tl;dr: 4/10, nothing amazing, but not terrible. Cool concept, poor execution - I wouldn't buy it if it's not on sale.


If I had to describe this visual novel in one word, I'd call it amateurish. There were several typos and mispellings, along with duplicate lines due to poor coding (all instances of which I screenshotted to send to the devs). If I paid ~$10 for a game, I'd expect at least some standard of professionalism.

EDIT:
According to this announcement, the game has been properly TLCed and edited two months after this review was originally written. Obviously, I'm not going to read through the entire game again, so I can't say whether or not the aforementioned issues have been remedied completely, but at the very least, it should be better. Regardless, the rest of my review stands. /edit

To be fair, it was originally in Japanese and I can only assume it was translated to English afterwards, possibly in preparation for the Steam release, since the English version came out two years after. However, a lot of fan translations I've played - koestl's Grisaia no Kajitsu translation, for example - were flawless. A paid translation like this pales in comparison, and if I ever feel up to it, I'll play through in Japanese to see if the game is up to scratch in that department.

As for the contents of the game itself, it's extremely dull. The writing style was extremely unprofessional - again, this may be attributed to it being a translation, though I can provide several examples of brilliant translations. The premise was interesting, which was what led me to vote for WEE to be greenlit, but I can't say I'm not disappointed. The story was uninspired and predictable, and although the concept had a lot of potential, the writer didn't really pull it off that well - I found myself bored several times while reading, and I only kept going because I was expecting something interesting to come up (nothing did). The peaks and troughs were in all the wrong places, with little to no transitions, and was uncomfortable to read.

Another point of concern is the fact that it's a kinetic novel. I can appreciate the style of a kinetic novel and enjoy it as anyone would, but why would there be three pages of save slots for a visual novel with no decisions? The game could've been far better constructed to allow the player to influence Hal's (who I would've much rather been named Haru in English, in accordance to his Japanese name ハル) decisions regarding which stocks to buy, how to respond to other characters and whatnot. Of course, I'm not asking for a full-fledged stock market simulation, but just allowing the user to decide whether or not Haru should follow through with a commitment and giving more than one disappointing ending would've made the game a lot more enjoyable.

While on the topic of saving though, I do recommend anyone about to start the game to set aside about 10 hours and finish the game in one go. The way the story is written, without being divided into chapters or scenes, and without any real breaks or transitions, makes it extremely difficult to find a place to save and stop for the day. Unfortunately, I wasn't aware of this and spread the game across two days, and it made for a rather interrupted experience.

The artwork was generally quite nice, but I think I only saw a total of around 5-6 backgrounds and about that number of different sprites, which doesn't really cut it for me and the OST was also nothing really to write home about. The main issue here is the lack of content. For a game at this price, you'd expect the artist(s) and composer(s) to put in a bit more work, but a lot of the time, there was no soundtrack playing, and the screen was simply black with a text box over it. In this sense, I honestly don't feel like the game was worth the money I spent on it.

There are no real redeeming points to WORLD END ECONOMiCA - pretty much every aspect of the visual novel is subpar in comparison to most other visual novels. I don't believe my score of 4/10 to be particularly harsh or generous, and if we interperet the ten point scoring system properly, with 5/10 meaning average and not garbage, then I think 4/10 is quite reasonable. Overall, quite disappointing, given the original concept, bursting to the seams with potential. I did say I don't think the game is worth the price, but I don't think it was a complete waste of money - at least I stuck around 'til the end.

tl;dr: 4/10, nothing amazing, but not terrible. Cool concept, poor execution - I wouldn't buy it if it's not on sale. [h1]Full review:[/h1] If I had to describe this visual novel in one word, I'd call it amateurish. There were several typos and mispellings, along with duplicate lines due to poor coding (all instances of which I screenshotted to send to the devs). If I paid ~$10 for a game, I'd expect at least some standard of professionalism. [b]EDIT: According to [url=https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/games/wee01/announcements/detail/269406862645189200]this announcement[/url], the game has been properly TLCed and edited two months after this review was originally written. Obviously, I'm not going to read through the entire game again, so I can't say whether or not the aforementioned issues have been remedied completely, but at the very least, it should be better. Regardless, the rest of my review stands. /edit[/b] To be fair, it was originally in Japanese and I can only assume it was translated to English afterwards, possibly in preparation for the Steam release, since the English version came out two years after. However, a lot of fan translations I've played - koestl's Grisaia no Kajitsu translation, for example - were flawless. A paid translation like this pales in comparison, and if I ever feel up to it, I'll play through in Japanese to see if the game is up to scratch in that department. As for the contents of the game itself, it's extremely dull. The writing style was extremely unprofessional - again, this may be attributed to it being a translation, though I can provide several examples of brilliant translations. The premise was interesting, which was what led me to vote for WEE to be greenlit, but I can't say I'm not disappointed. The story was uninspired and predictable, and although the concept had a lot of potential, the writer didn't really pull it off that well - I found myself bored several times while reading, and I only kept going because I was expecting something interesting to come up (nothing did). The peaks and troughs were in all the wrong places, with little to no transitions, and was uncomfortable to read. Another point of concern is the fact that it's a kinetic novel. I can appreciate the style of a kinetic novel and enjoy it as anyone would, but why would there be three pages of save slots for a visual novel with no decisions? The game could've been far better constructed to allow the player to influence Hal's (who I would've much rather been named Haru in English, in accordance to his Japanese name ハル) decisions regarding which stocks to buy, how to respond to other characters and whatnot. Of course, I'm not asking for a full-fledged stock market simulation, but just allowing the user to decide whether or not Haru should follow through with a commitment and giving more than one disappointing ending would've made the game a lot more enjoyable. While on the topic of saving though, I do recommend anyone about to start the game to set aside about 10 hours and finish the game in one go. The way the story is written, without being divided into chapters or scenes, and without any real breaks or transitions, makes it extremely difficult to find a place to save and stop for the day. Unfortunately, I wasn't aware of this and spread the game across two days, and it made for a rather interrupted experience. The artwork was generally quite nice, but I think I only saw a total of around 5-6 backgrounds and about that number of different sprites, which doesn't really cut it for me and the OST was also nothing really to write home about. The main issue here is the lack of content. For a game at this price, you'd expect the artist(s) and composer(s) to put in a bit more work, but a lot of the time, there was no soundtrack playing, and the screen was simply black with a text box over it. In this sense, I honestly don't feel like the game was worth the money I spent on it. There are no real redeeming points to WORLD END ECONOMiCA - pretty much every aspect of the visual novel is subpar in comparison to most other visual novels. I don't believe my score of 4/10 to be particularly harsh or generous, and if we interperet the ten point scoring system properly, with 5/10 meaning average and not garbage, then I think 4/10 is quite reasonable. Overall, quite disappointing, given the original concept, bursting to the seams with potential. I did say I don't think the game is worth the price, but I don't think it was a complete waste of money - at least I stuck around 'til the end.