Fun mystery visual novel with characters that have great chemistry with each other, but can be a bit horny for my taste.
Great murder mystery with lots of cool characters. The case is interwoven surprisingly well with all the stories revolving around the cast, which is rare to see done in such a seamless and organic manner! The foreshadowings and twists are excellent too!
my very first game where i got all the achievements B)
intriguing story with funny moments that lighten the darkness of the overall tone. however, towards the end, the game would keep crashing in the somniums even though it had no issue during early game.
worth it if you ever see it on sale (i was able to get it for under $10)
intriguing story with funny moments that lighten the darkness of the overall tone. however, towards the end, the game would keep crashing in the somniums even though it had no issue during early game.
worth it if you ever see it on sale (i was able to get it for under $10)
i really liked the intricate murder mystery that you get to solve as the detective date. it's not as simple as it originally seems and you have to delve through multiple timelines to uncover all of the information and solve every aspect of the mystery, including the mystery of date's identity. i think the story was well thought out and doesn't have many holes. it keeps you on your toes until the end and forming theories is fun and i was right about several though there were still aspects i didn't figure out that were really satisfying to discover. you won't find out the full truth until playing the full game which took me 15+ hours.
my main critique is of the humor in the game and also the action/fighting scenes. the humor is "gag/slapstick" humor and also sexual humor and i thought it fell flat most of the time during an otherwise very serious game. it felt strange and out of place for gags to happen in the middle of emotional moments. they also repeated the same trite gags over and over and made them plot important, especially during action scenes.
the action was completely unrealistic and a character being super-strong is part of the plot, even though it is impossible. so, i guess you might consider it a plot hole that certain things were possible because of these plot points related to gags. but within the logic of the game they function. the same game also goes above the "meta" of parallel timelines in games with branching endings and makes it "real" to the main character, who has confusing memories of the other timelines you play that help him solve the mystery.
my main critique is of the humor in the game and also the action/fighting scenes. the humor is "gag/slapstick" humor and also sexual humor and i thought it fell flat most of the time during an otherwise very serious game. it felt strange and out of place for gags to happen in the middle of emotional moments. they also repeated the same trite gags over and over and made them plot important, especially during action scenes.
the action was completely unrealistic and a character being super-strong is part of the plot, even though it is impossible. so, i guess you might consider it a plot hole that certain things were possible because of these plot points related to gags. but within the logic of the game they function. the same game also goes above the "meta" of parallel timelines in games with branching endings and makes it "real" to the main character, who has confusing memories of the other timelines you play that help him solve the mystery.
This review contains spoilers
saito is so crazzzzyyyyyyy!! love him!!!!!
10/10 it has Date in it
AIBA!!!!!
This review contains spoilers
A lot more enjoyable than ZDT, thats for sure. Worth the playthrough for the story and characters alone, even with its flaws. Here are some general notes I kept thinking abt while playing.
The Good:
- This game is insanely gay??? Like I was NOT expecting it at all but there were multiple queer characters + a ton of positive talk about the queer community. I predicted Pewter being a villain tho the second I found the BL in his cabinets, gays as villains trope be like 🥴. But he didn't turn out to be a bad person, just someone who was manipulated. So I can forgive it. Same with Renju I suppose, to some extent. (Also the second I saw Pewter's bulge I was like no ma'am that man is NOT straight) Oh yeah and Mama is mother, I just love her sm <3
- Uchikoshi is really good at writing complex characters with deep character relationships. Date is an incredibly fun protagonist, even if his dialogue becomes a bit tedious and annoying at times. I genuinely love this horny middle aged man, 10/10 yes I would date Date. I similarly fell in love with Date and Mizuki's found-family relationship, Date and Aiba's begrudging partnership (love how they don't even realize how much they need each other and care for each other... oof), and weirdly enough Uta and his mother's relationship as well. It was the central plot of one path I suppose, but it still felt so inconsequential yet so impactful. I think this game really does a good job at showing the importance of familial love, whether through found family or biological family. As Mizuki says, a family is someone you are entirely ordinary with. The people you rely on without even realizing. If there's one takeaway from this game I would keep with me, it would be that.
- Uchikoshi is also incredibly skilled at writing these sorts of stories that are complex, intertwined slowburns that come together by the end. I think the twist for this game worked really well bc it kept the suspicion on literally every single character until the final reveal. And thankfully it didn't feel too contrived, which is always my biggest concern when it comes to this writing style. In general I think that his story was really compelling, and I appreciated that the villain had simple motives... to start, at least.
