Recente recensies door AssassinGlasgow

Pony Island continues the trend of breaking the fourth wall with this deceptively dark game. Considering the tagline tells you it's not a game about ponies, it's certainly not for kids.

The story is full of mystery from the get-go: You are stuck playing an arcade game titled "Pony Island." Why are you playing this? Why does it look like it's starting to glitch out? Why are we operating a computer on an arcade cabinet? Well, those answers become clearer and clearer as the game progresses. It's a mystery best left to discover yourself, but when I say that the way the story is woven into the gameplay is fantastic, I mean it. The game development commentary throughout the game also enhances the metahumor and fourth-wall breaking experience.

You eventually learn your soul is trapped in a state of limbo where the Devil is attempting to claim your soul for Hell. The Devil, interestingly enough, also tried his hand at making video games, but because he isn't very good at it it glitches out like crazy and eventually the game shows its true colors as a soul-sucking machine.

The puzzles in this game are very refreshing and have a lot of thought placed into them. Most puzzles are done through a series of interchanging icons that determine where a key will land, and there are requirements that make the key fit with the lock at the end. The other half of the gameplay is an on rails shooter where the player takes control of a pony and has to dodge hurdles while also avoiding floating enemies through the use of a laser beam. These segments require precision and can be quite difficult in the beginning until one gets used to it. The boss fights/puzzles were creative and I have to especially commend the second to last boss fight for its ingenious use of fourth wall breakage. I won't spoil it, but it's quite cool to see it play out.

While the game is never outwardly scary, the music ambience makes it creepy at times, and the pixelated art helps to add onto this feeling. The overall presentation of the game is very polished, with good writing overall that is both menacing and tongue-in-cheek.

It's a fun puzzle game that you'll love if you love meta stuff, and it's simultaneously challenging and intriguing. Definitely recommended.

This isn't the first time I've played an episodic game only to have it tragically be cut short. D4: Dark Dreams Don't Die suffered the same fate. However, unlike that game, I cannot recommend this game despite how much I really enjoyed playing it. D4 at least had a complete season despite not having a conclusion - this game doesn't even have that.

Blues and Bullets presents a well polished package with its first two episodes. The story is intriguing, with the player taking on the role of a detective named Eliot Ness who is famous for jailing Al Capone. Given the time period, the game oozes noir aesthetics, which is fantastically rendered in the game. I love the art direction with this game, especially given the minimalist color scheme it has to work with. As with the art, the music and the voice acting are top notch. The gameplay is standard point and click, though the investigation portion was more intricately detailed compared to other episodic games I've played, such as the Telltale games.

The focus of the plot is Eliot has to discover who has kidnapped Al Capone's granddaughter, and this leads down a rabbit hole of conspiracies, intrigue, and murder. In what little we saw in both episodes, the plot set itself up to be a fantastic mystery, and I was ready to discover where it would twist and turn. Why was there some weird ritual happening with the kids in the beginning of the game? Why did an important witness get murdered horribly? However, as mentioned earlier, this game will never have a conclusion, and so us players are left in the dark. It's a damn shame, as I became very invested only to have no payoff. Is this better or worse than a poor ending? I personally would have liked to see an ending no matter what, but alas...

I really wish I could recommend this game. If the rest of the episodes had released I would have probably recommended it. Yet, as we will never ever get the rest of the episodes, it isn't worth it to purchase. If the first episode is available for free then by all means, do play, but try not to get invested because you will never see a conclusion to the story and the mystery.

With all the visual novels available on Steam, in order to stick out sometimes one has to have the most confusing art and premise. Creature Romances: Kokonoe Kokoro fits that bill perfectly. "What the hell is this?" you may ask, as you stare at the lovely art of a literal grasshopper girl. Well! It's exactly what it says on the tin! And no! It actually doesn't factor into the plot, ever.

So what could a story about a grasshopper-girl-next-door-best-friend have to offer? Surprisingly, very, very little.

