Recent reviews by CocoBear

Amazing horror atmosphere if you like the Saw movies. Made me feel horrible in a good way.

Gets slow and repetitive toward the end if going for completion. You'll need patience to 100% it. Worth it for me but not for everyone.

In any case recommended to experience the first couple hours at least. Best played in VR.

Okay but very overrated. The gameplay isn't great, it's walking around big empty maps and hoping you didn't miss picking up an item tucked in the corner. They put in some cute gimmicks but didn't exactly enhance the experience personally. Writing is okay but not great, most characters aren't fleshed out at all and didn't give me a reason to care about them.

Good pacing and at 10 hours doesn't overstay its welcome. It does have difficult parts where you will die and be frustrated, but it's manageable if you've played Ninja Gaiden and Soulslikes. I like that it has some quirky parts to space out the action.

Loading screen meme did not age well, wish I could disable it.

Got this on sale on a whim. I'm really happy I took the chance and read it. The only thing I knew going in was that it was made by Frontwing, makers of the Grisaia trilogy, which I found okay and a bit overhyped.

I am so glad I went in with no expectations, as the ISLAND writer takes delight in making you think the story is going one way and pulling the rug out from under you. It is a very enjoyable story, and great characters.

Some story bits remain somewhat unclear even after clearing 100%. Fortunately there are passionate readers who cleared up some of the confusions in the Steam Discussions, after you've 100%'d the story.

Recommend.

Game was good. My expectations were low due to reviews, so the game easily beat those expectations. Definitely worth it on sale.

Fun missions. Side missions were actually good and not too cookie cutter repetitive.

Biggest problem was crashes. Crashed almost every other play session, and multiple times during the final missions.

I liked the story. Some complain about the story feeling unfinished and "sequel bait," but I think veterans of the Deus Ex series may be able to connect the dots just fine.

Mankind Divided and whole series spoilers: Many references to the original Deus Ex game, a bunch of the pieces in place like Bob Page, Illuminati, Manderley, cloning. Janus looks a lot like Daedalus from the original Deus Ex. I wouldn't be surprised if the next entry, if we get one, jumped from year 2030 to 2050 and was a reimagining or expanded remake of the original Deus Ex. The new story threads from Mankind Divided could be addressed with flashbacks or the in-game eBooks. Every little detail doesn't need to be spelled out, the connections from Mankind Divided to Deus Ex are already there, just need a bit of imagination to fill in the blanks.

Disappointing.

Disrespectful of the reader's time. Repetitive. So many hours of filler.

Storytelling consists of plot twist on top of plot twist that never completely come together in the end, with an unsatisfying and anticlimactic ending.

You can tell you're in for a bad time when the writers try to give themselves an out a couple times, like "this plot hole happened for a reason!" or going meta "if this were a game, then obviously X would happen, but that's way too predictable for real life!"

Dull characters. They do grow on you over the 30 hour read, but in the end they are forgettable. I enjoy slice-of-life scenes in most VNs and anime, but not here, because the characters were so boring.

Plot twists mess with the characters' personalities and motivations so much, that by the end it's difficult to care about anyone. There is no character growth, only random transformation.

I read this first, then Cartagra and finally Kara no Shojo 2. Highly recommended to read them all if you get a chance (although Cartagra was an early work by Innocent Grey and it shows). Now one of my favorite visual novel series.

The melancholy atmosphere and story are incredible, and well supported by the superb art style and music.

My first Yakuza game. First ten hours lots of minigames and humor, then the story starts getting going. I was blindsided by how good the story and writing got, and it retained a little bit of cheese the whole way through, and I was thoroughly and completely sucked in by the end.

Best VR experience I've had. Played on Vive. Very happy with this entry to the Half Life series as a longtime fan.

It is classic and a short and sweet story, no excuse not to read it. Good English translation.