The Bad:
- The terribly awkward animations made this game feel so stilted to play, it reminded me quite a bit of how bad ZTD's animations were. It felt like watching dolls in a dollhouse. I suppose you could say it adds to the vibe, but I think it takes away from the tense atmosphere. Again tho, didn't take as much away as it did in ZTD so there is some improvement I suppose.
- The graphics, while not bad per se, felt like upscaled 3DS visuals. Which honestly I wouldn't be surprised if this game was originally being built for that system. But I genuinely hated the effects given to objects in somniums. It looked bad, and not purposefully bad. I think I get what they were going for, it just doesn't work imo and kinda breaks the atmosphere again. I think by FAR the most effective somniums were Date's tutorial somnium, Date's final somnium where you play as Mizuki, and Hitomi's mountain somnium. The greyscale/ color gimmick in those first two worked beautifully and was visually interesting, and the void of dark and empty spaces that made Hitomi's was insanely effective as well. Meanwhile Iris' shovelforge somniums... both of them... I never want to see them again. The bright colored blocks mixed with the weird wavy texture given to everything in somnium made for a visually appalling experience. Esp with the audio clutter in that second shovelforge somnium. I just don't understand that choice. Even in saito's/boss' somnium, I don't understand why they chose to go for garishly bright colors and textures that took me out of any sort of tense atmosphere, and was just wholly visually unappealing.
- The action sequences were terrible. I dreaded every time one would pop up. They were so insanely slow bc of the weird loading screens where aiba would think of a plan or w/e, and then executing said plan was similarly painfully slow. The qte's felt pointless. They just felt so forced. I genuinely think this game would have been better without these sequences at all. Thankfully there were only a handful, but still...
- Listen. I know that Uchikoshi has always written anime vn's. 999 is one of my favorite games of all time, and I genuinely love VLR with my whole heart, even with its flaws. But over the years he just keep cranking that dial more and more, and elements of this game almost feel like a parody of anime tropes at this point. Like it can't be real. A lot of the characters and dialogue are just incessantly annoying. Almost every character suffers from this, but mainly Iris, Mizuki, and Uta (albeit he is a NEET so like I get why) as well as Date himself to a lesser extent. It just becomes grating honestly. I feel like this story could be told so much better, these characters so much more compelling, if they had just toned back on the anime tropes. I'm not even talking abt the crazy zany elements, the comedy, or the meta-humor. I love those elements. Just stop the incessant dialogue and voice acting please.
- Speaking of. If I have to watch that dance or listen to that song that goes with it one more time in my life I will implode. The way they used it like 5 or 6 times I stg 😭 I was dying
- This game is incessantly horny, as I've previously said. That's not entirely a bad thing, but it is painfully het at times. And also flat out inappropriate at times as well. Yeah yeah Date's a perv I KNOW, I GET IT. Still...
Some cool things that happened to me during this playthrough:
1) My very first path was the one where we see the video of Boss killing So, so the entire fucking game I was insanely suspicious of her and that really threw me off the tracks of finding the actual murderer in any other path lol. At first I thought this represented a weakness of branching CYOA-esque stories, but looking back its actually kinda rad that I had this really unique experience. I kept thinking abt how things would tie back to her, and even tho she wasn't the villain, that was such a fun angle to be looking at the story from.
2) Idk if this is how you're supposed to figure this out, but at the end of Iris' route where she dies to the tumor after psyncing, she had her eye stabbed due to the machine. I immediately figured out that it was bc of the psync machine, and that made me realize that the murderer (whoever it was) wasn't actually fascinated with the eyeballs but rather was just placing all his victims in this machine. Didn't know abt the body swapping yet, but was an insanely chilling moment to finally figure out such a large part of the mystery in a moment where I wasn't even sure if we were supposed to be thinking abt that. This, imo, is why Uchikoshi's writing is so effective. It makes the reader feel like they are actually putting together the pieces of the story themselves, and that they can figure things out early.
The Good:
- This game is insanely gay??? Like I was NOT expecting it at all but there were multiple queer characters + a ton of positive talk about the queer community. I predicted Pewter being a villain tho the second I found the BL in his cabinets, gays as villains trope be like 🥴. But he didn't turn out to be a bad person, just someone who was manipulated. So I can forgive it. Same with Renju I suppose, to some extent. (Also the second I saw Pewter's bulge I was like no ma'am that man is NOT straight) Oh yeah and Mama is mother, I just love her sm <3
- Uchikoshi is really good at writing complex characters with deep character relationships. Date is an incredibly fun protagonist, even if his dialogue becomes a bit tedious and annoying at times. I genuinely love this horny middle aged man, 10/10 yes I would date Date. I similarly fell in love with Date and Mizuki's found-family relationship, Date and Aiba's begrudging partnership (love how they don't even realize how much they need each other and care for each other... oof), and weirdly enough Uta and his mother's relationship as well. It was the central plot of one path I suppose, but it still felt so inconsequential yet so impactful. I think this game really does a good job at showing the importance of familial love, whether through found family or biological family. As Mizuki says, a family is someone you are entirely ordinary with. The people you rely on without even realizing. If there's one takeaway from this game I would keep with me, it would be that.
