No sé muy bien qué decir de este juego. Por un lado, me ha enganchado a toda la trama de asesinatos. Es muy visceral en como relata poco a poco todos los acontecimientos que desenvuelve la historia. Todo está guiado por unos personajes carismáticos y con personalidad. Se siente muy natural el establecer un vinculo con ellos. Por eso, cuando sucede los diferentes puntos de giro, te choca mucho el papel que toman en cada parte, lo que hace que quieras saber más y más. He llegado a poner en ciertos momentos la consola con la patita de atrás para sostenerla encima de la mesa y con el dialogo automático activado porque estaba super metido y quería disfrutarlo como si fuera una serie

Sin embargo, y este es el contrapunto- toda esta atmósfera de misterio se ve chafada en muchas ocasiones por un alivio cómico cochino, con una capa sexual un tanto problemática, sobre todo a lo que se refiere a las preferencias del personaje protagonista, que no me han gustado nada. Incluso, han podido convertirse en excusas narrativas para solucionar ciertos problemas que han sido más anticlimáticos que otra cosa. Y es una pena porque tiene momentos muy buenos fuera de estos comentarios. Sabe ser gracioso cuando quiere.

Por ejemplo, en algunos puzzles sabe gestionar el humor para relajar y ayudarte también a probar diferentes combinaciones. Creo que casa muy bien el explorar los somnium con la limitación temporal, aunque en algunos casos, como los ya finales, la formula de exploración y el prueba y error -porque tampoco sabes que efecto tiene las opciones que te dan- llegan a ser un tanto frustrantes porque no aplicas la lógica ni la estrategia para distribuir el tiempo que tienes, el juego no da esa posibilidad. Todo parece coincidir más con un factor aleatorio.

Tampoco parece coincidir bien la ramificación que han elegido para contar la historia y la extensión de cada una de ellas. Aunque esto se nota mucho mas casi al final del juego, cuando intentan bloquearte el camino del verdadero final si antes no pasas por ciertas rutas que solo sirve para estirar el misterio y de sobreexponer la trama.

No voy a negar que en algunos momentos he vivido este juego como un fever dream, pero todo el tema de los chistes de colegialas tetonas y los deus ex de ciertas rutas no le hacen bien. También me sorprende mucho que, para lo que es, esté regulinchi en temas de optimización para Switch. Además de algún que otro tirón en los diálogos -muy normal en juegos de la consola- le cuesta reproducir las animaciones complementarias, lo que provoca que la conversación tarde 3 o 4 segundos en responder porque no se ha cargado el vídeo.

Eso si, en algun futuro me jugaré al siguiente 🙄

"Damn this girl is annoying, does she have brain damage or something?"
10 hours later
"oh"

A game I had been meaning to get to for a while due to many people's rave reviews of it. I wouldn't say I found it lacking per say, I had a good or decent time with it, but I'm definitely not as fanatic with it as many other people seem to be.

The main thing that held it back were the routes. I played blindly and my route order went Iris > Ota > Mizuki. It seems that many people recommend Mizuki route first and I completely understand why. The other two routes just don't hold water at all to the suspense that hers has. Iris's route did not feel like a good one to start on, and Ota is just.... I question why he even exists as a character, because everyone else had some major relevancy to the plot while he's mostly a simp for Iris and not much more. I wouldn't go so far as to say his route was a waste of time but I certainly don't understand why he was written in as a main character. There are several characters, even minor ones, who I could see being a little more pivotal to deserve their own route.

Furthermore, the routes end up converging into a weird.... I wouldn't say plot twist per say, but just a strange detail that isn't really explained all too well. I've been told it somehow relates to Uchikoshi's Zero Escape series, or is tangentially similar to it, but I haven't played those games so I can't really say one way or another what he was trying to get at.

As far as gameplay goes, it was okay? I wasn't too much of a fan of the Somnium stages, usually dreading whenever one was about to start. I definitely had fun with most of them though once they actually started, but some of them felt a little too arbitrary with their solutions, and some of the map designs were just a slog to deal with.

Voice acting was pretty good in both English and Japanese, I switched back and forth as my whims dictated and was content with each. Though I forgot how bad English dub pronunciations are for Japanese names... Atrocious, I cringed every time I had to hear me-zoo-key.

Despite this review being largely complaints I did have a decent time with this. Maybe not particularly memorable, I can't see this sticking with me for more than a few months from now, but fine for the experience it was. None of my over 30 hours with it felt like too much of a slog except for when I was making myself check every bit of flavor text (I think I cut that out after Iris route). I really like what they did with the flavor text in this game, it was just too much to be constantly rechecking.

I'm not really sure if I'm going to check out the sequel. I don't feel compelled enough by this game to drop the money on it. If my friend who bought me this one gets to it and recommends it, maybe I will. Otherwise probably not.

Only completed the Mizuki route technically but I'm gonna give my thoughts on the game now because once you see like the first hour of it you already know how the rest of the game will be. Just want to say that this game is really interesting at the start and the mystery is definitely there, it also likes to show a bit of its cringe anime humor and most of the time it is actually funny. The game knows its cringe and it usually makes fun of itself for it, but you can tell that the voice actors and everyone else is having a blast reading their lines. This game balances the silly funny moments with the dark and more serious moments so that's something i'll legit give it praise for. However this is where i'm just kind of thrown off, this game is a visual novel, but there will be moments sprinkled in between where you have to do quick time events and they're usually ok.
This is definitely not something you play for the gameplay, you play it for the mystery, the characters, and the world. If I were to give out a flaw I wish this game had a sort of trigger warning in-game, there are many mature things discussed here and it can scare anyone who's new and wants to get into the series. It's rated M but you wouldn't know there's blood and many eye centered gore from reading the box arts rating. This one can get pretty heavy at times so approach with caution if you have certain triggers like that. Stay safe!

i want to hit kaname date with my car 😍😍😍

this game is flames. extremely compelling characters, a great english voice cast, and a batshit insane plot absolutely carries this shit. there's hardly any boring or slow sections, game's a fucking buffet of hilarious dialogue and oh shit moments.

i think my one complaint is that. i may be stupid but a lot of the somnium puzzles are super trial and error, and i think i prefer the more logic-based puzzles of nirvana initiative. that's not to say they're bad at all, even just hearing aiba and date's interactions during the incorrect puzzle choices makes up for it. it just took a while to really get used to.

if you're a zero escape or ace attorney fan, or. literally just a fan of VNs in general. you need to play this fucking game. uchikoshi is a god damn genius

Fun mystery game that kind of plays like a visual novel with some good plot twists. Some characters and parts of the story are silly. There's definitely some stuff that did not need to be in the game.

I enjoyed the story a lot. There are a number of fun characters, but a few of them weren't really noteworthy. The gameplay segments with Aiba were kind of strange.

It will satisfy your mystery game itch but it probably won't dethrone some of the more significant ones like Ghost Trick, Zero Escape, or Ace Attorney.