The itch.io app has come a long way from when I first got it, however it needs a lot of improvements.

What’s Working:

• I like that the tabs have their own section. Unlike the Steam client that just pops them up. I have have a list of tabs open.
• Has a list of my Library with my collections and creations on the side.

What’s Not Working:

• I really wish I could black list devs and games. There are a lot of games that pop up in my search that I just don’t want to see for whatever reason.
• No ability to review a game from the app. You have to go to an actual browser to do that. It could easily be put in the sidebar with Buy/Download Now, Share.
• No ability to follow a dev.
• No ability to add nor remove a game to a collection. Removing a game could be done by clicking an X when looking at it in the Collections tab.

[Title Image]

Rising Angles: Reborn is a sci-fi mystery visual novel. You’ve been sent to investigate some ruins and somebody doesn’t like what you found.

Story:

Honestly the story is a bit weak. It could have been so much better if it didn’t take the path of least resistance. For a while there I thought that demon guy was just a petty smuggler and the REAL culprit behind everything was someone else. I was sadly mistaken. The makes what happens in the story seem bland and cliche and take any mystery out of it.

Characters:

Overall the characters are good, except Sol. He’s the resident racist, and in the end he’s more or less treated as the “cute/funny oh look at him so racist” character, rather than getting torn apart for still calling others “housecat” and “lizard brain” when they have stated they didn’t like it. What’s worse is that Rasoona is played off as the “cold bitch” character so when Sol kills her, it very much looks to me as a horrible misogynistic act. Not only did the “cold elf bitch” get “put in her place” it was by a man, and a man who was a racist fuck. She never gets a chance to learn that you aren’t a terrible SITO person, just just gets killed. By a racist fuck who’s racism is just ignored at the end.
I’m not sure she’s saveable as the ending I got was the “TRUE END” which means she had to die, which I find rather bullshit. (I did Zuri’s path)
The rest of the characters are cliche for their race, however they are given more of a depth than most other games do. While Zuri want to be the super dragon warrior, she also struggles with it.

Music & Sound:

Music was appropriate for the game. No track really stuck out to me as anything special.

Overall:
Overall this game is good to OK. It’s worth playing but don’t expect any deep mystery. The obvious looking evil demon guy did it. That’s it… That being said it’s worth exploring the story itself as there is more going on than just the mystery of who keeps sabotaging stuff.

[Screenshots]

A list of short reviews for games that aren’t quite long enough to have established characters, but are nice little short distractions.

[text]

[text] is a short game that depending on the choice is either a slice of life, or a scary story. It’s nice and short and too the point. I only kind of wish the uncle was characterized a little more, but the game is that short. A nice little distraction for when you have some time to kill.

The Noose

The Noose is a game that takes about 3 hours to get through and the middle is filled with such over the top repetitive words and phrases it gets silly, so by the time the real scary stuff happens you are just tied. Also sound effects are used way too much in scenes to the point they just get annoying.

Also the story is confusing as fuck. I don’t know it it’s the translation that’s bad or really you just don’t quite get what’s going on, but by the end that diary entry still makes no sense.

Rei is a short Visual Novel made by Sonnet009 in three days for the Pulse Pounding Heart Stopping Dating Sim Jam 2013.  It’s about Aya, who is forced to go ghost hunting with her friend and finds Rei, a ghost that can’t move on thanks to his fuzzy memory. Of course you get to help him and in that you can find romance.

There are I supposed technically two guys you can romance, however they are the same person, just past and present. I’ve only gotten two out of four endings so I don’t know how all of them end up.

The Story:

Overall the story is unique, it’s got a few moments in it that are sexist, like when you say you don’t believe in love you get told “How can you even call yourself a girl” and your going to be an old cat lady, but overall the experience was nice. The story is solid and short and didn’t leave a lot of loose ends to tie up. For a game made in three days, that’s saying a lot that it has a beginning, middle, end and no dangling story.

I can see the story being expanded to include more ghost histories and trying to save them all or only a special one, and a possible harem ending. :D

Characters:

There are only three major character and one minor character.
Risa, Aya and Rei and the minor Taka.
Risa is mostly there as a catalyst to drag you to school and act as a check when your character completes some routes.
Rei is of course the main target in the game. Both the present and past Rei. He’s the jerk type, but if you pick the right options he’s not that much of one. Not like the typical verbal abusing assholes of other otome games.
Taka, well, his character is more of a spoiler than anything, but he’s involved with Rei somehow.
Aya is a nice character and not a doormat. So that is awesome, and most of her choices are given to you so you can basically guide her character how you want. Which is another nice thing.

Art:

This is going to be short because all the art of the game comes from 3rd parties.
Tokudaya and +cube+ specifically. Which means it super nice art, but you might recognize some of the characters or backgrounds.

Music/Sound:

This is where I felt it needed major improvement. There is only ONE sound, and that’s the school bell. Either some more spooky ambient sounds to set the mood or some music or something would have been nice. Maybe have added those at the end and again from a free materials source.

