Recent reviews by Rin

Well slap me stupid and pound my butt!

Before I start with a review, I want to say that I got this game within 4 hours of its release date. Trying to find a guide was nearly impossible. The only “Guide” that we had was through discussion with people that got this game within 4 hours of its release date. But, whatever, lets get this review started.

So,
Do you like cartoon-style artworks?
Do you like puzzle games?
Do you like open-world style games?
Do you have a dark sense of humour?
If you answered “yes” to at least one of the question, you’re in luck. Spiral Scout is a cartoon-style open world puzzle game with a dark sense of humour. I’m not talking about those ♥♥♥♥♥♥ 8 year old style humour. This game’s dark sense of humour can actually make people feel uncomfortable, some of them even take it too far.

In Spiral Scout, you control a girl called Remae. She joins the “Spiral Scout” and her duty is to help other people by solving puzzles and earning badges to bring all the Spiral gods together.

Pros:
Challenging puzzles: Okay, I’ll say this right now. The game is not going to hold your hand through every puzzle. You are on your own . In every puzzle, there will be no hints and very little information about the puzzle. Information usually comes from sketches, drawings, and/or conversations from characters. It is your job to decipher the information and find the solution.

Open-World: Typically, In puzzle games, you cannot move onto the next puzzle until you finish the one you are on. If you cannot finish the puzzle, you’ll be stuck there until you find the solution. In an open-world puzzle game, you can pick whatever puzzle you want to do in whatever order you want. If a puzzle is too challenging to beat, you can skip that one and return to it later. At times, you can even solve multiple puzzles with one action.

Art style: Nothing to say here, art style is very identical to Paper Mario.


Cons:
Movement in the game: Because this game was released not too long ago, there is a possibility of bugs and whatnot. The movement in this game is very “laggy” as you can rubber-band through a corner when you’re not suppose to.


I’ll admit, this is one of the best puzzles games I have ever played, and its an open-world puzzle game too. The puzzles are difficult, but not too difficult to the point where even common sense cannot help you. If you’re into challenging puzzles that gives you no hints and dark sense of humour, this game is definitely for you.

It's about time I made a review for this...


To start things off, I am not going to bother writing a summary because even I don't know what is going on. All I can say is that the story is pretty.. unexpected. The creators who created this VN also created Aozora Meikyuu, a VN that I truly enjoyed. I was hoping that this VN would be a better sequel to Aozora Meikyuu. Turns out, It wasn't. To put it in my perspective, it feels like the creators just gave up midway and had someone else finish the game for them.


Pros:
CG- That is basically the only thing that is considered nice, other than the music. It uses identical art styles from Aozora Meikyuu.

Music- Nothing to say about this, its pretty catchy.




Cons: (Oh boy, this is where things go so wrong...)

Story: Not going to lie, the first half of the story was pretty smooth and understandable. A married couple having fun on vacation at the beach. After that it all turns to a complete mess of the husband getting younger by some random shooting star/meteor and what not.

Grammar: When I say that I felt like the creators just gave up midway, I do mean it. The further your progress into the story, the worse the grammar gets. Do I need to explain anymore?

Inner Dialogue: Yeah, sure, inner dialogue are fine, but trying to determine who is having thoughts in their mind is really hard to predict.

Random Change of perspective: Pretty self-explanatory..

Routes: Now, I've been told there are two routes (+1 bad ending if you count that as a route). I have used a walkthrough to get both routes. If you click on one wrong path, say goodbye to the happy ending. Also, the fact that both routes are nowhere relevant to each other, it confuses me.



Well, this was rather interesting (not in a good way). I feel like the whole story seemed good when planning, but when it was put into action, the creators was like "Hey, let's turn this story into something else!" At first, I was so excited to see another VN by Yume because I enjoyed their last VN. Why did you let me down..?

A Kiss For the Petals ~ Remembering How We Met.
A sweet visual novel involving two high school girls (Risa and Miya) in a yuri relationship. The story tells us how the couple got together.

*Might have spoilers, you have been warned.*

Pros:
Voice Acting- Yay! Finally, I found a VN that actually has voices. The voices are pretty cute ^^

CGs- Good artwork, that is all I have to say.

