Seneste anmeldelser af Nubi, Toa of Gaming

Great combat and movement, quirky pawn concept, but very clunky and outdated UI that feels stuck in the PS2 era with no effort at all being put into making it intuitive to navigate on PC.

And why, oh why can I not create more than one character?! Why must I erase my previous playthrough just to start a new game?

This is what Fallout 5 should be.

Where is Bob?

I cannot comprehend how the developer of The Pirate's Fate (one of the best visual novels I've ever played) can have anything to do with this (one of the worst visual novels I've ever played...)

This game warms my furry little heart.

An incredible game with an absolutely amazing soundtrack, but how come that, even after a year since its release, the OST for this game is still not available for purchase?!

I want to give you my money, guys! Why won't you let me?!

Man, I was enjoying this game so much, as you can tell by the amount of hours I spent in it, but it really drops the ball story-wise and tone-wise somewhere midway through, and I just don't feel like continuing to play anymore.

Basically, a large portion of the story sets up certain characters as antagonists, but then it expects you to side with them because of a supposedly larger threat (even though said threat isn't as well-established throughout the game as the threat of these certain characters have been). Seeing as the game doesn't have any story choices, you don't have a say in the matter. You can either agree to join a criminal gang or not be able to continue the main story anymore.

Following that, the story overall takes a wildly different tone from what the game has been so far. Talks of war, invasions, and conspiracies would be fine in a different type of game, but for a game like this, which I believe presents itself as a cozy life sim, it seems really bizarre and unnecessary. I play these types of games to escape from depressing real-life topics like war and betrayal, so the game just stopped being fun and lost its charm for me.

I know it is a tired review cliche to say "I wanted to like this game", but it's really true here. I'm a big Danganronpa fan, so this game, on the surface, should be right up my alley. You've got your quirky, over-the-top cast of 16 teens/young adults, you've got your mysterious entity trapping them in one location and making them play weird "games" etc, but that's pretty much where the similarities end.

My biggest disappointment with Friendly Facade is its lack of choices. There are choices, of course, and it's not like they don't matter, but it's just that when the choices would matter the most, you don't get any. You pretty much only get choices during the various challenges that the Golding Foundation puts you through. Challenges which I found to be creative in their setup, but tedious in their execution. Out of the three chapters that have been currently released, only the challenge in the first chapter did I find engaging, and that was because this challenge gives you more information about the characters – Friendly Facade's biggest strength.

It is a double-edged sword though, because although the characters are fun and memorable, you don't really get any opportunity to interact with them for any reasonable length of time and you pretty much never get any dialogue choices. You just have to sit and watch Maggie, the main character, make terrible decisions (lying to other characters, for instance) and have no input whatsoever. For example, I really like Mat and would have liked to spend more time with her, but the game rarely ever gives you the opportunity to hang out with anybody, and even when it does, those interactions are disappointingly short and have no interactivity to them.

This might be one of those cases where it would've been better for this story to be told in a non-interactive manner, like a kinetic visual novel or a traditional novel. At least that way there is no frustration in not having a choice when you desperately want to have one.

One might argue that the aforementioned Danganronpa is pretty linear too with no real choices, but that game gives you more interactivity overall with you having to move your character around from location to location, examine evidence, and interact with characters in whatever order you choose, giving you more of a feeling of control and immersion, even if the story itself is linear. Plus, that game pairs over-the-top characters with over-the-top stakes (kill or be killed) while Friendly Facade has the over-the-top characters part down, but sets the stakes pretty low. The characters having to compete for money and prevent their deep, dark secrets from being revealed to others just doesn't have the same oomph as the literal fight for survival in Danganronpa does, especially when those deep, dark secrets are actually pretty benign. Even the main character, Maggie, admits that she doesn't really have anything to hide.

I'm aware that the story takes a darker turn at the end of chapter 3, but it is, in my opinion, a bit too little, too late, and although I would be interested in checking out the next project from these developers, I'm not interested enough to finish this particular story.

Where's the kaboom?

There was supposed to be an Earth-shattering kaboom!

I'm preaching to the choir here, but I have to say,
This great interactive musical has made my day!
The story is engaging and the lore is unique,
There aren't many things that I can really critique.
How many titles can you think of that let you choose,
What songs you sing and allow you to play as a Muse?
Not only that, there is romance and role-playing too!
The result is a game that is something truly new!
The birth of a new genre this game may inspire,
Its creativity and charm I can admire!