Keizudo
I haven’t played much and I’m not sure if I intend to play much more but I think I can recommend this game all the same from what I’ve experienced so far. The writing is competent which is important because this Is a visual novel. That said, it is not necessarily presented in a way which is comfortable or easily digested (a majority of the time, you have to click through action menus consisting of “thinking”, “investigation”, and “move” to determine your next action within a linear set of actions that all must be taken to progress the game. This can fluctuate from frustrating to engaging depending on the scene and how much dialogue there is. I can’t help but think this system needs to be refined a bit. That said, for me, this game’s visuals where a treat. I adore the pre-rendered low poly look and their dedication to that style even in the character art. In an era of graphic obsessed pc gaming, this a bold and unique move which came to me as a fresh change of pace. I absolutely recommend this game to anyone seeking a new type of visual novel with a bold approach to its presentation.
– Real player with 0.3 hrs in game
Read More: Best Retro Mystery Games.
Undelivered
England, the 1920s. Provincial town called Fate. Bored already? Don’t judge the book by it’s cover!
Plunge into the swirl of events and you’ll realize that Fate is one of the most mysterious and dangerous places you’ve ever heard of!
Where is the local cutie who has suddenly disappeared? What is the doctor’s secret? Is the military test range near the town really dangerous? What are the crazy chemists doing in their laboratories? And what can an ordinary postman do once he suddenly finds himself in the thick of it all?
Undelivered is a detective quest where you have to find the answers to all these questions and decide what to do next!
… It started as a joke or little mischief… Mike, a young postman, learned to open the envelopes so skillfully that no one could ever notice that he reads the letters. At first it was a funny spy game, but then something went wrong. One letter told Mike that the only son of Mrs. Wilson, a lone librarian, had tragically died. Mike decided not to deliver the letter to the poor woman. So Mrs. Wilson didn’t get to know the news. But the postman himself realized that now the fate of the town inhabitants indirectly depends on him…
Mike can’t stop reading the letters, but the more he learns about his neighbors, the stronger he feels that something needs to be done… Because too many dangerous secrets have come out, and now hundreds of people’s lives are at stake.
In this game you will:
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Watch the life of the city and its inhabitants;
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Deliver mail and communicate with different people;
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Solve mysteries and make difficult decisions.
When meeting a “dangerous” letter, you can deliver it to the addressee or not deliver it at your own risk. You can also give it to someone who, in your opinion, will help you deal with the problem mentioned in the letter. However, remember: the road to hell is paved with good intentions!
Read More: Best Retro Exploration Games.
ESC
First off, I haven’t spent 14 hours playing (reading?) ESC. I played half of it, went to bed, then played the other half in the morning. Ironically, I was afraid of pressing esc and possibly losing my progress.
First off, the writing, music, and atmosphere are phenomenal. It was so immersive and I felt like I was actually there with the characters (who weren’t actually there themselves). The multiple story reveals felt earned and organic. At times the writing was creepy, at others it was witty, and at some it was so engaging that I forgot to breathe. I laughed out loud at some parts and was on the edge of my seat for others. The ending was bittersweet and the ending of the chapter right before the epilogue made me cry, ‘cause I’m just that sorta person. The themes of the story resonated with me so strongly that I was even more invested in the story that I thought I’d be when I started, this was also due to the fact that I adored all the characters.
– Real player with 14.0 hrs in game
Read More: Best Retro Great Soundtrack Games.
This story is beautiful, a truly enrapturing exploration of identity and social experience. It explores existential themes without losing connection to the grounded experiences of humanity, and it explores mundane experiences without losing appreciation for their greater significance. And on a more personal note, as someone who came into adolescent internet use in the mid/late 2000s, the MUD framing gave me a profound feeling of connection to the mysterious internet experiences of people 10-15 years older than me, contextualizing the many scraps of references I’ve collected through the years to a bygone web I just barely missed experiencing. Then while I was sat there thinking about that fact, the story went and explored that theme of a reality shaped by place and time of birth too.
– Real player with 4.4 hrs in game
The Cherry Orchard
A beautiful, uniquely styled 3D kinetic novel, imbued with love and respect for Chekhov’s original material. The script adaptation is superb, the voice acting is top notch, and the attention to details, such as facial and hand expressions, graphical effects, and accessibility features, are a masterclass in literary/dramatic game design. I’ve played it through many times in testing, a couple more times since release and, while the game is linear, I’ll be coming back to it many more times to attempt to fully absorb the depth of detail and meaning. Theatre students take note, this could be a valuable study resource.
– Real player with 16.5 hrs in game
The Cherry Orchard is the MOST visual novel, literally a CG adaptation of the Russian play of the same name. There’s a pseudo-cyberpunk element to it, however, with vaporwave and techno visual effects that accentuate some of the story’s subtext. It’s a little jarring how the lip synch doesn’t really match (but maybe that’s my slow computer not able to handle it), and there are a handful of small glitches that don’t affect the gameplay, like the hovertext in the settings sometimes flickers, but overall it’s interesting to watch.
