Recent reviews by ruar

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Pleasant little adventure game that doesn't take itself too seriously.
Art and music are gorgeous.
Story is "eh", but its enough for what is clearly a parody game. Parody of all the highschool drama shows, trashy horror movies, or anime where students battle eachother to save the world. Humour can be hit and miss, generally its ok, there were some annoying hiccups, but nothing outrageous.
If you're seasoned puzzle solver and expect a challenge - you will be disappointed, but also there wont be any absurd, illogical solutions only solvable with help of a guide. I also really like how game handles time travel mechanic, it allows you retry things or go back to explore in very natural way that doesn't conflict with "approaching doom timer". Overall game feels weirdly satisfying, even with all its flaws.

Little bit of mixed feelings.

I would say game does remarkable job of building heavy atmosphere. It can be beautiful and ugly at the same time. In a good way.
What made biggest imprison on me was sort of twist in convention. Its probably not the first time its done, but its done very well. In most VN about relationships we expect some obstacles that we can eventually overcome. Happy ever after. Thats usually Good Ending. In "Milky Way Prince..." Good Ending is getting out of toxic relationship, not avoiding it, but getting out. Battered and bruised, but little bit wiser. Its finding self-love through hard experiences, even for a price of what you thought was your destined romantic love. It works really well if your first instinct is to save said romance.

Things to which i have some mixed feeling are characters. They are more like bare bones representation of a certain type of relationship, rather than fleshed out characters. Its has its pros of not distracting the viewer with irrelevant things, but... at the same time i think there could be job done better on picturing said relationship. I entered the game already feeling uneasy. In times where I should feel the same euphoria as Nuki... i felt almost anxiety. Because of that, mood swings that should shock me, were kind of expected.
Game can also feel confusing or ranty at times, but i guess thats the point. Its not meant to be bubbly and straightforward love story.

Wants an actual problem is no SKIP option, no manual saves. Like many games of this sort "Miliky Way Prince..." has multiple endings and how it often happens, getting to those require going through almost identical story over and over... and god, those moments of heavy silence, pauses between lines that build atmosphere in first playthough, become insufferable when you repeat the game and cant skip them. Way to sour the whole experience! Especially that i think that player should experience all 3 endings to really appreciate it.

A surprisingly good game. I expected some tedious basic platformer variation while game tells me "the message" (since often this is enough to amass positive reviews).

While it may feel clunky at the beginning, gameplay is genuinely great. After finding all the items, secrets, getting every achievement... i still fee urge to turn on the game and just glide through the sky or board a boat. Things that I often see as annoying, here felt actually pleasant and relaxing.

Oh, and there is a "message" here, but "a Short Hike" is golden example of "show not tell". Nobody actually spells you life advises or dissect story of their life. All the game tells you is: "go on a short hike".
And then you figure it out yourself... Or you don't, you just enjoy the wind and take in warm colors. And that's great too.

Does this game has unique aesthetics and charm? Yes!
Simple but weirdly addictive gameplay? Yes!
Maybe some deeper meaning and message to modern society? Maybee..
You know what it also has? Achievements locked to new DLC. You started game, you want to finish it? Buy DLC!
I think this is what we professionally call a "♥♥♥♥ move".
Do I care about 100% games? Absolutely not!
Do you know what i care about? People doing me ♥♥♥♥ moves.

2d dopamine

For a free game its actuall amazing game. Its more of a visual candy, not much of a story there, but it has quality art and nice voicing.

👍

I'm far from saying this is best RPG ever, or even close to being best - there are some plot holes, contradictions and sometimes you feel like your character doesn't really have a reason to go on with a plot... But I really liked this game.
Word is interesting, atmosphere is great, NPCs are lovable.

Hustle Cat is weirdly good game.
Why weirdly? When i look at it objectively - story is messy, rules of "world" seem to switch from person to person, some things are super problematic in one route while being presented as minor and fixable in other route. Additionally its not perfect when it comes to technical stuff - lack of skip button in VN is just ridiculous (problem fixable with auto-clicker ;P nonetheless annoying).
But heck, I love this game. Art is not perfect but really really decent, most of characters are likeable, world (even if messy and chaotic) interesting. Plus i love option to customize your character (maybe not big variety of choices, but still something to play with).
Hustle Cat might not work very well as a "whole" because of all inconsistency between routes, but it works great as couple of separate stories. This game is not without flaws, but its definitely worth trying.