Overall:

Overall Rei is a nice quick game to kill some time and offers 4 routes to play for some replay value. The story can certainly branch out into a fuller game if the author wanted and it could use some more sounds.

Title Screen for DUAEL

I came across DUÆL while trawling the VNDB for otome games and saw the screen shot popup,  the story was interesting and I had been wanting to explore something similar so I thought ‘why not’.

It should be noted that I played with the adult content OFF, as that was the default and I didn’t know it had any in it…. (I’m not sure how much adult content there was. Play at your own comfort.)

I also THINK I got the good ending so I haven’t seen, or know how to get the bad ending. This review is based on that information.

The Story:
The story deals with two worlds one about Cadfael and his quest to stop the world from being eat by this “Nothing” (think Neverending Story) and Walter a teenage gamer who enjoys playing as Cadfael in the game. Only that people in Cadfael’s world are linking up to the people in Walter’s world.

This is where the story breaks down a bit for me, as we never see another “Linked One”, we only hear that there was a massive group of them that passed through the town.  Thus we never really get to see how they are treated by people that aren’t linked, or how other Linked Ones are dealing with their situation. It was a missed opportunity. Another way the story breaks down is at the end, where everything is being explained. The story never really goes into WHY the things that are happening are happening that way, it’s just.. “Yeah that’s what happened… Don’t know more details… Yup.”

I also didn’t like one part where they are trying to keep some villagers away and the narrative was saying that Lucille was casting weak spells…. I had leveled her up where she could devastate the battlefield, which she did after  you get into that fight, but everyone was powered up.
Also, if Cadfael is the main character of the games, why did he just then bond with Walter. Is the story going with the “Chosen, one out of a million” kind of thing? Still it’s something the story could explore more.

Characters:
There are four main characters in the game, Walter, Cadfael, Lucille, and Kuruk. Honestly I felt that Lucille got the most characterization, even more than Cadfael as we saw more of her emotions. While I felt that Cadfael was going through the motions and had a lot of telling that showing moments. Kuruk by far was the weakest character. You learn nothing about him.

I really didn’t like that the only woman in the party was also the mage/healer as is cliche of the fantasy/RPG world. However she is also the most powerful character in the game. She really breaks the game if you get her Fire 1-3 and level her up in the gym. Kuruk and Cadfael can’t even compare. So at the end boss was basically a cake walk. Walter, since he does not fight, is mostly there for the Earthside aspect of the story. His character is one of the lonely gamer type who finds a connection to the characters he plays. I honestly thought he was done well.
I thought Lucille would also get on my nerves and typically be annoying, however she wasn’t at all and I found I liked her the best. (Her ability to almost one shot a screen of enemies probably helped too, Cadfael looked weak and helpless compared XD)

Gameplay:

Gameplay… was… not so good. While I did enjoy the RPG aspects of the game, grinding at the gym was NOT FUN. You probably don’t need to grind all that much at the gym, but not knowing what comes next I decided to do it. At one point you pretty much have to when you get Kuruk as the enemies are tough enough to kill you.
Lucille is the easiest to level up, Kuruk is the hardest. Also Kuruk is broken, At the end I want to level him up and got him to level 49 and he just would not level up any more. I checked his screen and it constanly said “~8000 point till level 44” Level 44? However he’s not important at the end anyways… especially if Lucille is leveled up to 50. So it was nothing game breaking.
There were also end game items I could not by for whatever reason, maybe on a second play through? In the end I didn’t like the grinding as it took away majorly from the story.

Art:

What is up with that face?

The art is proficient enough, not really to my tastes, but the characters feel constant… save Lucille. She has this one face that just does not look good at all. I cringed every time I saw it. If your looking for the kind of anime look that professional Japanese VNs have, this doesn’t have it, but it isn’t so far away from that style like some other Original English Visual Novels (OEVN, OELVN). So Lucille’s face is my major nitpick, past that it might could use a revision later in the artists career to polish things up a bit more.

It also does have a nice shot of Cadfael in there if you so desire it ;3

There’s a character gallery and a CG gallery and a concept art/notes gallery as well. So a bit of stuff to unlock.

Overall:

Over all the story was enjoyable, while there was some cliche going on, none of the characters felt too much like a stereotype save for Kuruk the noble knight bear. Lucille most notably felt more human, and while she was jealous of Walter, she showed it more in distrust than the typical clingyness that some authors write. She also has a right to be a bit distrustful of Walter as a whole. Some random floating projection coming out of nowhere and acting familiar with someone you’ve known. Walter was refreshing to see as well, you’d think he’d be a typical power gamer but really he’s a sad loner that gets his human interaction from the games he plays. I feel that there’s a connection to be made there. Cadfael I felt was a bit too stale however, I did like his manner of speaking and his overall personality, but it felt like he was going through the motions and the whole Link between them could be explored a bit more. Kuruk honestly felt jammed in there as a third wheel, but became someone that Lucille could go to after she realized how close Walter and Cadfael had grown together.

I especially liked the ending just after the battle, it was a real smart way to end that kind of story.

DUÆL