The plot is the most basic, bland, and forgettable story one could imagine for this scenario. The protagonist (whose name I already forgot because he was that forgettable) is friends with Kokoro, the eponymous character. They've known each other since they were kids. She wants to go to Tokyo University after high school, and the protagonist has no idea what he wants to do. He decides he also wants to go to the same school as her, but the school is prestigious and he has the worst grades. He's constantly described as being really bad at math that I just chose to assume he couldn't even do basic algebra just so I could give myself some amusement, because the story itself wasn't amusing to read in the slightest. There is one choice in the game, but it's obvious which is the correct choice, so it essentially doesn't even matter in a plot that's already really streamlined.

None of the characters have any development or unique trait that would get me invested in them, and the romance between the protagonist and Kokoro follows the typical anime drama format that it just ended up feeling shoehorned in. There are other characters, who are also monsters, and even the protagonist's little sister is a batgirl, yet the protagonist himself is human, and this is frustratingly never explained. Is he the monster? Or is this all part of a fever-fueled dream? Find out...never!

The art is passable, but if it weren't for the art you couldn't even tell the story was about monsters in general. The descriptions never make any direct mentions to monster characteristics, and so if the art were replaced with human characters the story would have progressed the same way. The music is generic and doesn't loop, with the track ending jarringly before starting up again. The UI itself is also godawful, with no coherent design whatsoever. While not much saving would be done with this VN, the fact that the UI looks like it was thrown together in 30 seconds drags down a game that's already of poor quality.

This game is not worth the $3 or the time it takes to beat it (which is literally under 1 hr). Don't be lured in by the premise and go for better VNs on Steam.

So...this game has been sitting in my Steam library for a while, and not by choice. Way back when, around 2014, I found this game by accident and was so baffled by the poor science, the insanity of the plot, and the lazy art that I looked in the discussions. I engaged in discussions with many people, many for the game but far more against the game itself. One of the people who was a fan of the game gifted this to me, and being one who believes in knowing the material before critiquing it, I accepted it. Maybe it'll surprise me?

I played it.

And here we are.

The game at the time I found it was incomplete, sporting only half the amount of routes that they aimed to have in the game, and thus were in Early Access with a big hefty $25 price tag on it. They did, however, get $20k in funding! Is this game worth $25 in the end? Knowing the tone of what I have said so far do you need to ask?

But since I'm a completionist, I decided to boot this up again recently and play through the newer routes, half-hoping that the later routes could impress me enough to lift my doubts that this was a terrible game. No. No it did not.

This game is a visual novel through and through, and being a VN it's important that it can tackle two main things: have good art, and/or have good story. The story far outweighs the art, and if the story for this game were good I could forgive the Deviantart level of quality in this game, but it isn't.

The game revolves around one thing: gender transformation. Two scientists named Derek and Liam "accidentally" create a gas that causes many people in their lab and building to spontaneously undergo a switch from male to female. Now Derek and Liam are Dina and Lynn. This is obviously pretty distressing, and many characters start off concerned with this...until they oogle their new breasts and decide to have some sexytimes with themselves and with each other, and the thought of how distressing it was fades from their memory in about six seconds, as well as attempting to change back (until it's revealed it's irreversible, then oh well). The different routes are somewhat connected by a loose, overarching story, one that involves scientific intrigue (the science is laughably bad, by the way - this is coming from a biologist), giant weather phenomena, and a bunch of other random stuff. The routes individually are all focused on the characters having bland dialogue about how being a girl sucks, then being a girl is awesome because they get to have lots of sex with people, and sometimes they have relationships with other characters.

The story seems like the basis for a decent sci-fi plot, but the lazy writing completely kills it. All the characters have no discernable personality unless it's related to something crazy such as breast expansion or creating catgirls. Many characters end up acting similarly, and in turn have the same narrative voice, which makes playing 13 routes of this game insufferable and dreadfully boring. The setpieces change, but many routes end up with "Character is transformed -> Oh no! -> I guess being a girl isn't bad... -> Female/male love interest comes in and they fall in love out of nowhere -> Softcore sex scene -> Happy ending." Literally, playing Yael felt like playing Russel felt like playing Nadine - all the characters ended up acting in similar ways with little variation in their personality or speech style. Furthermore, many characters couldn't maintain consistency in how they acted. Bri, for example, completely contradicted herself with her actions and invalidated whatever personality the devs were trying to build for her completely.

