Recent reviews by rainbowthefox

Like other reviewers have said, this game seems to have a bug that crashes it or prevents it from starting for different reasons. For my first play-through, it worked fine, but on my second attempt, it now crashes after the developer's intro screen, and you have to look into Discussions and dig through files to find a 'fix'. I wish this wasn't necessary and the game just continued to work like it's supposed to. If I'd have known it would start crashing, I would've tried finishing everything in one play-through.

Devs, PLEASE fix your game before releasing and offering it for a higher price than on Big Fish Games!!

This game is virtually unplayable because the beginning cutscene starts and ends on a dark screen. Clicking around does nothing and no matter how much I change the settings/resolution, the environment just will not load. Other reviewers say more bugs and glitches exist in the game - please fix all of these, otherwise I can't say it's justified even buying this game, even on sale for 5 bucks.

The only disappointment was the lack of the Little Girl. :( I was hoping for more of her banter with Grimoire and, while we did get Sally as hinted in the last game, I thought she'd have been included with the map or hints again as she seemed to want to be involved with Grimoire's case of tracking down the hunters from the last game.

Again, though, the music and art is beautiful. It seems every game has a switch of style, and they're all beautiful! I appreciated the return of Grimoire and Sally's VAs, and the callbacks to the previous game. (Though, I do wonder how the department and James feel about Grimoire & Sally running off to really solve this grand case on their own?) I confess, even though there were plenty of hints & explanation to source story - it didn't feel so much as a sequel. I really was hoping for it to be outright stated Richard Remington was in that last photo. But, the story does do justice with it being a continuation - I just felt there could have been more hints when there were chances.

One thing I wasn't particularly fond of was the amount of puzzles. I got stuck early on because I couldn't solve some. I'm fortunate there's a YouTube walkthrough, but without a Guide on here at the moment, I can see players just getting stuck. Puzzles had hints, but the hints weren't obvious themselves -- it may just be that I'm bad at puzzles, but the ones in the last game felt much more easier to get through, and a lot less of them. At one point my inability to solve the puzzles stopped me from progressing through the story.

The mystery itself was well-constructed and for a near 6 hour playthrough, everything felt smoothly transitioned. I do have my complaints about the murderer revealing themselves at an abrupt moment while we're still piecing things together. I feel as if it could've been moved just a taaad bit later, or for us to confront them like we had done in the last game. The characters were interesting as well as their designs, and the environment is beautiful!

I do hope this series gets continued despite it feeling like an end, I do adore Detective Grimoire as a character and I'd love to see more of him. Great work on the game, and I can say, it was worth the wait, though I was wondering if this game would ever come! Thank you for putting such great effort into it!

Definitely worth it to get the game if it's on sale. Otherwise, I wouldn't recommend paying full price.

It's a rather short HOG that wraps up its story fairly quickly. For a reasonable price, it's a nice game to play through because it's at *least* playable. But for $6, I wouldn't recommend it. It has its own little technical issues, like a black loading screen popping up every time you change locations, withdraw from a Hidden Object scene, etc. The cut to these is always sharp and lags the game play slightly. Sometimes the volume is out of control with the voices and background noises (one scene has a REALLY LOUD creaking light that constantly repeats, and nearly every rusted door you open makes the same, loud groan). Not to mention how big the map gets as you progress through the game, and you are unable to jump locations. You physically have to travel room-by-room, and that can get exhausting with the loading screens.

Then there comes the issue with the Hidden Object scenes themselves - these are exceptionally hard to play because it includes finding very thin objects, like pins and tiny designs. Sometimes the lighting/coloring of the scenes make some things impossible to catch, and includes a million of various things lying about that get in the way of finding them. Definitely not something to play just for the Hidden Object scenes.

Otherwise, the game takes an interesting stab at The Great Gatsby source. It wraps up the story of the novel fairly quickly, and it's an intriguing take to what Gatsby's mansion would've looked like. You visit locations that are callbacks to the book, and I'd say it does a decent job respecting the original story. However, I should mention the voice acting could've been performed much better - some lines are delivered without any emotion at all. But the art is actually very well-done, especially in the cutscenes. I wouldn't play the game for its story if you had already read the book, but possibly for how well the art is done.

Again, it has its technical issues that I wouldn't recommend paying full-price for, but at a discounted price, I think it's worth the 2-hour playtime. I'd very much prefer more realistic HOGs like these, that don't include magic or dragons or fairy tales. It's a great break from the typical 'fantasy' genre most HOGs are set in, but isn't anything groundbreaking.

I was interested in this game due to the preview images and video it had - the artwork looked splendid, but unfortunately, that's the only positive to this game.

The storyline is a little typical and offers nothing new, having the protagonist's loved one "in trouble" and needing to 'save' them. The main characters are uninteresting as we get to know nothing about them in the introduction besides their marriage problems, and are jumped in right away to save our kidnapped wife without learning a single thing about her. There's no incentive anywhere. If the game had gradually built up to what it wanted to setup for the game, giving us some time to learn more about the characters and the location, then everything wouldn't feel so rushed and like we're 'jumped' into it right away.

My main issue with this game that caused me to request for a refund under 20 minutes of play was that it crashed first thing on me. When I finally got it to work, the gameplay lagged and there was no option to change the quality anywhere. I suffered through and found that every time the game cuts into a new scene, or you withdraw from something, you are left with a blank screen for 10 seconds at minimum. This was really aggravating considering there are lots of scenes that cut, and it really eats into gameplay time.