Changing Perspective- This is something that isn't common in Visual Novels, the ability to change perspectives. Half of the story, you get to learn from Risa's perspective, and half from Miya's perspective.

Story- Story is pretty smooth and easy to understand... except for the last chapter.

Music- Love it :)


Cons:
No Routes- A VN without any different routes, thats a first, right? I kinda wish there was a good and/or bad ending to this game.

Last Chapter- Okay, I admit it, the previous chapters were understandable until this chapter. In summary: Last Chapter~ building up tension and relationship. Last Chapter: BAM, Yuri stuff happening. There was a whole time frame missing there.


Yeah, I had fun with this game, even though it made me facepalm a couple of times.

Aozora Meikyuu is a short Romance Visual Novel by YumeCreations. It focuses on a relationship between a boy who dropped out of school after a failed love confession and a girl who falls from the sky.

Just a little note: It will be difficult for me to write a review and explain this game without spoiling the end.

Pros:
Endings at different times- This was a well thought-out move to add in with visual novels (props to Yume). Unlike other visual novels I have played, not all the endings happened at the end of the visual novel. You could potentially get an ending within 5 minutes of the visual novel. I also noticed that the more the story develops, the less options for endings you will get. It eventually comes down with 1 ending at the very end.

CGs- Nothing I can say about this, CGs always make a visual novel better.

Soundtrack- Love the soundtrack

Con(s)

Saving + Branching paths.- Sometimes, you cannot tell when you get the option to choose, and the fact that you can't save while choosing. Yeah, having a time limit while choosing the path is pretty unique, but at least inform the players that a branching path is coming up so they can save beforehand.

Story- The story was interesting, for sure. But the way it was written was really "jumpy". It starts on one part of the story, then skipping to a different part of the story within seconds. I'm not saying the story was bad, I just thought that it could use less story skips because the transition of the "good ending" was confusing at first.

Yeah, I'd recommend this short and sweet visual novel if you're interested in romance. (heck, isn't all the visual novels about romance?)

(Also, do people dislike this game just because they failed to pick the right choices to get to the good ending and they end up crying about it?)

Cats are Liquid is a small puzzle game. It is about a cat with the ability to turn into liquid. Her master has put her in a series of rooms, hoping that she would be smart enough to escape.

I bought this game for C$0.98 and I do not regret it. First of all, the music in this game is extremely peaceful and calm. Listening to those tunes while you control a liquid cat couldnt be more relaxing. Second, The creativitiy of the puzzles and mechanics in this game. Sure, some of the mechanics may take some time to get used to, but once you get used to it, the puzzles becomes easy. Third, there is something that I would never have imagined to be in a puzzle game like this one, the narration. The story progress along with the game. Lastly, this game is just cute, I don't think I need to say more about it.

Pyrite Heart is a visual novel created by WingedCloud, the same creators that made the Sakura games (Sakura Dungeon, Sakural Angel. etc) This visual novel focuses on a tsundere princess (Ahri). Ahri and her brother made a bet on whether or not she could survive a week outside the castle without help. Ahri went to a new school and had a new rival.

Reviewing the Cons first:
Honestly, I was a bit disappointed when I started the game. This is one of the shortest visual novels I have ever played. I have found all 4 endings in a matter of 30 minutes.

When I found out that the visual novel was short, I thought to myself: "I hope the content makes up for the shortness of the visual novel". Turns out, it didnt. It felt like WingedCloud has gotten lazy with the choices as most of them lead to the same outcome.

Next thing on the list is the grammar. Even though I can still figure what the textbox is saying, It still took some time to understand the story with terrible English.

Moving on to the Pro (s)?
WingedCloud never failed to impress me with this: It's artstyle. The art in this game is beautiful and smooth. I always had trust in WingedCloud when I see these types of games.

The music in Pyrite Heart was awesome too.

Now, despite all the ♥♥♥♥ I've said about this game, I actually don't hate this game... Sure, the "cons" that I mentioned can be frustrating to me, but hey, you can't be perfect. I feel like this game can have potential if WingedCloud were to take this game back and make it better.
Yes.. I would recommend this game to people who understand and is comfortable with short visual novels.