The VN does have choices, but they mostly amounted to very little. Many barely changed the end and only determined who you got together with in the end. Choices, if anything, seemed very inconsequential for the first half of the game. The latter half had better use of choices but only for the puzzle mechanics, and while the puzzles were nowhere good or engaging, they were decent enough that I definitely believe they were the best part of this game.

This game runs on the motto of "quantity over quality," with 13 routes being a "key feature" for the game. It's clear, however, that the writer couldn't craft routes with comparable quality, and all routes suffer from being mediocre at best, and bland, shallow, and boring at worst. The writing is subpar with the poorly written characters and plot, and any attempts to have comedy fall flat and the pacing drags. Many routes have events that happen out of nowhere and only serve to futher pad the length of this game to "justify" the $25 price tag. Dina's route has several transformations, including: foxgirl, slimegirl, squidgirl, and breast expansion. Literally half of her route could have been cut down to the main plot if not for the random forays into -girl transformations the game tries to shoehown in for the fetish fuel.

Make no mistake, this is absolutely a fetish game. Don't get me wrong, I don't have a thing against fetish games, but to label it as anything else is ludicrous, but that's exactly what the devs have done in the past. They've talked about how this game is sensitive to TG issues, but it comes nowhere close to even touching on that in a good or non-fetishy way. For example, there's a clear disrepency in the amount of male to female transformations vs. female to male transformations (11 to 2). Everything is treated in a lighthearted way as a joke, and in a sexualized way for the sex scenes. If the writing had been to better standard then this would have been a good game, regardless of whether it was for a fetish or not.

Well, let's talk about the elephant in the room: the art. Yes, it's bad. Really bad. It's poorly drawn, with egregious anatomical mistakes, amateurish colouring, and overall displeasing to look at. Back when I was discussing on the forums, I redlined the art to show the mistakes in the anatomy, and the biggest problem the artist had was being able to draw humans with realistic proportions and poses that didn't break their spines. However, one thing that I truly still believe in is the artist's ability to improve, barring he didn't shut criticism out like before. Based on the art of the most recent routes, he's somewhat improved, but it still looks mediocre at best. The art improving is a good thing, though, and if the devs had gone back to improve the art on the early chapters, as well as rewrite routes, the game could have been a more consistent and better game, especially as it was still in Early Access. I can't say the same for the UI or the music, as both felt boring and cheap, and had no discernable improvements.

Is this worth $25? No, as the only thing justifing that price point is the number of routes and the time it takes to get through each bloated one. For $20k raised, there is very little of that seen in the final product, and the level of polish is absent. Something I have yet to mention are the numerous amounts of grammar mistakes and typos throughout the game, which, for $20k, one would think would get caught prior to release as the writing is important in a VN.

I can't even recommend this on sale, like other games I've reviewed. It's just not worth it, and if you think it's "so bad it's good" I can tell you it isn't even that.

What immediately piqued my interest for this visual novel was the art style. It definitely is...unique, to say the least. It gives me mixed feelings in the sense that, yes, it kind of looks terrible to look at, but at the same time it truly distinguishes itself from other VNs and is immediately recognizable as its own thing. Knowing that, I accepted the key that was offered to me by the developer and decided that, if the game had unique visuals such as ASCII art, maybe the story would also hold up.

Unfortunately, unlike the easily distinguishable ASCII art, the story falls completely flat. It is a kinetic VN, thus there are no choices. Because of this, the plot progression is quite important but...It's incredibly mediocre with a bland plot and characters. The worst thing about it is that it's dreadfully boring. I tried to record this for my Youtube channel as a Let's Play and I couldn't continue recording it to completion because I felt no investment in the writing of the game. The plot is the basic of the basics: two people, Sveta (a bank worker) and Vlad (a programmer), who don't like each other are forced to work together and their boss is a jerk and tries hard to stop them from being successful with a website project to avoid paying them. If the plot had strong characters then the overall progression of the events probably wouldn't have weighed so heavily on the overall bland feeling the game has, but since the characters are also written weakly it's difficult to feel any attachment a plot that's already predictable.

