Again, played on iOS which for some reason isn't a platform option.

Can't give this one a star rating yet because despite the fact I've played this five times (one for each route) I've completely forgotten everything that happened. That could mean the game is forgettable, or it could mean I just haven't gone back to it as often as the two previous games (all of my playthroughs were back-to-back as soon as it released), but either way I'll have to play it again sometime before I offer more concrete thoughts.

I do remember thinking the villains were pretty lackluster this time around, and I remember loving Mason's romance route as per usual. Mason honestly carries this series for me.

Played on iOS (why is mobile never a platform option for CoG/Hosted Games on here?)

All the usual selling points of Choice of Games/Hosted Games titles are here - massive amounts of player choice, diversity, character customisation, fun stats.

This one gets a bad rap, in my opinion. I've seen people criticising the protagonist for being 'helpless', less of a combatant than the companions, etc. but that wasn't my experience at all. I know in my playthroughs I certainly had some badass battle moments (including one where my character leapt through the air and stabbed a dragon in the head, single-handedly killing it), so I'd assume if someone genuinely is failing in fights at every turn and needs to be saved, it's down to stats or the choices they're making, not the game itself.

Anyway, the game itself is interesting and enjoyable. I loved the concept of the Soul Stones and the fact that which one you're bonded to is dependent on your personality traits - the amount of variety in the Stones and in the weapon forms they can take was fun to play around with in replays. The characters are pretty charming, and I enjoyed the option of polyamorous routes.

Although, because I am a certified villainfucker, Manerkol was obviously my favourite.

Played on iOS.

All the usual selling points of Choice of Games/Hosted Games titles are here - massive amounts of player choice, diversity, character customisation, fun stats.

This one had the potential to be really cool. It had some neat world-building and ideas, the characters were interesting, and I really enjoyed Q as a romance option. The ideas taken from The Wayhaven Chronicles were obvious in things such as the varying flavours of flirt dialogue, the love triangle option, Azuridian (I forget their female-variant name) vs. Adam/Ava being extremely similar, etc., but it's not like it was plagiarised; just inspired by. I do think people were far too harsh on it for that - no idea is completely unique, and more of an enjoyable thing is still an enjoyable thing. It wasn't crossing the line into blatant copying, and I was interested in seeing where it would take the series in its own vein.

Unfortunately, the series has been discontinued, I gather in part because of the backlash and comparisons to The Wayhaven Chronicles. It's a shame, but because of that I can't really recommend it as the story will never be finished and it ends on a cliffhanger.

I do hope the author returns with another game someday, whether a revamp of this one or a new idea entirely.

I'm so fond of this funky little series. It's more railroaded than most CoG titles are, and I have my issues with the author, but this was the first title I played on the website so it has a special place in my heart. The first game is kind of shallow in comparison to where the story would go in The Hero Project and Heroes Rise: HeroFall (the sequels), and the romance is essentially not present at all here unless you count Black Magic who is basically forced upon you (BIG no-no in CoG games, they're all about choice and player agency), but in my opinion it doesn't deserve the sheer level of mockery directed at it these days.

Other CoG games are much better and offer much more player choice and variation in routes, but this is a good first experience of the genre to get used to the playstyle without getting overwhelmed, and it's still a story worth experiencing.

A step up in quality and choice from the first game, though still behind the general CoG standard. I actually really liked the reality TV show angle this one went for; participating in the competition was fun, unravelling the conspiracy at the heart of it was interesting, and meeting a broader cast of characters, both new and returning, was great.

The Hero Project also introduces a new major romance option in the form of Lucky, and allows you to begin to feel out a relationship with Jenny, though the two most interesting options still don't come into play until the third game.

However! This one does have the infamous "LGBTQ+ exposition/debate dump" midway through, which I always thought people were exaggerating about, but no, it genuinely is that bad. As an LGBTQ+ man who LOVES inclusivity and diversity in my games and has absolutely zero patience for anyone who refers to that as 'pandering' or 'forced', trust me when I say this isn't the typical "baaah gayness exists in my game get it away from me". It's, like, three pages of a completely out-of-place argument between every character present about the correct terminology to use and fighting about which LGBTQ+ stereotype is more damaging and which of them has it worse. Relatedly, Sergei (the author) seems to think having his stereotypically attractive cis white gay man respond to every criticism from any other character he offends with "Oh yeah? Well I'm pretty and that's hard for me too! Didn't think about that did you!" is some kind of slam dunk gotcha every time. That exact conversation happens twice in this book and makes the same point each time and it always ends with this guy getting the last word. I don't know why you're trying to get me to side with the guy who refers to a trans woman character as "just a gay man trapped in a woman's body", but it's not working, my dude.