– Real player with 7.0 hrs in game
泡沫冬景
Note: I’ve read this in Japanese, but my primary language is English, and you do not want to be subjected to my Japanese, so English it is.
Short version:
This is a heart-warming story that explores how two people (one from Japan, one from China) who do not have a language in common, learn to communicate and understand each other, and better than people who do, about finding happiness, and finding out what happiness is. A Christmas story with some depth and a darkish underbelly (now that reminds me of A Christmas Carol).
– Real player with 78.2 hrs in game
15个小时，我终于推完了主线剧情。先说总结，这无疑是一款值得推荐、好评的游戏。就算真的觉得一般般，就当花45块钱买了一本书，也是物有所值的。
故事发生的事情、因果都合情合理，没有什么主角光环帮助度过难关什么的，这款游戏讲述了一个很真实的故事。
简单的PPT动画打破了我以往玩文字游戏的认知，以前玩文字游戏都是一张原画动都不动的进行对话，表情变的也不多。而这个游戏没一时每一刻都在变换画面，变化擦除、画面遮罩或弹入、雪花特效等等，以及文字的位置，显示速度，都有下功夫。所以按照默认设置自动播放也是有非常好的游戏体验的，个人建议把界面透明度关掉。再加点个私货，我个人非常喜欢身为第三者去玩游戏，现在我终于知道我当初为什么玩
! 《美少女萬華鏡4》这么起劲，玩其他几部甚至没有毅力推完了。因为男主有配音，有同女主对话，让我更有兴趣看下去，去欣赏。一般galgame的男主都是没有声音的，甚至不露脸，说的就是要给玩家有第一人称、自己就是男主的既视感。然而我不吃这一套，这种游戏我很少坚持下来。所以这款游戏我能一口气推完这也是一个重要因素。当时我是因为女主CV才来玩什么的是绝对不可能的(笑)
– Real player with 47.8 hrs in game
Arcade Spirits: The New Challengers
In the distant future year 20XX, an alternate timeline where arcades never went away… you’re an aspiring gamer searching for esports glory on the Fist of Discomfort 2 Pro Tour. Seeking a partner to play with, you join a team of players who hang out at Good Clean Fun, a combination pizzeria / laundromat / arcade. It’s up to you to rally the team, learning more about who they are and how best to support their dreams along the way. Defeat rivals, conquer tournaments, build relationships, and uncover a strange arcade conspiracy as your team walks the road to victory!
With these features you know and love from Arcade Spirits:
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Six new characters to befriend and romance, as well as a few return appearances by series favorites.
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Character art by Molly Nemecek and pulsating synthwave tunes by Greg Mirles!
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Measure your personality using Iris, your handy virtual assistant. You can be Kindly, Steady, Quirky, Gutsy, or Flexibly!
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Date anyone you like regardless of your pronouns, or focus entirely on building friendships.
And NEW features to the series:
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Import your decisions from Arcade Spirits, and reshape the world of 20XX based on the choices you’ve made! If you haven’t played the original game, that’s fine – this works just as well as a standalone experience and will adapt itself to be a great fresh start.
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A massively expanded character creator – choose body type, hairstyles, accessories, clothing, and more. Your custom character now appears on screen during the whole game!
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Design your own rival! Using the full power of the character creator, craft the one who will stand in your way. Or will perhaps love bloom between these two enemies…?
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Take on the world in Fist of Discomfort 2, a strategy minigame. Your victory or defeat changes the path of your story without ending it! (Minigame is skippable.)
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Rebalanced personality choices, with more variety and more opportunities to talk to every character.
Dreams of an Exile
Hey there, first review! Lets get to it:
To start off, I’d like to say I’ve found Dreams of an Exile quite charming and I’m a little surprised it doesn’t have more of a following.
It’s nothing mind-blowing but rather a cute little rpg maker puzzle game without any sort of (often tedious) battle elements one might expect when stumbling upon something like this.
Dreams of Exile is reliant on terrain puzzles, vaguely reminiscent of older Zelda titles with some occasionally timed 2-D platforming to keep you on your toes. The puzzles themselves are pretty simple BUT it still took a simpleton like me a bit of time to understand which thing did what and when I should use something. Even then, the game itself is pretty forgiving.
– Real player with 5.1 hrs in game
Not a bad concept. I like the idea of jrpg styled game without battles (JRPG battles can be tedius).
Controls can feel floaty and not precise at time. Great music, ok level design, great art style. It’s 2 dollars, can’t really complain too much. Short and sweet. Free NSFW Dlc if you like that kind of thing.
Pros: Cute Lesbians, casual gameplay, cool music and art
Cons: The game sometimes has a memory leak issue and uses 6-8 gb of ram.