Indeed, trying to care for these characters and their relationship to each other is an arduous task. The events of the game feel rushed, and it's easy to finish the game in an hour. The fact that events occur and then are immediately dropped so that the next event can happen messes with the pacing and the characters lose out on essential development as characters and with each other, and this is especially apparent when the game has, at most, three important characters in the entirety of the game. Sveta and Vlad have the minimum of what could be called a character, lacking any nuance that would make them more engaging to the reader. Since I wasn't engaged with either of the characters, I ended up not caring as much for what happened to them, nor did I care about the consequences they would face for not completing the work they were required to do. When the ending rolled around, I wasn't even surprised because, well...it was anticlimactic due to the predictable plot.

The art was different but fine, and the music was probably the best part of this game. The ASCII could have used more variation with the sprites but I understand with ASCII art there's a limited canvas you can work with. There isn't much of a UI to talk about as it's a bar at the bottom of the screen. I did find several grammatical errors, and as VNs rely on writing quite a bit, the errors were distracting, but understandable as I believe English is not the dev's first language.

This VN had the potential to be more but fell short due to shallow characters and a by-the-books plot. There is nothing horrendously bad about the VN, but it barely skates by being considered "passable" due to its mediocrity. If the characters had been developed with more time invested in their characterizations (lengthening the VN time) it would have enhanced the overall experience I had with this VN. If this was the dev's first game, I can understand the short length, and I hope for their future games they are able to improve upon this and create more memorable characters and stories.However, for this VN I don't recommend picking it up, even for the current asking price.

OBJECTION!

Well, you don't actually say anything nearly as dramatic as an Ace Attorney game, but this game by Sketchy Logic is quite a fun adventure. Drawing inspiration from French history and Ace Attorney, Aviary Attorney combines the two by adding its own twist: it's a visual novel/investigation game about birds. More specifically, about animals who happen to have the body of humans. Yes, it does look quite wacky, and no, nobody really brings up the strangeness in the situation.

The game follows the adventures of a defense attorney named Jayjay Falcon, his assistant Sparrowson, Falcon's prosecutor rival Cocorico, and an eclectic cast of characters, all set against the backdrop of 1840s France. Surprisingly, there was quite a bit of research involved with this game, and it manages to make a period of France that isn't as well known really fun to explore. It also uses this period in order to frame a unique narrative that expands across four acts, where the ending actually changes based on the choices made in the game.

This VN uses a blend of traditional choice-based narration and investigation gameplay. During investigations you go around and explore different places in Paris in order to obtain enough evidence to help your defendant walk away with a "Not Guilty" verdict. Unlike Ace Attorney, however, the game doesn't give you the opportunity to collect every piece of evidence. You are limited in the amount of days you have before the trail date, and red herring evidence appears to throw you off. As a result, when it comes to the court case you may very well be underequipped to defend your client. During the trial you are able to press on witness testimonies and present evidence as a counterargument in order to convince the jury, but as I mention earlier, you can easily miss vital pieces of evidence or obtain red herrings. This makes all the trials exciting as there is no fail state - the story continues regardless of the outcome. If you fail to obtain enough evidence, you fail to present a convincing argument to the jury, and in turn your client is declared guilty and hanged. This leads to some pretty grim stuff in the story, if you fail.

The writing is excellent, with distinct character voices with each character in their dialogue and witty lines that make it really enjoyable to read. It's funny and serious at the same time. The plot progresses in a manner that it's difficult to say how things will end, and there are really engaging twists that occur throughout the story. In fact, the game shows it doesn't follow traditional visual novel/investigation style gameplay as seen with the games it's inspired by very early on, and this surprised me as someone who has played Ace Attorney and several VNs. Choices do matter in this game, and they especially influence the ending you get. The choice is presented at the end of act 3 where your choices decide which ending you get - choose to defend Cocorico, stay silent, or fail the trial will result in either of the three endings available. The save system is slightly different from other VNs, where instead of having a save file Days are saved at a time. If you want to redo a choice you have to reload the day where the choice occurred. Of course, if you failed to get the right evidence, you would have to redo the investigation starting at the earliest point of evidence collecting.

The art and music heavily rely on public domain works. This is very similar to the game Four Last Things, and much like that game this game is able to synthesize all the works together into a novel piece. Everything was pleasing to look at in the game, and I think helps to give it its own unique visual style.