Written by the same author behind The Hero Project/Heroes Rise, so if you weren't into the more railroad-y aspects of that one, you probably won't be converted by this series.

Having said that, Versus had so much potential. It's really hard for me to recommend the series wholeheartedly anymore because of the absolute garbage fire the third game was, which has retroactively left such a sour taste in my mouth over the first two as well, but I'm trying to evaluate this one in itself right now.

It still has that annoying Sergei trait of him randomly throwing in the worst sci-fi words you've ever heard (why are the villains called "Blots"? Why is "blarg" a swear word? Why do you think I'll be able to take your game seriously if I'm in some sort of emotional final stand battle and a character's yelling, "Oh blarg, the Blot Emperor is coming to suck our souls out, we have to run for the Bliffenship and escape to Planet Bonk"), but if you try real hard to ignore that it's a pretty alright experience. I prefer the sequel to this one, but this has some interesting set-up and introduces a lot of pretty unique and cool concepts and ideas.

The setting is interesting - sort of sci-fi/extraterrestrial meets Hunger Games. I've always wanted more Hunger Games-esque plots in my interactive fiction, so it's pretty up my alley in that sense.

The high point of the Versus series before the next game brought it all crashing down.

The sci-fi/extraterrestrial meets Hunger Games premise continues to be interesting and full of potential, and in the hands of a better author it might have capitalised on it. I enjoyed the new range of romance options introduced in this one; none of the choices in this series really reached out and grabbed me above all others, but they were all decent enough and pretty varied in personality/outlook.

Genuinely, wholeheartedly, I recommend you play the first book and this one and then just stop. Make up your own ending. I guarantee it will be better than the official one.

I'll just copy and paste my initial post on the forums after I first finished it:

I’m late to the party, but I just finished this for the first time and… I’m honestly incredibly let down. I’m a long-time fan of the author - Heroes Rise has always held a special place in my heart as the first CoG series I got emotionally invested in, and I really enjoyed the first two Versus books, enough to keep up with their development via his other platforms. I’ve defended his writing for years. I also have pretty chill standards for games - I enjoy a lot of things other people dislike because as long as I have fun playing it I don’t really care about technical flaws - but…

Firstly, I agree with the person earlier in this thread who said the Heroes Rise tie-in was essentially false advertising. We were promised a continuation, closure, and answers - instead, we got an unnamed brief cameo in a single optional paragraph right at the end that answered nothing and had them not contributing at all to the main story.

The sheer laziness and rushed feeling of some parts of the book were impossible to ignore. On multiple occasions, entire event-filled days during the lead-up to the climax were skipped over in veins such as “a lot of dangerous and important trials were faced yesterday but honestly it’s just too overwhelming to think about in-depth so let’s move on to the next day” - what? The hyped-up Deathscapes journey is integral to the atmosphere and story. If you’re not going to bother to tell us what we did during it, don’t insert an itemised list of Awesome Things that supposedly occurred but that we’re missing out on. Just say nothing important took place until now. And the sheer arrogance of little asides such as “well, if you really want to know what you all did, maybe you should write the story for yourself” - we’re paying for the story here!

The romances were so empty and thrown-away, and it’s bizarre that Heroes Rise, a years old trilogy, had more in-depth and well-written relationships than this did. I tend to do one playthrough of a game for each romance option because I love experiencing them all and focusing on every character one by one, but after finishing this one, for the first time I honestly feel so unmotivated to do that here. My first playthrough was with Lady Venuma and Breeze, and the ending had my character Reborn to Prisca, Lady Venuma promising to find me and stick with Breeze but then being Reborn to her own area and remaining there without contact, and Breeze remaining stuck on Versus alone for the foreseeable future. I honestly tried to ignore that and told myself after the “we’ll meet again someday” conversation that it was still fulfilling, but it wasn’t.

Even the friendships were hollow - at the end of the game, I was told I was best friends with Pinkuju and that she’d been there every step of the way, but we’d barely interacted all series! It suddenly decided we were close because I happened to pick her for one single “who do you want to talk to?” option right at the end. The choice to brush off all of the major characters from the first two books in one fell swoop and make us play the entire last book with side characters was incomprehensible. It only resulted in the characters we’d bonded with and were interested in (and potentially had romanced) being pushed to the side, while after so long of waiting for this finale we had to experience it with new characters we’d barely spoken to and had far less personality.

