Recent reviews by Minzoku Bokumetsu

tl;dr: If you like the Nancy Drew series, this is a decent episode, but not the best.

I can pretty much cut and paste the same review for each of the Nancy Drew games. The art style and interface for the most part stays so consistent, it's hard to imagine the games weren't just pooped out all at once. I have the same (minor) complaints for each game: can't skip dialogue or cutscenes, sometimes navigation is awkward, mandatory minigames are obnoxious and/or filler, people who lived decades or centuries ago created improbable secret rooms and traps with technology we don't even have today(???).

I rate Warnings at Waverly Academy a little farther down than the average ND game for a few reasons:
- the "mandatory job" minigame like I've seen in one other episode (I guess you can slack off, but I still dislike it out of principle)
- "I'll give you this if you beat me in a game!"
- "I'll give you this if you do my homework for me!" (said by valedictorian candidates)
- the culprit... went there*
- the sneaking around at night achievement is obnoxious to get, considering you won't know if you got it until you beat the game (I assume the trick is to find every possible hiding place)
- an unpublished text is hardbound with an embossed title, just like a published text...??
- oddly enough, I think the final puzzle isn't a tenth as challenging as the tree-climbing (repeat the pattern) puzzle, which is a letdown given, say... the cutlery puzzle =p

*I know this is vague, but without spoiling anything, basically I started the game hoping it didn't go there, and it did...

What did I like? ...well, I would say the U.S. puzzle is just about perfect for what I expect of ND--it makes sense and is challenging--though I did get pretty tired of solving it when trying to get the last achievement =p

I still don't regret having played Waverly, but I think there are stronger entries in the series. Get it cheap if you're on the fence!

tl;dr: Like with Sudoku, if you've played any Nancy Drew game, you've played all of them. Recommend if that's your bag, pass if it isn't.

The draw of Nancy Drew is, even though the series isn't wildly imaginative or groundbreaking in terms of point-and-click adventure games, there's a comfortable consistency to each installment. The art style has been identical across all 35-or-whatever-they're-up-to-now games, such that it feels like they were all made in the early 2000s and are just slowly getting released for marketing reasons. Only one or two episodes I've played so far have deviated drastically from the core gameplay, one being a Nintendo DS release (aimed toward very young players and not nearly on the same level as the main series).

Ransom of the Seven Ships has most of the same flaws present in every (PC release) ND game I've played so far:
- cannot skip cutscenes or dialogue
- navigation is sometimes confusing
- "timed" events may not unlock until some arbitrary other event happens (looking at you, metal detector I obviously need but Nancy won't ask for it until ??? happened)
- forced to play irritating nonstory minigames to progress (I despise Sudoku, actually)
- long-dead characters left behind anachronistically complex puzzles like carved boxes with artificial intelligence
- awards are only granted at the end of the game, so who knows if you unlocked that grinding achievement until you find out you didn't

Unfortunately, some of the puzzles in this game are not particularly colourblind-friendly (the Sudoku being especially aggravating since I already hate it AND it's timed), and it's a bit unbelievable that 17th century sailors would leave behind complex mechanisms to protect stuff that was just scattered on the beach for any clown with a metal detector to find. Or spare SCUBA tanks in the underwater maze they totally had the technology to set up, yup.

But hey, if you already understand about all that and still want to give this installment a whirl, it's definitely the Nancy Drew experience you know and love! Also, I really like the cryptogram decoding part, definitely MY bag!

I recommend this even though I personally have gotten so tired of zombie stories, because TWD spends much more time exploring the relationships between the characters, with the whole zombie thing mostly in the background except at key points. As a friend commented, it's a very difficult game to play, not because the puzzles are hard, but because every major choice is along the lines of who lives and who dies. Even little choices, like the wrong comment here and there, will affect how the other characters react to you later on. The animation is astounding, like watching a cartoon that you can control. About my only complaint is when using the mouse and keyboard to play; because the mouse wheel is used to choose between dialogue options, on more than one occasion I have accidentally selected exactly the wrong thing from what I wanted to say, and that meant the characters I was trying to help most turned me away when it mattered. I'm also grateful to Skybound for bringing this back to Steam, because I had only gotten Season One free, and that only includes like 83% of the achievements... gotta get the 400 Days DLC to get 100%! =p

The Red Strings Club is a fantastic sci-fi drink mixing simulator with huge, HUGE dialogue trees.