If I were to give any cons to this game it would have to be the editing. Many times typos appeared in the game and many lines would be grammatically incorrect. This would have been merely a passing comment in any other game, but for a VN game this is quite important to note. VNs rely heavily on their writing, and thus with errors occurring in the text it takes away from the immersive experience and can become annoying to read. For writing that is so strong, the lack of editing is quite annoying to read.

This game is worth the read, especially if you enjoy investigation type games like Ace Attorney or Danganronpa. It also has a great story, so even if you've never played an investigation game before, if you enjoy whimsical writing and unique scenarios this game will be right up your alley.

Overcooked is delightful. It's an adorable game that has engaging gameplay with a unique premise. If you've ever wanted to channel your inner chef, and then unleash your inner Gordon Ramsay on your friends, this is the game for you.

Overcooked has a fairly simple premise without any extra trimmings. The Beast, in the form of spaghetti and meatballs, desires food. FOOD FOR THE FOOD GOD! But you're a newbie chef! And all you can make is an egg (and you end up burning it)! Thus, the Onion King forces you (and your friends) back in time to 1993 so you can acquire all the necessary skills and knowledge needed to quell the Ancient Hunger.

The game has multiple stages, with each stage varying in difficulty and recipes. No two stages are alike, and recipes are ordered on the screen randomly. Gameplay is really simple as it's a matter of order. If you need meat, you have to cut it and then cook it before putting it on a hamburger, for example. What makes the game tricky is the time limit on every stage, the stage mechanics/hazards, and the necessary points needed in order to obtain stars on each level. The changes in the stage can trip up friends, and the time limit can lead to some craziness. Furthermore, with orders have a time limit of their own (before the customer storms off), orders need to be completed or a penalty will be applied, leading to more work for stars.

All the stages were creative, with a variety of levels taking place in a regular kitchen, a ship, a volcano, the arctic, and even SPACE. The recipes were recipes one would typically see in everyday life, including a hamburger, pizza, soup, fish and chips, and burritos. The devs did a good job changing each area and recipe so that they didn't mirror each other so much that recipes or stages began to overlap and become boring.

The way this game is structured makes it a true couch co-op game. It is absolutely a blast to play with with friends, and the game is able to support 4 players (locally only). This game can get hectic, but never in a way that is unfair. This is probably one of the best co-op games available on Steam. However, because it's so heavily structured around co-op, the single player is a bit more difficult to pull off. Instead of having a singular chef to control, people playing single player have to control two chefs and switch off at the right times in order to successfully complete orders. This is fine for the beginning of the game, but as levels become more and more difficult it becomes harder to keep up with the levels or unlock enough stars to proceed to the next level. At the endgame, I was constantly scraping by with just barely enough stars to proceed to the next level, and if I fell short I would have to get the last star on several stages that were tricky with just one person. The difficulty seems almost too difficult to pull off by oneself unless the person is able to invest enough time into figuring out the stages. To my understanding, with more than one player the amount of points needed to get stars increases, which seems like a fair way to balance the difficulty, though I can't help but feel having two players would make the difficulty scale slightly less steep near the end. If I can play this game again with other people, I will update my review concerning this aspect of the game.

Art and music are top notch, with the game sporting a very cute aesthetic style and memorable stage themes. Sound effects were also great, and I felt like they enhanced the experience by making it cartoony and enjoyable to cook. I also have to commend the sound design on The Beast, as the roar from the boss was mixed incredibly well. The writing in this game, when it exists, was problematic in that it lacked proper grammar and seemed to give the work an amateur quality whenever dialogue showed up. I also found that some scenes ended very abruptly; most noticeably was the ending of the game, where once your trials are all over, the game has no epilogue or ending scene and instead just cuts abruptly to the credits. I think if an ending or epilogue scene were added it would have improved the game's ending.

I followed Overcooked for quite a while before release, and I'm happy to say I really enjoyed the game for everything that it is, despite its frustrating levels at times and minor problems. It's a game that allows people to enjoy it with friends, which I think is a plus. The premise is cute and the gameplay unique, which helps to set it apart from other couch co-op games. The fact that it's local co-op only is a downside (which was added in Overcooked 2), but I don't think this necessarily detracts from the game overall as it was an intentional developer choice. Being as this was their first release, I think it's understandable it has some flaws. I look forward to playing Overcooked 2 and hope it has more chef shenanigans to throw at me!

