Recent reviews by Meltup

Amber's Magic Shop is an interesting story about dark elf girl becoming master alchemist and finding her love. Game has visual novel mode with crafting being fully cut out and plot feels to remain relatively solid in it (game will politely ask if player wants heroine to succeed or fail at creating story related potions).
Timewise the game is divided into two parts:

1. Teenager stage when Amber is learning the craft - this part is more concentrated on visual novel component of the game since there are a lot of characters to meet and get to know;

2. Adult stage when Amber starts to run her own shop and new significant challenges appear in her life. In this part we also define Amber's sexuality, what romance she is going to follow with time and, obviously, the game focus shifts to crafting (since adult life is significantly less eventful and consists of work, work and work... salt of life! >.<)

The game presents new alignment system: Dark vs Light. At first it may look tricky and it is easy to fall into the trap of "Wrong and Right choices". However things are not so simple. Amber has alignment herself and each relationship with potential love interesting has it's own alignment. Whenever we make a choice we shift alignment of the relationship between 17 (including zero) positions on the scale and add the same amount of Dark/Light points to the pool of Amber.

Amber's alignment has only two states: Dark and Light. Depending on alignment, Amber will say and react slightly different to some events but do not expect too much - character has her own solid personality so the influence of alignment will be the most noticeable in remarks of annoyance, threatens, etc... and the ending of main plot line.

Relationship's alignment corresponds to personality traits, around which romance revolves, and fully determines how the romance goes. Did you see those hearts on relationship page? Forget about them! They are just decoration. All that matters is the final position of relationship on the Dark-Light scale and note - the end positions have their own ending and meaning: Dark Plus and Light Plus.

Overall I feel that this system is significant improvement in romance dynamics, comparing to other games. Endings are different and game provides enough freedom to manage choices (it is possible to shift romance into one end of the scale and then back into another within a single playthrough). Although the player has to be quite perceptive to get the most desired ending on the first run and it definitely leaves a feeling of Light Plus romance to be safe choice (but not necessarily the best one!)

What doesn't look good are some mechanics appearing in Adult age. To be exact, the definition of Amber's sexuality and narrowing to single romance path.

With sexuality it is simple - we choose what romance categories to follow: otome, polyamory and/or yuri. In my opinion it looks a bit awkward since different playthrough may have completely different feel of interactions and way better would be to allow choosing individual romances rather than whole groups. Especially that we pay a harsh price for it: once potential love interest is out then we may only see that character in the backgrounds.

With narrowing to single romance path it is a bit more complex. After some events game will politely ask to drop one romance - with that we will get a small scene of Amber writing a letter (or meeting with said person) and explaining that she is no longer interested in them. And after another set of events the situation will repeat until only one romance path left. Nice but problem is that romances have different dynamics and game seems to not care if player dropped any choices on sexuality stage - decision has to be made sooner than later.

The game incorporates elements of both crafting and dating simulator and does relatively good job at it (though crafting may need some polishing). Characters are quite interesting, the art is good. The biggest complain would be about game not utilizing enough it's music: some pauses are noticeable in visual novel mode and crafting seems to go in almost complete silence (which makes it to feel more tedious than it really is). But I can't say it was too critical.

I definitely enjoyed the game and recommend it.

I am honestly surprised by the story depth and perspective of this visual novel, considering it being completely free. But that is understandable as the game seems to be a second project of young Indie studio. To summarize all:

++ Good plot with a few unexpected turns;
++ Likeable characters with motives revealed more in their own routes (you won't see full picture just by going through one path);
+ Nice though very limited amount of music and CG.

After finishing the game I definately felt the need for more: a bit more choices to branch the story, more art, more music... eh! But the game is worth it!

Recommended to be played if you are into visual novels or just want to try the genre.

The game itself consists of 15 small episodes, featuring a full day of Minaduki household's 6 catgirls life and Shigure taking care of them. Episodes are different - some of them I find boring but some are quite fun ^_^ However, do not expect too much - it is a merely fan-disk to Nekopara Vol. 1. But unlike Vol.1 this game doesn't focus solely on Chocola and Vanilla and seems to not have any problems with Windows 8 compatibility.
So you definitely should get this game if:
1. you are a fan of Nekopara series or into nekos*
2. you like anyone of the presented heroines*
3. you want anime cards/backgrounds

*This game also has an interesting feature to pet nekos and play with their tummy and breasts. Quite relaxing thing... I mean petting! ^_^"

P.S. Nice fact: the game costs only 2.99$ while 4 cards you get can be easily sold for about 4-8$. So if you are looking for several free dollars then go on.

Note: this review is about the situation with relaunching Planetary Annihilation as Planetary Annihilation: Titans and was made as a small parody on the http://gtm.steamproxy.vip/id/vixenly/recommended/386070/ where it was shamefully deleted from comments. Feel free to use it if something (as I definately do not want to even bother myself with PA:Titans):

I've kind of been ashamed of my generation of gamers after reading some of these comments and reviews.
People who backed PA are happy that they did get PA:Titans for free, so instead of thinking about company behaviour (because apparently a little over 10 dollars is worth of a good opinion), they write any positive review and publish it.

I ask most humbly, have you considered that a seperate release brings the game into damnation? That it pushes away old players, weakens a foundation for the community, and shows that Uber really doesn't want to get back into the good graces of their players? They gave a free copy to their 40,000+ kickstarter backers and ask everyone else who owned the game to buy it again for a very strange price. How entitled have we gotten as gamers? Have we forgotton that it takes SOUL to make games, that we wouldn't have a lot of products and amazing revivals if there were ONLY MONEY pouring into development?

Wait until PA:Titans goes on sale in a year if you must. Buy it at 5 dollars and condemn devs after a new relaunch like this time with PA:Titans. Make it your personal mission to be upset when you are asked to give even more money for it. Or, you know what? Don't spend the 13 dollars. Most games may charge more but for a DLC of this or even greater magnitude to the original game. It really is something new on the market of 21th century. It isn't what you think you were promised in Alpha and Beta. It's what Uber decided to do, based on NOT-sharing their opinions and ideas with game community, and the lack of thinking about their customers, about YOU. Let's focus on what they have done for once, and not what we hope, alright?

To anyone who is looking for a modern RTS with an amazing sense of scale, super fun and interesting units, AND WHO DO NOT WANT TO GET UPSET WITH A SUDDEN CRAZY IDEAS OF DEVELOPERS - wait. Do not buy PA:Titans.

A very nice and touching game. In short, it is a story telling how love, fate and a bit of magic can bring a miracle into one's life :) The characters are different and very well developed - their behaviour and actions are logical and follow the main line and your choices.

The only thing I would like to point out is that I can't call this game a "dating sim" (unlike of what I thought at first look). The game has only two-three kiss scenes - not even one per route. But it does have a great story during which our heroine develop different kinds of relationships with other characters. And if she ends up with one of them, then it is what will truly bring her happiness.

Recommended to be bought if you are into visual novels.