Pros:
+ Fascinating philosophical/psychological thought experiment narrative
+ Tons of women/minority/LGBT representation
+ Gorgeous animation

Cons:
- Game starts with the ending (er, spoilers)
- Only one autosave state
- Scene transitions are abrupt
- The game mechanics feel like they belong to three different games or ought to be in a longer one, especially the "pottery" bit

Definitely a good value, though it does feel short, despite not dragging anything out longer than necessary.

A Golden Wake is a fantastic semi-alternate history point-and-click adventure set in early 1900s Miami, about real estate of all things. It feels a bit rough compared to similar games, particularly since there's no option to skip walking/driving sequences (and driving the jalopy gets old a bit fast), but overall the aesthetic and attention to detail provides an immersive experience that conveys a strong sense of authenticity I can really appreciate.

Pros:
+ high-quality animation, even in trivial sequences (such as the dance hall)
+ swinging soundtrack that feels historically and geographically accurate

Cons:
- travelling feels slow
- the airfield puzzle feels clunky/unresponsive (even though it's purely puzzle, not action)

Definitely a recommended purchase! Get it on sale if you must, but certainly there are worse ways to spend money than to pay full price for a game with a lot of heart put into it!

tl;dr: like a dream, and a great cure for insomnia

ts;dr: (rewriting this now that the full game is out)

I kind of want to describe this as an interactive screensaver. Certainly, the parts where you don't really have control are more ambient visuals than "game" as such, and not a lot of it really matters whether you pay any attention. Overall, the point seems to be to immerse the player in an environment where things feel like they could almost make sense but something's missing. Two of the characters are robots(?) but absolutely no comments are made about it other than like one line about not eating. The boy's "brother" is a giant eagle. Things like that.

I do get a feeling of bleakness overall, and part of that may be the setting (rural pseudo-Kentucky where lots of people are hurting for work/money), emphasized by the deterioration of Conway's condition. There's also (to me) unfortunately no real "resolution" in that the story seems to be a collection of snippets strung together as one might collect the stories one hears when walking through a crowded mall or school campus, perhaps. It's more like a stew made of leftovers than an actual meal made from scratch... and don't get me wrong, that can still be tasty if it's good.

I'm still just not convinced it's that good. Certainly I consumed it (twice, since there are now achievements for your trouble), but I don't like the lack of conclusion. I'm the kind of person who likes seeing a goal: What was the purpose of showing me this particular narrative? What was I to gain from Conway's interrupted journey, finished by his friends? In the end, I'm still not sure where it went.

Do I recommend it? Sure, why not. It's still a pretty game, and the updates are very good (e.g. ephemerals, including direction notes if you forgot them). I do really like how Act V plays, too, other than my computer crashed several times trying to get through the ending (maybe not relevant to you unless your computer is also ancient). I'm also averse to the binary nature of Steam's rating system that requires a definite YES/NO in order to leave a review, since there's no functional difference between "YES THIS IS AN AMAZING GAME" and "it's ok if you got it free and need to kill a few hours." I'd rather leave a yes than a no, though, and save NO for "ABSOLUTELY NOT EVER EVEN IF YOU GAVE ME LOTS OF ACTUAL MONEY AND IT CURED CANCER" kinds of reasons.

Would I play through it again? Now that I have all the achievements, not likely.

Original review below:

Games like Kentucky Route Zero make me wish Steam had a "meh" option (other than not leaving a review). I don't regret buying the game by far, but I also don't know if I could recommend it to any of my friends who are thinking of picking it up. My "Yes" recommendation is based entirely on my dislike of giving a "No" except for objectively terrible games.

I've been trying to decide the best way to describe the gameplay, and all I can think of is "Interactive Cutscene." Other than navigation,* there only seems to be one puzzle so far: a simple one near the beginning when trying to turn on the lights. Every other choice is virtually identical, with only a handful of choices altering subsequent events in the game. "Visual text adventure" comes to mind as well, given the interface, and almost everything is flavour text.

*Initially, the point of the game seems to be to find an address in order for the main character to make a delivery, with quests branching out in the fashion of "do this quest so the person can find X piece of information, which leads to another person who might be able to help" only for the quest to repeat with the next person, but after a few scenes/acts, the quest gets so sidetracked that multiple people join in (at one point, control switches from one person to another just as two of you are running around) and it feels like "wait, what were we doing here again?"

Overall, Zero makes me think of a "dream simulator," where this is literally the developers are recreating a dream someone had where they were supposed to make a delivery of antiques but they needed to find an imaginary road that went around and around but would change depending on where they turned around and nothing made sense but everything made sense and hey this is weird I don't remember any of this but I totally remember this happening and also why am I not wearing clothes, THAT kind of a dream.