Well, the game that started the Sakura phenomenom had been sitting in my library for several years now. Aside from playing the first part for my Youtube channel, I hadn't really touched it since then because...well, it's a Sakura game. But, I made it my goal to review every game in my Steam library, so to complete this quest I booted this game up after many years of it sitting idle and...well, I'm not exactly sure what i expected. What I got was a messy visual novel that does the bare minimum to pass as one, just like the clothes in this game.

The game follows our protagonist, Takahiro, who is a rising judo star and apparently so good that he made it into some tournament that's very special. When told to pray at a shrine for good luck, he gets isekai'd (a word, which henceforth means: harem baited in a new world) and ends up in a feudal-era version of his hometown where he meets four girls. Two girls are human defenders of a village, and the other two are fox spirits, and all of them have two traits in common: a big lack of character and a big lack of clothing. Honestly, I don't even remember their names.

The plot involves something about the village getting attacked by spirits, and the humans not liking spirits but then they learn to coexist, and then the spirit that brought Takahiro to that world tells him a way out and...honestly, nobody is here for the plot, are they?

Now, this game doesn't try to hide what it is. I think that's pretty obvious on the tin. And while fanservice games aren't exactly my thing, the fanservice attempts in this game are just so laughably bad. The setups use every play in the "Anime Harem" handbook to get the girls in revealing situations. There isn't even a hint of creativity, nor is there an attempt to make the writing in any way amusing, or at least memorable. The narrative follows the most basic formula that it ends up feeling like uninspired drivel. The entire plot is just as vague as Takahiro's judo career, and just as generic as the four heroines of the game. Even the art of the game feels uninspired. Every female character has the same face, and one or two default sprites. The music continually drones through the same three tracks. It's all dreadfully boring, and I thought I would have gotten an ounce of enjoyment from this for being so bad it's good, but I didn't.

The game runs, which is something I can at least commend the devs on. The UI is fine too. For a visual novel, however, the choices made don't really change the ending at all. There's only one choice, and it only adds one extra scene at the end. The ending itself plays the same way in either "route" - Takahiro helps the girls fend off some evil slimegirl spirits, and then gets whooshed back to his time and wins the tournament. However, he made a promise, so wants to go back to the four girls, and then gets whooshed back. The End..

Since this is their first VN, maybe the other 5...10?...

Wait, how many Sakura games are there?

...20?! Okay, yeah, I hope by their newest one they've at least improved their writing and VN routes.

I don't recommend this unless you like trash, because this is pretty bottom of the barrel trash, and it's not in a laughably bad way, unless you're drunk I guess. It would be easier if you googled the images rather than playing through this.

While by no means perfect, Life is Strange: Before the Storm offers something fans of the original Life is Strange wanted to know: more about Chloe Price and Rachel Amber prior to the original game. The game succeeds at giving a deeper look at both characters that would lay the basis for Life is Strange. The music and art design are still on the same level as the original Life is Strange, and the stories are equally interesting. However, since it is a prequel game, things are already set for the outcome of the characters in Before the Storm, and unfortunately the game never breaks from this to tell something fresh, though it still has interesting plotlines.

Rather than controlling Max or having time rewind powers, the player controls Chloe, Max's friend from the original Life is Strange. Chloe is struggling between being told she has potential and the death of her father, and her life fluctuates between two extremes in the first half of the game. Once she meets Rachel Amber, however, a friendship blossoms, but Chloe also becomes wrapped up in the affairs of what were seemingly perfect people. Much of the drama comes from the plotlines that involve Rachel, and while Chloe deals with her own problems, the driving narrative force is centered on Rachel. Because of this, the first half of the story feels very slow, and is used mostly to build character. While this is fine, I feel like Rachel's character throughout the game was written with less nuance compared to Chloe - on the other hand, since Chloe's interactions with others reflect off of her as a the playable character, I felt I connected more deeply with Chloe's struggles. While I still was surprised at the twists that occurred throughout the plot of the game, I felt like it would have impacted me more had I connected with Rachel more deeply through her character development, and it's unfortunate her character was written more weakly as she is the deutoragonist of this game and a major character.

