Recent reviews by Leaf [DG]

Weak cast, glacially slow pacing. The only entry in the SciADV series that I don't recommend.

At ~30 hours in I've had enough. I don't value my time enough but this game has given me standards.

A common complaint I see leveled against this and the other entries is that they take a while to get going. Chaos;Head and Robotics;Notes in particular took me a while to warm up to, but those had much more interesting characters to carry their slice of life elements. Here there's none of that. I saw the main big reveal in Chapter 8 and felt NOTHING because of how many times I've fallen asleep while trying to consume this narrative.

Reading Chaos;Head first also colored my expectations. There, the atmosphere was tense, and the delusion triggers felt like a creative way to explore the characters' psyche instead of a tacked-on element that is mainly used for "what if ___" decisions in fanservice-oriented scenarios. Takumi hid from his own narrative so it came to him, while Takeru is actively choosing the path of a detective and doing a whole lot of nothing.

I'm sure the plot eventually goes somewhere, but I've had enough.

I'm glad the world hasn't ended yet.

Because, among many other reasons, I got to experience this wonderful work of art. This is a perfect example of why I firmly believe that video games, more than books or film, have much more potential when it comes to delivering powerful, emotional stories. They aren't bound by the same rules. Not limited by format, structure, or even the expectations of the audience. Anything is possible.

This game is incredible. It's also impossible to really describe without spoiling why it hits so hard.

Just be prepared to cry. A lot.

Don't let my short playtime fool you. The game only launched on Steam yesterday.

Katawa Shoujo, and the fanworks inspired by it, have been running as a background process in my mind since 2014. I booted it up for the first time in almost 10 years, and I feel like I never left.

I don't think any combination of words could adequately summarize what this game means to me. It shook to me to my core during one of the darkest times of my life, and no game, no work of fiction has ever surpassed it.

There are games with more nuanced and deeper gameplay. There are games that are more "enjoyable" to play. At the end of the day, this is just a bunch of anime character portraits and prose that will make you cry, think, and move forward. It is very much a product of its time, and if you're not into anime tropes or early 2010's internet culture, I get it. You had to have been there. You had to have been a very specific type of nerd.

But for me, this is it. This is the game.

This is the one that changed my life.

It's kinda like Mario Party, only replace the minigames with a dice-based combat system, tons and tons of characters to play as (and they keep adding more) all with unique abilities and cards to play.

A friend gifted this to me and I cannot stop. If this at all looks like your cup of tea, stay away. This game is pure addiction.

Thankfully the in-game shop only uses in-game currencies you get by playing. This has not prevented me from buying every single piece of DLC.

It autosaves every line of dialogue, and there's no way to manually save. So, despite the linearity of the story, I'd argue that your choices do matter. Because once you make them, you're !@#$ing stuck with them unless you'd like to start again from the beginning.

This isn't a good thing.

Unlike every other visual novel on the market, text doesn't advance on mouse click. You can't click just anywhere on the screen. You have to click on the tiny little "Continue" arrow beneath the text box, which is a third the size of the continue button I'm seeing on the store page screenshots. This is a minor QoL issue which amounts to making this thing kind of a pain to read.

In spite of these issues, I was enjoying the writing. Up until I came to the realization that there's a set time limit to the story. It overwhelms you with quests and sidequests and expects you to do multiple playthroughs if you want to actually experience all of it.

Time management could be a fun feature... but then you realize that there's no save system, and they expect you to re-read those same scenes again and again by being very precise with where you leave your mouse pointed.

I can't. I just can't. I'm !@#$ing done.

If you're interested in the setting, play Bloodlines. Don't bother yourself with this trite.

I first found out about this game ages ago thanks to LittleKuriboh (of Yu-Gi-Oh Abridged fame)'s roleplaying Let's Play of it. It looked interesting. I added it to my wishlist. Bought it on a Steam sale, and then it festered in my backlog for far, far too long.

I finally got around to playing it, and I hate myself for not doing it much sooner. There are good games. There are cult classics. And there are games that exceed all of your expectations.

This game came out in 2004. If I played this on release day, when I was going through my Goth+Metal phase as an edgy teenager, there is no doubt that this would be my favorite game of all time. Playing it for the first time today, it's still up there.

The amount of player freedom. The voice acting. The atmosphere. The music. Everything about it holds up so well today.

It's Fallout: New Vegas with vampires. If that sounds remotely interesting to you, play this game.

But definitely apply the unofficial patch first, because it'll be a buggy broken mess on modern systems without it:

https://www.moddb.com/mods/vtmb-unofficial-patch

It's so unofficial that an old version of it comes preinstalled on the GOG version.

Just as good as To the Moon, though for completely different reasons.

It's full of overwhelminglyness.

Well this a hidden gem if I ever saw one. It was sitting in my Steam library for years before I finally got around to playing it too. I don't know what took me so long.

Everyone praises the XCOM games. I don't get the appeal. I think the tactical combat in it is fantastic, but everything else seems more than a little lacking. Take that type of gameplay and apply it to a proper RPG, though? Now you're speaking my language. Harebraned Scheme's Shadowrun series is that, and I loved those games. Expeditions: Conquistador is that in a historical setting.

It does a few things different from the games I'm comparing it to though. For one thing, the percentage to hit mechanic only applies to ranged weapons. This doesn't make the game easier or less frustrating. Instead it forces you to change your tactics with almost every battle. The battlefields are extremely varied too, and overall this game is much harder than any of the Shadowrun games.

There's a bit of The Oregon Trail in here too. It's up to you to properly manage resources such as rations, medicine, and your party's morale. You can only travel so far per day and the game is filled with random events that will screw you over or help you out.

As for the roleplaying options and historical accuracy, well, it's gonna depend on how you form your party. You choose who joins before the game begins. So you can go in with an all white male party of racists, or you can go with a more modern gender balance and an emphasis on open minded people. It's up to you. There's also a random button and I highly recommend going that route if you want to hear everyone's collective groans with every other decision you make, as you're unable to make everyone happy no matter what you do.

It's pretty awesome. I highly recommend it.

うぷぷぷぷ...

So, let me get this straight, the only reason (other than Persona 4 Golden) to get a PS Vita is now on Steam... and not just for Windows, but Linux and Mac as well? Am I dreaming?

Danganronpa is one of the better visual novels I've played. It wears it's influences on it's sleeve, being heavily inspired by Persona and the Ace Attorney series (the Japanese dub even refers to the class trials as gyakuten saiban). If you're a fan of either of those, this is definitley worth checking out. It's also got a lot of gameplay compared to most games in it's genre, so don't be put off by thinking you'll only be reading.

Being a murder mystery game that relies heavily on subverting player expectations, it is also incredibly easy to spoil. If you're at all interested, don't go looking up anything about the game. Just play it. You won't regret it.

Oh, and it's soundtrack is to DIE for. Seriously one my favorite soundtracks of all time.