I mean, the game aesthetic is beautiful and, at times, relaxing. I did feel myself falling asleep in a good way, and it's fun to run around and see what little things I could find, like the two guys pushing the airplane. At the same time, it all feels disjointed, and I'm not sure what most of it has to do with the overall story.

Definitely an interesting experiential game, but I'm not sure how much replay value there is. Good for relaxing and not having to worry about decisions ruining your save.

I have a conditional "recommend" for this game: Given that the difference between a happy and sad/unhappy ending is where you decide to end the story, I think a few playthroughs would earn a definite recommend.

If you choose to get 100%... significantly less recommended.

Where I would recommend: Definitely do Ryouta's path, because it's bittersweet but heartwarming, Sakuya's because it's sort of about finding oneself, Yuuka's if you're feeling adventurous, Okosan and Anghel for fun. and Nageki's because OMG my poor sweet baby ♥♥♥ Also Azami is a cool diversion!

The teachers... well. Kazuaki isn't so bad for a professor-student grey area relationship. However, Shuu... here's where you should stop reading if you want to maintain that illusion of this game being a cute/silly/inane "bird dating sim" based on a stupid pun ("hato" being Japanese for pigeon).

I mean, there isn't a lot I can safely get into without massive spoilers, but I'll just say it goes WAY out into left field and the bonus material ceases to be either dating or sim after the twist. It's nearly on par with the secret material in Dream Daddy or Doki Doki Literature Club, only stopping short by being considerably less graphic (at most, there are some red stains and tinted backgrounds).

I mean, I hardly regret playing through it all, but I certainly wouldn't recommend it to my friends who were expecting pretty much none of that.

Also, the translation is a bit rough, with several misspellings, and the interface lags a bit with transitions and mouse inputs, though I do appreciate the (sometimes functional) fast-forward option.

Lamplight City is a fairly realistic depiction of detective work for an alternate history Victorian era (for an idea of how alternate, check out the unlockable Bonus Content map of Vespuccia), in that you can totally accuse the wrong person of a crime and ruin lives, yet still go about your business despite the consequences. The game isn't that difficult in this respect, since you just have to "solve" the first cases in order to proceed to the final case, but it's definitely worth finding the real culprits to get the full story. There are even little touches like the daily newspaper reflecting the results of your prior cases, and characters changing their attitudes toward you based on your earlier actions.

One of the best things about the game is how diverse and well animated the characters are. I still love just watching Miles stand up and put on his coat! The interview system is a fantastic throwback to Gabriel Knight, including full voiceovers for all dialogue.

One of the worst things is the voting section still sets off my PTSD a bit =( So much for an escape from reality! Also, there's no inventory, despite picking up items, so it may take a little adjustment. Luckily, I've played the beta about a hundred times over, so I'm used to it now! (and somehow have the ending achievements first, whoops)

tl;dr: Don't worry if you get the wrong crook, it's not like that's much different from reality =/

Would not recommended!

- Six different starting choices affect the path of the game (male/female protagonist, three occupations)
- Different party compositions change puzzle solutions, tempting you to play through each possibility instead of "one and done"
- Deep backstory and devious plot twists make you CARE about the characters
- Fantastically fully voiced, making you want to actually listen to the dialogue rather than skipping through it to get to the next puzzle
- Commentary tracks, too! For all possible paths!
- No "moon logic" puzzles, with each solution making logical sense within the rules of the Unavowed universe, instead of hypnotising a monkey to use it as a wrench to turn off a waterfall
- Will leave you wanting a sequel even AFTER playing for forty hours straight, leaving you even less time to play Dudebro Sportsball Call of War 2020
- Doesn't waste any time getting to the "WHAT JUST HAPPENED" factor
- Guaranteed to break your heart if you have one

Too much value added! You will be spoiled for other games after playing Unavowed! How are you supposed to wind down at the end of another day of work drudgery if Unavowed keeps you up all night, HARUMPH

Decent remake, definitely a must-play point-and-click adventure!

Pros:
+ distinctive post-apocalyptic road warrior theme
+ great hard rock music
+ well animated cutscenes
+ sweet bikes

Cons:
- some of the puzzles are tedious to solve
- the Old Mine Road fight sections feel like padding, especially if the game glitches and doesn't spawn encounters or lets you exit
- game is kind of short if you already know what to do
- messing up or taking too long at the end means watching the cutscenes over and over

Get it on sale if you haven't already, you won't regret it!