The other characters of this game were also good, and what I enjoyed was that nobody seemed the way they were initially, which I personally liked as it made me think about my initial gut reaction to characters. It also helped to flesh out characters that would otherwise be two dimensional.

The biggest problem with this game is the fact it's a prequel. By their nature, prequels are hard to write as the outcome of characters that appear in the original and the prequel are already decided, and thus to make a good narrative with them is tricky. An example of a good prequel would be Red Dead Redemption 2, where specific design choices were made to help make the narrative feel exciting to those who played the original. Before the Storm lacks this or the finesse in writing to make a truly engaging narrative, and because of this I feel it's held back. Furthermore, the lack of time rewind powers, while interesting in the sense that your choices truly matter this time around, made this game feel too similar to other story based games (i.e. Telltale games). A minor complaint, but I felt that the time rewind powers were important in setting apart the original Life is Strange from other choice-driven story-based games.

The music, as with the original game, was a main feature, and the developers knew how to time the music to important scenes. I also felt that the art in this game was on the same level as Life is Strange, and that the framing and composition choices were great for conveying emotional scenes.

Overall, while I enjoyed playing the game, the weaknesses in the writing is a setback, as well as its status as a prequel. Furthermore, the game is definitely geared towards those who have played the original Life is Strange, otherwise the impact of the game itself is dulled. I recommend this if you've played and enjoyed the original Life is Strange, and I recommend getting it on sale. If you are new to the series, however, I'd suggest playing the original Life is Strange first prior to this, as I don't believe you will get much enjoyment if this is played first.

My goodness, I love this game. It seems deceptively simple - a 2D puzzle adventure game that lasts, at most, 2 hours. However, the writing. My god, the writing. It's absolutely brilliant. It blends Monty Python with art pieces from the Renaissance era into a quirky and unique game that sets itself apart. It's an utterly hilarious romp, and also a great example of using open source material to create an original piece of work.

The game focuses on a man who has a nightmare of all the sins he's committed, freaks out, and goes to seek redemption from the Church. Unfortunately, sins are much like driving tickets, and in order to be granted salvation by the Church of that country he has to have sinned in that country, thus...he has to recommit all of his sins.

To find salvation in the eyes of the Lord, this man goes on a quest to become the most degenerate person possible, and you head into town and meet strange folk in an attempt to commit all seven deadly sins. Committing these sins are the main puzzles of the game, as you have to have the correct items to interact with people or objects in order to successfully fulfill the sins quota. The puzzles are entertaining, though sometimes a tad tricky. While I never felt any were unfair, I do think there is a bit of trial and error involved in determining what order things are done in and what can be interacted with to be used to solve a puzzle. For example, I was stuck on a puzzle involving the sin of pride, and while I thought I had the solution figured out, it took me a bit more time until I saw a character speak one line that led me to the true solution. Thankfully, the map size is small enough that wandering around the different areas don't feel like a chore.

As you might have guessed from the opening lines of this review, I cannot begin to laud the writing enough. The premise is unique and hilarious (though full of sacrilege!) and perfectly uses its absurd and surrealist tone to deliver a comedic adventure. This absurdist tone is very much inspired by Monty Python, and perhaps even a bit of Mel Brooks' works. The writing itself is the strongest part of the game, though as with all comedy, your mileage may vary! I personally love absurd comedy so this was right up my alley.

There's not much to say about the art considering it's all the works of other artists, though what this game does well is blend pieces of art together seamlessly, making works that are spearated by decades work well with each other. Of course, given that a lot of the art featured are from the medieval era or Renaissance era, there's a lot of...peculiar...pieces, which helps to add to the surreal nature of the game. Truly, the game works better because it relies on the strange nature of the art at the time.

I played the demo before the full release of the game (when it was still a gamejam game) and I loved it then, and I love the new full release here that added many more details and scenarios to accompany a new storyline. The full release is definitely different from the gamejam iteration released before it, so if you played that you can rest easy knowing this game will be a new experience. The only downside to this game I can see would be the price. At an asking price of $8 USD, I feel that it's a tad much for some people with the playtime being roughly 2-3 hours. I personally am fine with it, but if you are concerned about the length for the price, I would wait on a sale.

I absolutely recommend this for people who are into comedy and some unholy fun. Sometimes you really have to sin to win.