I don’t know if it’s because I’ve frankly grown out of his writing, but I also tire of the clunky pages of unnatural exposition and childish, made-up names for things and fake swear words. Like someone said earlier, I can’t take things seriously and be emotionally devastated if you’re throwing words at me like “blerg”, “Blots” and “Cadet Gadget”.

The rail-roading, and the fact that many players experienced an ending that outright stated “this wasn’t canon, try again” and sent them all the way back to the beginning of the lengthy book, is awful. If you want to write a set story with set events and a set outcome, write a novel. I truly think it would be a great one. Perhaps that’s what his writing is suited for. But if you’re going to write an interactive, choice-based game, this is not how you do it. You don’t promise choices and consequences, freedom and independence of action, and then throw out retcons and “no that wasn’t the right route”s. His games ultimately don’t let you choose what you do - they tell you what you do, and if you’re really lucky, you can decide how you feel or think about the fact that you did it. Often, though, he’ll just tell you how you feel too.

Sergei’s world-building and lore continues to be amazing, and I’ve never minded the long detailed run-downs because I was truly interested. His concepts and ideas for stories are also amazing. But that’s just not enough to pull me through anymore. I’m a character- and relationship- oriented person, and it seems that with every instalment in his repertoire, those fall more and more by the wayside to service his decided-upon ‘true route’.

I see that he’s continuing the series with a comic book, but sadly I won’t be continuing with him. We’ve been promised closure and answers multiple times now, and honestly it really does feel like we’re borderline being scammed into buying more and more books looking for continuations we’ll never get.

Hard to review Jackbox game packs because I dip in and out and only play certain games with friends and never experience others, so my rating is never going to be accurate to the entire package. That said, Fibbage: Enough About You is exactly up my alley (I get to talk about myself and force everyone to get to know my life in order to win? Count me in), and general Fibbage is fun in itself as per usual.

The one I find myself playing with friends most often is Monster Seeking Monster, and it's not uncommon at all for us to boot up this game purely for that. I'm not sure how much I'd like it if it wasn't for the group I have, but they love it and actively ask for it, and it's always incredibly fun with them. The various monster types and secret abilities keep things interesting and change the vibe up per game, and the way the scoreboard can change so drastically and suddenly is always a trip. We like to use anonymous names so we can't cheat the system by going for people we know better than others, people we know our humour lands with, etc.

Personally not a fan of Civic Doodle, but not because it's a bad game - it takes a pretty damn good drawing-type game to engage me because I suck at drawing in a way that is less "funny bad" and more just "impossible to enjoy bad", but some of my friends do like it, mostly the artists.

Love Survive the Internet, especially in larger friend groups; I'm lucky enough to have some hilarious people around me, and we always end up cracking up with some of the shit that comes out during this one. Quality varies heavily depending on players and the categories you're sent to, but overall it's a fun game with a lot of potential for shocking humour.

May update this if we do end up dipping into Bracketeering, but until then this score is based solely on those four games.

GRAPHICS: Not amazing or anything, but perfectly fine for a visual novel. Character designs are cute, backgrounds are serviceable, and the little details are cool (such as Monika having black socks while the other three have white).
CHARACTERS: Decent range of personalities for a four-character group. I liked Sayori fast, but Natsuki ended up kind of creeping up on me as an underdog favourite due to being the most 'normal' of the cast (and thus the least scary). I thought I'd like Yuri more based on her personality archetype at the beginning and her design, but MAN did she end up creeping me out more than I thought she would. Monika is iconic, obviously. MC is pretty much a non-entity, but it turns out that's kind of the point.
GAMEPLAY: Not much to say here; it's a visual novel. Lots of reading, lots of clicking, some dialogue options and plot choices as well as different 'paths' for the girls. If you don't like visual novels, you probably won't like the gameplay of this, but I do, so I didn't mind it.
MULTIPLAYER: None.

I went into this knowing it was a psychological horror and that Monika wasn't what she seemed, so I have no idea how much harder it could've hit me if I'd been entirely spoiler-free, but even with that, holy SHIT. I didn't know just how sudden it got - that first moment walking into Sayori's room and finding her hanging with the jumpscare and the distorted music had me YELLING.

