Recent reviews by cranberrycolour

Really disappointed with this game. The concept is fun and the artstyle is really cute! I like the mix of 2D and 3D. If the game was actually functional it would probably be fun. Unfortunately, actually playing this game is like herding cats.

I cannot believe this game isn't in early access. I've played plenty of early access games that aren't this slapped together. It's buggy to the point of it nearly being unplayable! Mind you, I was playing exclusively singleplayer so it's not like this was any kind of latency or instancing issue.

Exiting the game and reloading sometimes (returning to the main menu isn't enough) fixes certain bugs but others persist even when you reload. I got softlocked once during a quest (the NPC required to advance a quest completely disappeared from the world) and had to revert to an earlier save.

Other issues include:
➞ The English translation is not good at all and there's some bits that are still in Chinese.

➞ The quest logs are incredibly vague and unclear. The dialogue randomly skips forward!! so you kinda need the quest log to tell you what to do...

➞ The combat is clunky. It plays like a port of a cheap mobile game. And even on 2x speed it's so. painfully. slow.

➞ This is forgiveable but I wanna mention that the controls are really slippery and greasy. It's less running around and more skating. This is not great when you're trying to work on the farm.

All in all, this game might be great after some TLC but right now I feel completely ripped off.

Honestly, I assumed that this game was going to be kinda a bore to actually play, but I was willing to tough it out for the story. I don't think I could have been more wrong. I don't know what kinda crack cocaine they put in these fetch quests but there is something really addictive in just... delivering. I really enjoyed experiencing the environment and problem-solving while trying to traverse it. It's relaxing at times and stressful at others, and to me it always felt earned, never forced.

I bought this game on discount because I was wary but I'll be there day one whenever the sequel gets ported. Might even book a day off work for it, hehe

Should add: I really did enjoy the plot too, but the gameplay being fun shocked me considerably so it warranted more discussion LMAO

Now I wanna start by saying that I really did like the general premise, characters, art style, and even the unique presentation of this VN. There's a lot to like here and the plot was intriguing enough that I did end up playing through every single ending.
...But unfortunately the prose is pretty rough to get through. It was very "purple prose" and on top of that, there isn't a consistent tone at all. It jumps from exceedingly formal to very casual, sometimes in the same textbox. I'm not sure if this is a translation issue (I played in English) but at least for the English localisation it was insufferable.
It's really unfortunate because I want more toxic GL but this VN was just not it.

Just a mess... The plot is abstract, and I can definitely appreciate that in other works but this is way, way too abstract. It's impossible to follow what's going on and the plot is straight up nonsensical most of the time. And it's casually nonsensical too, like what's revealed about halfway through the story: "Oh by the way you have a brain chip implanted in your head and you live in Atlantis." Like huhh?? Did I miss a memo or something??

Plot aside the actual gameplay seems pretty busted. Or maybe it's intentional, it's hard to tell with the plot. But you can get stuck 'looping' choices until you pick the 'correct' one which is kinda frustrating. The font that's used is really, really unfriendly to read too. I do think the font fits the aesthetic of the game but it's just miserable to read, especially when the text is all caps, which it occasionally is. Oh, and the achievements are completely broken (as of the time of this review), just as the icing on the cake.

The only thing I can give any praise to is the art and aesthetic. The art's super crisp and there's a fair amount of it so it's engaging in that sense. The aesthetic is actually what tempted me to play the game and it's consistent throughout the story.

I grabbed it at a steep discount for a few bucks but even that felt like a rip-off. Steer clear!!