Today I tried three games from the
Humble Weekly Bundle. None of them are really extensive enough for their own reviews, so I'll just summarize here:
Analogue: A Hate StoryI'm not sure if I'm just playing it wrong or I'm not getting something, but my first playthrough was dull. Reading through the data blocks to try to piece together a story just wasn't very exciting, and because I apparently took an action in the game I wasn't supposed to I got stuck with no way to complete the game, leading me to wonder why that action was even available at the time to begin with. Maybe I'm just not getting it, as I've loved the previous two game that Christine Love did,
Digital: A Love Story and
don't take it personally, babe, it just ain't your story. Perhaps I'll try again sometime...
Go! Go! Nippon! ~My First Trip to Japan~So here's the setup...you're embarking on your first trip to Japan to meet some people there you met on the internet that's invited you to stay for a week. The thing is, when you get there, you realize they're not the guys you thought they were, but sisters. From this point on the 'game' will tease you with promises of hentai to string you along a tour guide that plays like a visual novel. Each day the girls will take you to some location in Tokyo, or elsewhere, and will tell you about locations, customs, culture, etc. And based entirely on where you choose to explore, you do end up being able to 'date' one of the girls, but don't get your dicks up, getting together is just a footnote in the game ending.
As a game it's meh. but as a way of getting horny guys wanting hentai to actually learn something about Japan, it's fucking brilliant.
Long Live the QueenPlaying as a young princess preparing to become Queen after the death of your mother, you're main objective in the game is to learn the skills needed to survive the next year to your coronation...that is, avoiding backstabbing plots, assassinations, foreign invasions, uprisings, bad events, etc. To do this, you will choose which classes you want to take from a large variety, from court manners (so your character learns what's appropriate for the court and what isn't) to military strategy to magic to projecting your royal presence. The classes you take raise the stats in those areas, and the outcome to different situations that come up depends on various stat checks.
The problem is, not all stats are created equally, and this led me to losing game after game until I'd advanced through the story enough to know which stats were important. In general, there are 6-10 stats that are fairly important overall, one of two that are absolutely vital to getting through one part of the game but are otherwise useless, and the remaining twenty or so range from "useless" to "might come in handy once or twice". There isn't much room for variability in gameplay, and the exact same storyline plays with each game, so there isn't much replayability unless you just want to go after different endings.
This could have been a great game if the stats were made more equal and the story was randomized, but as it is it's a decent time-killer until you figure out how to beat the story.