- Uchikoshi is also incredibly skilled at writing these sorts of stories that are complex, intertwined slowburns that come together by the end. I think the twist for this game worked really well bc it kept the suspicion on literally every single character until the final reveal. And thankfully it didn't feel too contrived, which is always my biggest concern when it comes to this writing style. In general I think that his story was really compelling, and I appreciated that the villain had simple motives... to start, at least.
The Bad:
- The terribly awkward animations made this game feel so stilted to play, it reminded me quite a bit of how bad ZTD's animations were. It felt like watching dolls in a dollhouse. I suppose you could say it adds to the vibe, but I think it takes away from the tense atmosphere. Again tho, didn't take as much away as it did in ZTD so there is some improvement I suppose.
- The graphics, while not bad per se, felt like upscaled 3DS visuals. Which honestly I wouldn't be surprised if this game was originally being built for that system. But I genuinely hated the effects given to objects in somniums. It looked bad, and not purposefully bad. I think I get what they were going for, it just doesn't work imo and kinda breaks the atmosphere again. I think by FAR the most effective somniums were Date's tutorial somnium, Date's final somnium where you play as Mizuki, and Hitomi's mountain somnium. The greyscale/ color gimmick in those first two worked beautifully and was visually interesting, and the void of dark and empty spaces that made Hitomi's was insanely effective as well. Meanwhile Iris' shovelforge somniums... both of them... I never want to see them again. The bright colored blocks mixed with the weird wavy texture given to everything in somnium made for a visually appalling experience. Esp with the audio clutter in that second shovelforge somnium. I just don't understand that choice. Even in saito's/boss' somnium, I don't understand why they chose to go for garishly bright colors and textures that took me out of any sort of tense atmosphere, and was just wholly visually unappealing.
- The action sequences were terrible. I dreaded every time one would pop up. They were so insanely slow bc of the weird loading screens where aiba would think of a plan or w/e, and then executing said plan was similarly painfully slow. The qte's felt pointless. They just felt so forced. I genuinely think this game would have been better without these sequences at all. Thankfully there were only a handful, but still...
- Listen. I know that Uchikoshi has always written anime vn's. 999 is one of my favorite games of all time, and I genuinely love VLR with my whole heart, even with its flaws. But over the years he just keep cranking that dial more and more, and elements of this game almost feel like a parody of anime tropes at this point. Like it can't be real. A lot of the characters and dialogue are just incessantly annoying. Almost every character suffers from this, but mainly Iris, Mizuki, and Uta (albeit he is a NEET so like I get why) as well as Date himself to a lesser extent. It just becomes grating honestly. I feel like this story could be told so much better, these characters so much more compelling, if they had just toned back on the anime tropes. I'm not even talking abt the crazy zany elements, the comedy, or the meta-humor. I love those elements. Just stop the incessant dialogue and voice acting please.
- Speaking of. If I have to watch that dance or listen to that song that goes with it one more time in my life I will implode. The way they used it like 5 or 6 times I stg 😭 I was dying
- This game is incessantly horny, as I've previously said. That's not entirely a bad thing, but it is painfully het at times. And also flat out inappropriate at times as well. Yeah yeah Date's a perv I KNOW, I GET IT. Still...
Some cool things that happened to me during this playthrough:
1) My very first path was the one where we see the video of Boss killing So, so the entire fucking game I was insanely suspicious of her and that really threw me off the tracks of finding the actual murderer in any other path lol. At first I thought this represented a weakness of branching CYOA-esque stories, but looking back its actually kinda rad that I had this really unique experience. I kept thinking abt how things would tie back to her, and even tho she wasn't the villain, that was such a fun angle to be looking at the story from.