The dialogue and voice acting are both executed terribly. The protagonist sounds like he cares very little about any situation he's in, and the ghosts are embarrassing just to hear. I can't stand sitting through the cut scenes because they take so long, they're painful to hear, and they really build up little tension or story in their time. It's better just to skip them, really.

I wouldn't recommend this game unless you can stand the lag or it fixes this issue. Not looking very bright for a newly-released HOG, as there are different games with similar setups that are executed much better and with more quality. This one only has good art - but the acting, pacing, and gameplay are unbearable.

The best way to describe this game is a trip. A very long, confusing, intriguing, and beautifully-made one, at that. I loved the blend of what was real and what wasn't in the previous chapters, but this one takes quite a turn with the story. I was confused with reality and dream, and things took a long, long time to complete. I searched up more walkthroughs than I did prior to this chapter. This one certainly stands out from the rest - and as an ending, I have to say that it's up to the player to determine whether it's satisfying or not.

The puzzles in the game have been subjectively easy or difficult. I found that in this one, things either were unnecessarily long or weren't as obvious to figure out. The middle of the dreamscape, in specific. The switch of the map was either aggravating or just downright confusing at times. And I found myself confused with what to do next. The pacing in this partcular chap was all over the place. You eventually come to a point where you have many places to go with many items in your inventory, and for a point-and-click game, that can sometimes be overwhelming.

My biggest complaint would be the sudden importance of choice in this chapter. In the last ones, I felt as if I was playing through the story doing what I had to do, not interacting with the events. But in this one I felt that whatever I did was optionally done, as the choices in here got real questionable for Victor's character. I was doing things I felt were supposed to be happen, but got cruel results for doing them. It was uncomfortable, and I'd like to replay, but there is nothing telling you what was optional and what wasn't.

As for the ending, I'm not a fan. All the work we've spent trying to shut the machine down, only to have it take our own child and put Victor into an endless "coma" was...emotionally touching, but dissatisfying, at the least. I understand that things don't always turn out how they seem and we don't have to get "happy endings", but with all the work the player puts through to complete the game, an ending where the work we did paying off would've been nice.

But, again, these are just my thoughts for the game. I love it and all the time and effort you spent into this. I definitely recommend this - despite the "different", creepy design, it's really touching and fun to play through. Thank you for such a wonderful game!

I used to play the Demo of this game a lot before I found it on Steam. I really liked it and was hyped to find the full game and had my brother gift me it ASAP.

The scenery art for the characters is well done, though the eyes stick out oddly. I like how touching the story is and how many aspects are still mysterious no matter what character you choose to go with. The *POTENTIAL SPOILER* murder scene had me on the edge of my seat and actually creeped me out. The atmosphere is really well done here and each scene has its own unique feeling. Specifically the school because it gives off this eere vibe.

The training, however...is probably the only thing conflicting me in the game. It gets harder every time you train a certain trait. Nothing wrong with that but there's little explanation as to what you need to train to get through to finish your character's path. Once you die/reach a dead end, you get a message finally telling you what you need and you have to start over. All of that work just to get a character's ending didn't intrigue me too much.

But this is a good anime-styled game! Not too focused on romance and instead works on revealing the character's past more. This isn't something for people who want to just date guys but is more of a game for people who want feels. Definitely recommended.

Who doesn't enjoy this game?

The art is magnificent and brings a creative twist to lineless styles. I started playing this game a bit later while it was still in early access and I found to enjoy that just a tad bit better before the full release. The updates and new music are really good, though! I enjoy hearing the sound of traditional instruments and some of the new official maps they released are really good.

I only have a couple of complaints about it but that's it. Before the full release, I had all of the achievements for the game. As soon as the major update hit, most of my achievements were taken away while the new ones were added. The new achievements were just copies of the ones I had already made beforehand. To go through the trouble of doing a specific thing again just isn't my forte. I really would have wished they kept some of these achievements for me so I still would have had a completed game.

The new ranking system I'm really iffy on. Beforehand, a defeat would cost you greatly but it awarded generously. Now, losses and winnings are distrubted much smaller. It'll take ages for me to climb up the ladder to Bronze compared to the progress I made before. I really would have wished they kept the process as they way it was but it's good if you get defeated a lot I guess.

It's not the WORST game.

It has an interesting story and characters. The setting is nice and the background art is really well done. However, the 3D modeling could use some work as well as the animation. It isn't smooth, but if it were an old game, it would be forgiven. The voice acting and jokes are really good but it just takes up a lot of time within the game. You really should give the option of skipping dialogue, especially after we've heard it.

As I said, it isn't the worst, but it's not the BEST. I was interested in the story and the art was really well done in the introduction. As for the gameplay, it could use some work revolving around typical point & click games. Let us skip dialogues, give us a button to access inventory, and make the characters move a little bit faster. With those alone, this game could be more tolerable.

It's alright.

The graphics for the arm/hand could be improved. If the cutscene played once, I don't think we should play through it again automatically. I'm glad there's an option to skip it, though. The storyline was really ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ confusing and I was lost playing through the whole thing. The ending's twist didn't make much sense, either. If this was a sequel to a previous game then it'd be acceptable, but I'd rather play a game itself where you don't have to rely on the one before it in order to understand what's going on. A more brief explanation in the introduction would've helped nicely.

It's cool if you like HOGs and horror-theme, but I wouldn't recommend it for anything else.