Recent reviews by Ne ᵇula

Beyond the fact that I was asked to go and write a full on review for this game, there is indeed quite a lot I can muster to say about everything it has to offer, where it needs or can improve, and more over the many many ways I broke it. Let's get started then, shall we?

What was Executed Well:

General Presentation:

What can I say? You get exactly what is on the label. Sakuya from the Touhou series talks to you about various common problems for people, offers advice, then dabs at the end. So needless to say there's nothing here that's intrinsically deep or exciting beyond maybe seeing this Sakuya talk to you in a semi sort of medium. Despite that this is totally out of character for Sakuya I can't say it's something that will block me from enjoying what the game does have to offer, and Sakuya herself does look quite well in a style that emulates the classic ZUN style without totally mocking it down. Text is clean and grammar is actually well kept, despite the occasional formatting error, and the actual look of each text box is clean. The font choice is well done and serves to look decently professional instead of using Arial .12 Font, or god forsake Helvetica .11. Moving on to some other well presented aspects I do want to mention that the menu options were all there despite not actually needing to m be there for how simple the whole game is. I may not have needed to save, load, check options, adjust anything, or even look at the accreditation, but there were all there which is something I think more games should take a decent example from even if it's a starter project. Not to mention I did enjoy the sort of official VN feel the whole thing had despite some of the actual game being able to be seen as kind of a joke in some regards, yes? One last thing on the presentation, even if a slight tangent, I can at least tell that the effort put in was there. Nothing needs to be the next AAA game to be enjoyable in the creation process. May be not the most polished or complex or deep. But these 21 minutes were actually fun cause I can tell the game it self was made with the same amount of fun even through the more serious tone of advice.

Art.

It's not the best art I've ever seen, sure but I find it charming for many of the same reasons I listed above for the general direction of the game it feels like there was love put into each portrait and that the artist, which I do personally know, has been improving for quite some time. Nice to see you putting your art out there even if in a smaller way. Good for you! Sakuya having 3 ribbons is a bit gritting for me, personally speaking. But that's more me than anything I'd suppose. She didn't blend into the background at all, and I never felt she was shifting around too much, even though she did occasionally. Proportion generally felt correct, though the general shape of the character got a little "wavy" at times, yes? The actual dab art was pretty funny to see, and I admit was the part I was looking forward to the most even if for a cheap as ♥♥♥♥ giggle. One last point, the art used for the background probably could have fit a bit better with Sakuya's style, and in fact I'm pretty sure that's a stock ocean photo, but hey it still managed to work in a few regards.

The Core Advice.

Some of the advice as actually pretty well executed, being actually useful in application if done. Some of the advice was quite practical, even if I don't think people should be seeking out a VN to help with their life crisis or other issues, yet here we have the product anyway. I can find myself agreeing with the methods, even if half of them were pretty samey. In short the advice was pretty good advice given the medium you're working with and the obvious notions we should be judging by through the state of experience the designer(s) had. No offense there, I'd hope. But I should mention that much is obviously clear.

Moving on now to some criticisms of the game, since absolutely nothing is prefect.

Polish.

I can be forgiving since the game type doesn't demand high polish, and the game concept doesn't demand polish. BUT! I was able to spawn infinite Sakuyas by clicking fast enough. Then proceeded to do this more times than was healthy. Not to mention that I was a bit sad there weren't more "routes" to travel down, or that the Yes and Nos rarely impacted the route at hand. As mentioned before the background could probably be done in the style similar to Sakuya to avoid a break in style. I imagine as art improves the polish could go up if the game is ever even updated, but as of this review the art still has room to grow.

Advice:

Yes I said a good heft of the advice was well executed, but it got repetitive at many points. Mainly with the fact that almost all of it mentioned getting help in the same exact way and phrasing. Change up your words and sentence structure to avoid monotony, which is especially important in an entirely text based game. People get bored with the text the game dies immediately, avoid that in any future installments. The actual advice could use some actual character too, cause it doesn't really belong to Sakuya in any way shape or form. It comes off as strange at most times and needs some heavy tweaking to become more interesting and fun to read through.

Game Length

Well, that was pretty damn short. I beat the game in 21 min with breaks in between to eat some food. I am a fast reader, sure, but the game could really use some more route extension and text use. More options and in general more everything. I'm taking this review 100% seriously and will not falter on anything that needs to be pointed out. Some of the advice pieces could have been expanded upon way more as well, and you could have padded and developed character with some context as to how the situation before us developed. The script sometimes felt a little hap-hazard even if functional.All in all, some dialogue just felt like another brick in the wall. 60 cents worth of dialogue? Sure why not. Could it be better? always.

BuGS

I broke everything in any way I could

- Spawning Multiple Sakuya by clicking fast

- Spawning multiple instances of the game by restarting a few times

- Crashed due to spam

- Text refused to load after reloading the game once.

- Sakuya suddenly compressed out of nowhere
( I couldn't replicate this so idk wtf happened)

I suppose that's about it. The game is super short so I can't say too much without forcing it.

Overall Thoughts:

You get exactly what you buy, charming lil' game where Sakuya talks to you then dabs for comedic effect. There is no secret treasure of hidden meaning. The game is simple and exists. For a first time release though? Good job, keep up the practice and work.

★★☆☆☆

The best part about this game is getting some friends was quickly watching as your friendship is stolen and destroyed by Poppo. Fun times 10/3 would reccomend