2) Idk if this is how you're supposed to figure this out, but at the end of Iris' route where she dies to the tumor after psyncing, she had her eye stabbed due to the machine. I immediately figured out that it was bc of the psync machine, and that made me realize that the murderer (whoever it was) wasn't actually fascinated with the eyeballs but rather was just placing all his victims in this machine. Didn't know abt the body swapping yet, but was an insanely chilling moment to finally figure out such a large part of the mystery in a moment where I wasn't even sure if we were supposed to be thinking abt that. This, imo, is why Uchikoshi's writing is so effective. It makes the reader feel like they are actually putting together the pieces of the story themselves, and that they can figure things out early.
its mizuki
The twist is a little predictable, but the characters are so charming that I don't really mind
I wasn't expecting multiple routes but they definitely helped flesh out the characters. I was not expecting the plot twist related to the main protag and a villain at all. Nice story that touches on serious themes.
My only complaint is one I have with most visual novels. I just wish there was more gameplay.
My only complaint is one I have with most visual novels. I just wish there was more gameplay.
zero time dilemma but good
Menús muy buenos, buenas voces (JP), historia interesante que te anima a especular, también bonita; y sabe cuándo ser tonta y cuándo no.
No tan buenas las animaciones de personajes ni la música. Los efectos de sonido bien, pero lo de la música es un punto que lo podría haber elevado mucho.
El gameplay está curioso y presenta momentos graciosos, es un género donde tampoco se puede hacer mucho para no espantar a los lectores de VN.
No tan buenas las animaciones de personajes ni la música. Los efectos de sonido bien, pero lo de la música es un punto que lo podría haber elevado mucho.
El gameplay está curioso y presenta momentos graciosos, es un género donde tampoco se puede hacer mucho para no espantar a los lectores de VN.
This review contains spoilers
Wish I had super powers when looking at porn.
kaname date the only horny character i can tolerate in all of fiction
kaname date you will always be famous
date sexy
Can’t wait for part 3.
One of the most intricately woven plots that gave me goosebumps with a spine tingling climax.
Kotaro Uchikoshi is a Genius.
One of the most intricately woven plots that gave me goosebumps with a spine tingling climax.
Kotaro Uchikoshi is a Genius.
Uchikoshi relaxed
especially the somnium themselves got to me
this game convinced me that, just maybe, uchikoshi isn't a hack
Uchikoshi's mind is very interesting. Cool character designs forced into an awkward anime comedy/mystery novel that tries desperately to be serious at times and fails. Turn your brain off and pretend you're watching a late night cartoon show. Don't play the sequel.
Yeah, sadly I don't like this one as much as most people, I guess I just don't really dig how hard it leans into anime tropes, with the Horney protag and his E-girl friends.
This does have some great moments for sure, but for my money, there are better visual novels out there
This does have some great moments for sure, but for my money, there are better visual novels out there
porn magazine
While at parts it can be very “anime twisty” it was overall fun I wish I could replay without knowing anything again
This is my second favorite game of all time. Half of it sucks. I love it anyways. Uchikoshi's characters have never been better and the dirty jokes aren't grating like they can be in VLR. I love these guys so much. Just for the love of god please pick the left birdcage first
mizuki route is my favorite this game is fucking awesome
Bit of an enigma... on one hand, it has some amazing character moments, I enjoyed the fantastical weirdness of its dream designs (especially a couple dreamscapes in particular that I found to be beautiful), and I couldn't help but smile/laugh at the utter silliness of the ending. And that damn recurring "Invincible Rainbow Arrow" song! Hilariously cringe!
But saying all that, there is also some odd humor that didn't land for me, many perverted moments, poor animations, and ridiculous action scenes (big understatement) that just made me roll my eyes.
Still, the game can be somewhat charming, but I feel it is the worst of Uchikoshi's works - I enjoyed Ever 17 and the Zero Escape trilogy more. I don't think I'll end up playing its sequel.
PSYNCIN' IN THE CAPTaiN (Date's Somnium) - the route this song played in was my favorite
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ScHQLUgOxwo
But saying all that, there is also some odd humor that didn't land for me, many perverted moments, poor animations, and ridiculous action scenes (big understatement) that just made me roll my eyes.
Still, the game can be somewhat charming, but I feel it is the worst of Uchikoshi's works - I enjoyed Ever 17 and the Zero Escape trilogy more. I don't think I'll end up playing its sequel.
PSYNCIN' IN THE CAPTaiN (Date's Somnium) - the route this song played in was my favorite
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ScHQLUgOxwo
gosto do universo, bons design de personagens roupa do date muito pica, cena musical no final sensacional e boa historia de detetive estive na ponta da cadeira
I know its about a serious murder but the game does not take itself that seriously most of the time and I'm here for it. The mind synch sections are a bit nutty and are just trial and error I would recommend to look up a guide to save yourself the time.