– Real player with 0.9 hrs in game
Nirvana Pilot Yume
I love the concept for this game - visual novel + SkyRoads (which was an amazing DOS game where you piloted a little space car hopping along interstellar highways) is such a good, fresh idea. Nirvana Pilot Yume also throws in a great synthwave soundtrack as well as an artistic style that reminds me of 80s anime and vaporwave music videos. The visual novel aspect of the game is really well written, and the dialogue is enjoyable and the sex scenes natural and non-cringy.
The racing sections are a little rough at the moment - I think my biggest problem is that the tracks are REALLY hard, or at least the difficult bumps up dramatically after the first track, which is dirt easy. It’s quite hard to see what exactly is coming your way, because the vantage point is directly at the horizon whereas in SkyRoads, you had somewhat more of an overhead view, and thus more time to react and move your ship around obstacles. In Nirvana Pilot Yume, I feel like there’s almost no time to react at all because stuff is coming at you so fast, and the collision detection is VERY sensitive. The brake option also doesn’t seem to do much at the moment but pull the camera in closer, and currently when I try slowing down in all tracks after the first one, the speed meter at the top doesn’t change. (Not sure if this is a bug or not.)
– Real player with 5.0 hrs in game
I recently received this game for free as a curator connect offer for my group Visual novel, JRPG, Anime. First of all, this visual novel is an adult eroge visual novel with a few NSFW CGs. For those who don’t mind adult visual novels, read on.
This romance visual novel with arcade racing and platforming segments by Dev9k features a male protagonist Mitur Aldaine. Mitur graduated from an Academy and became the greatest racer of Alba Proxima and an Eye in a futuristic world where territorial contests between different orbital stations are decided by races among spaceships.
– Real player with 3.9 hrs in game
Story: Heaven & Hell (Complete Edition)
I got this in a bundle, tbh, and decided to play it. As of the date of this review, there is nothing here. Seeing the store page, I now see that it specifically states that there is no current choice to make. This is still early access, and incomplete, but it is interesting. The english tralslation is hilariously laughable, tho! I mean, seriously! “Am I died?” and other such gems make me fondly remember “all your bases are belong to us!” Not much to see here, at all, and the translation into english is subpar, but the mistranslation is at least understandable easily. What IS here, however, other than the translation, is flawless. The movements of the character are good, the script is interesting, as far as it goes, and looks very polished. No controls AT ALL, you don’t control ANYTHING. My only wishes are that there was an auto-continue for the dialogue, and that it was finished.
– Real player with 3.1 hrs in game
This game is pretty shit. It’s more like a visual novel made in RPG Maker. There are to many grammar mistakes and the “story” ends really fast without any notice. The only thing you can do in this game is walk throug an unending maze where the game ends without notice.
– Real player with 0.7 hrs in game
Arcade Spirits
First things first: I really, truly enjoyed this game. That maybe sounds like an understatement, but I think it’s worth stressing: Arcade Spirits is just. so. enjoyable. It’s good-natured, goofy game about pursuing your dreams and the power of friendship as much as it is a dating sim, and I was completely charmed by the total sincerity of its story and characters. My literal only complaint is that I couldn’t spend more time with all of them (more on that below).
Arcade Spirits’s core cast is obviously the main draw, and in terms of characterization, the game really delivers. I was really impressed by how the game avoided obvious dating sim archetypes and introduced a lot of depth to characters I wasn’t certain I would connect with (particularly Ashley and Teo). I also appreciate how the game doesn’t shy away from more serious issues, particularly in Percy and QueenBee’s routes – it’s not a coincidence that these are the two routes that I think are the game’s strongest, and it has a lot to do with how Percy and QueenBee’s problems (and dating hang-ups) are rooted in real-world issues. The overarching plot is goofy (in a good way!), but the characters feel grounded and real, and you’re encouraged to take them seriously in ways that I think really, really work.
– Real player with 37.7 hrs in game
I’ve only had the time to sit down and play through this great game once, but I feel like it’s given me a pretty good grasp of the game as a whole. And I love it. I’m a huge fan of visual novels and throwing in a dash of romance is…just another nail in my coffin. I’ve been following this game for a while now, exactly how long I can’t say, but I’ve been waiting. And it was worth the wait. I’ve never played a visual novel that has allowed me the customization this game has. I found I was playing me rather than playing the who can I romance game VERY early on. Sure, the game has it’s issues, and I’ll detail the good and the bad shortly, but I highly rec the game no matter what I say below. If you’ve got a hankering for a good story, high amounts of customization, and arcade game references abound this game is for you. And never fear, I’m leaving spoilers out of my lists. (As of writing this review there were still some wrinkles in the game but the dev team seems very on top of it when it’s reported. Don’t let the fact they are there dissuade you from buying the game.) I will update this review pending further play time and any additional content that might get released.
– Real player with 31.4 hrs in game