Recent reviews by Nai

Surprisingly good! I normally expect most companies to kind of haphazardly stumble into visual novels on April Fools, take some kind of jab at visual novels or the readers and then exit the scene, but this was respectful to the viewers and it was an adorable read!

Had a lot of fun reading it and the mini game was enjoyable! Hope this team gets a chance to put together more visual novels in the future!

TL;DR:
It's vapid shock-value for sadomasochistic fans of Anime, Vtubers or adjacent streamers.
Pass unless it's your thing. If it's your thing, I don't judge but maybe don't tell everyone you know.

My review:

Store page could use a content warning about substance abuse and self(?) mutilation.

It's competent as a short adventure game bordering on visual novel. Solid interface, cute character, straight forward objective(s) and enough to keep you interested for a few hours. Don't expect a big plot, the description is right there on the can: Needy Streamer Overload/Overdose, whose steam page hasn't quite figured out which one it is yet as of this writing.

I enjoyed parts of it but I wouldn't recommend it to most anyone that I know personally. Beyond it's above average UI for the type of game it is, it's bouncy music and use of VFX, it offers very little to adventure games, resource managers or raising sims, which the game shares clear borders with. Compared to similarly themed visual novels, it's vapid and lacking in substance and payoff unless you're a sadist, masochist, or sadomasochist, and then there's nukige that does it better.

But that's probably not why you're looking at it OR this review. You probably saw 'cute anime girl with hints of dark subtext.' Well, you're right. That's it, so it delivers on that.

In terms of sexual content, it doesn't get much more than off screen hearts. She makes a few lewd references on stream and you can have sex, and even 'chem***' here meaning you can make her overdose on her mood pills, or cough medicine, sleep aids, actual weed?, and actual LSD) and then have sex with her, but everything happens off screen beyond her post-sex conversations.

The game is far more invested on delivering the feeling of hopelessness and frustration, obscuring its "happy" ending behind an action a player has to take outside of the game window, and it's "high stress/self destruction" ending being several times longer than virtually any of the others. What you're getting with this is the opportunity to force an anime girl to overdose, help her engage in self-harm, go to a therapist for little more than a change to her numbers and watch her completely implode in on herself, or put the player character through some really juvenile emotional abuse, leading up to cuckolding him.

It's fun, but it needs something ti regularly draw in and retain players. Match making is painful, with about a third of my 60 hours (at time of writing) was spent trying to match a full party.

Played through it a few times. The card game is fun and pretty straight forward, though a bit deceptive. You'd think that defeating the chat is immediately the best option, but the viewer/follower conversion, plus the combination of infinite deck cycling, it seems like its actually better to prolong and survive as long as you can while minimizing the damage you receive rather than just shooting it down immediately. This nuance isn't really explained, and it's fair that it isn't, but I can see why someone might look at this and go "That's all?" if they weren't quick enough to catch on to that.

As for the story, it's pretty straight forward. Some of it went over my head as I don't have a lot of knowledge of streamers, but the jabs at multi-channel networks, the moderator gags, and the parents I enjoyed.

One of the best visual novels I've played to date. The action in route A is a shining example of solid action in visual novels. The choice system requires a bit of forethought and overall its well composed.

It's great, no matter what anyone else tells you.

A great callback to a great game. Be sure to set your scaling in the UI for a better experience.

If you enjoyed the game in the past, you'll likely love replaying this version of it. Not sure I can recommend it to newcomers to TRPGs though, since it uses a gridless movement scheme, which is one of the most unique things about it. If you're a fan of TRPGs and want something a little different, but still in the familiar style of class based, or this particular art style, definitely worth your time.

Combat is frustratingly easy, character choices are largely meaningless bells and whistles. Struggled to make the game enjoyable. The available set of mods that add depth to the challenges you face don't, can't, and shouldn't be leaned on to resolve the underlying problems the game has.

Multiplayer mode is basically an afterthought. Enemies are no more challenging for having additional players. Loot is instanced, which is nice? But honestly the encounters are made trivial by the addition of other players that it wouldn't really matter if you had all of the loot or none of the loot.

Veteran mode(the mode for people who have played isometic ARPGs before) is no meaningful amount of more challenging and the higher challenge levels are locked behind (I think?) completing the game, which I couldn't be paid to sit through. I wasn't looking for 'The Dark Souls of Isometric ARPGs', but I was expecting, at the very least, to need to move out of environmental hazards or out of the way of a horde of enemies rather than facetank everything and allowing the natural health regeneration to do the work.



This game came hyped to me as a flexible ARPG by a number of youtubers and bloggers. If you're like me and got swept up in the hype and were brought here because of it, beware. If you're thinking about it for the multiplayer aspect, stay far away.

Hands down, the MMO with the best dialogue and accompanying voice acting talent.

Otherwise, the game play ranks fairly average for action-oriented titles, and above average for MMORPG titles of the time of its original release.

Excellent writing. And I'm not saying that "for the price point." At five, ten, twenty, maybe even fifty dollars, this VN is well written.

The author's ability to articulate meaning and write real, rich dialogue is superb. The word play is on par with English novellists, and it's a refreshing change of pace after having read so many pieces merely translated from Japanese to English by people whom only have a faint grasp on their secondary language.

If you're a fan of the VN medium of storytelling, and have had reservations about English titles, I urge you to try this. The art isn't quite on a professional level, but the writing is. If they could acquire a professional artist, I have every confidence they could create a product worthy of sale.