to the narrative that they were just that terrifying and disgusting? If that was the case, then why even bother with those first CGs of the “aliens” that Fuminori sees in the beginning? With the close up shots of the eye and another with something bulging(?) to the tentacles we see with the more nude shots, I believe they were more than capable of giving us a CG of these monsters. Maybe it is because it was initially released in, I believe, 2003 that it was afraid of giving us more? Whatever it is, the gore isn’t too bad unless you truly hate seeing guts in any form. To me, the guts were just so computerized(?) that I believe most would be able to stomach it.
– Real player with 13.9 hrs in game
“To you, who loved me, I give this planet”
The Song of Saya (Saya no Uta) is a Lovecraftian horror love story where love is disturbing no matter which way you look at it and the monster changes with your perspective. It’s depraved and wicked while taking you on a journey into the deepest parts of madness. Like every good Lovecraftian story it promises to defile and poison you by “the insanity called truth”. It also examines different truths by juxtaposing different perspectives through a prism of a hellish mirror.
– Real player with 13.8 hrs in game