Favourite Male Character: ...Um.
Favourite Female Character: Natsuki
First Character I Liked: Yuri
Favourite Character Design: Monika
Favourite OST: TBA
Favourite Scene: For what it meant and kicked off, Sayori's suicide
Least Favourite Character: None

I know it's blasphemous to say so, but this game is just... fine. For me personally, it's probably the most overrated game I can think of. The Road did the story first and better. Lee and Clementine from The Walking Dead did the 'badass father figure with questionable past and young girl who slowly become family' trope first and better. The gameplay was clunky and shots didn't feel weighty enough, and everything in here has just... been done before somewhere else. It's a fine game, even a good one, you won't find me claiming otherwise, but I just don't see the mind-blowing masterpiece everyone else seems to, and I genuinely don't understand the reputation this still has to this day. Have people just not played enough other games?

The graphics were stunning at release (I remember at the time saying it was the most realistic-looking game I'd ever seen), characters are relatively believable as people, the acting is brilliant. As a video game, though, it's a strong "meh", and the more it's lauded as the best of all time the more resentful I grow toward it.

There are just so many better games and so many better stories that are pushed to the side in favour of this trope-fest.

GRAPHICS: Pretty, particularly the character models. I loved the glowing reds and almost gory designs of the roots taking over the city.
CHARACTERS: Fun, charismatic, interesting, and if you've played the former DMC games they're endearingly familiar. My personal favourite is V, who neatly slots into character tropes I tend to enjoy, but I also liked (the sadly little we get of) Lady, and Dante was hilarious as always. I particularly enjoyed the Dante-and-Vergil dynamic.
DIALOGUE/VOICE ACTING: Voice acting is brilliant, particularly Dante's. Nico's accent grated on me a little, but that's entirely a me thing.
PLOT: Nothing mind-blowing or unique, but you probably don't come to Devil May Cry for the complex story. It's interesting enough to service the game.
GAMEPLAY: Genuinely fun to play through, and combat feels satisfying and flashy. I found V's combat style most fun to play, Dante's trickiest to do well at, and Nero's easy to master but not as engaging.
MULTIPLAYER: I didn't focus on it overly much during my playthrough, but it had a fairly interesting take on it from what I recall. In certain sections of the game, you can see other players controlling the other playable characters in the distance in their own sections of the map, and at the end you can give them a ranking on how well they did. I pretty much just gave everyone a Stylish rating, which grants them a gold orb, because why not? I'll have to delve more deeply into this aspect of the game when I replay.

Favourite Male Character: V
Favourite Female Character: Lady
First Character I Liked: Lady
Favourite Character Design: Repetitively, V and Lady
Favourite OST: Devil Trigger
Favourite Scene: V's hair turning white
Least Favourite Character: None

I'm still technically working on this, but my motivation to continue it has waned recently through no particular fault of its own (I'm just busy and distracted by other games), so I'll throw a review out anyway and just update it whenever I get around to completing the available story.

I'll get the criticisms out of the way first:
- This is likely entirely a me problem, and this is a very specific nitpick I have, but I cannot describe how much I resent this protagonist. As far as I can tell, the creator is a woman of colour, and the cast of characters is in general very diverse and interesting, but the main character is the most boring, generic, milqetoast-end-slice-of-white-bread guy I've ever seen. Whenever his model appears in a scene I have to actively pretend he's not there in order to stay in the mood of the moment because good god he's not attractive at all, and he's even less relatable. I'm guessing the creator just went for The Most Average Man In The World for the sake of male players being more likely to find him viable as a self-insert, but it leaves all the rest of us (and I say this as a white man myself, just not one who looks anything like this guy) in the lurch. I can understand not being able to create your own protagonist, but at that point I'd actively prefer not seeing his face and just having him appear in scenes from the neck down, from the back, having NSFW scenes be in first-person, whatever. A lot of them are in first-person, so I'm not sure why it's not consistent. It's very difficult to believe that the entire town is chasing this guy's dick.
- The game has some surprisingly "straight man"-esque writing from a female author, if you know what I mean; the type of thing that comes from books written by men trying to write an Attractive Female Character. Some quotes that stood out are "She was wearing a crop top her breasts constantly threatened to spill out of" about Kendra, and "I can see her breasts shift around underneath her dress" about a teacher. That doesn't generally happen, and if your breasts are shifting around autonomously I suggest seeking medical attention or, perhaps, an exorcist. I'd also note here the fact that there's a scene where Suzy is crying and you're comforting her and the game chooses to focus on a panty shot.
- I do wish there was more diversity in the sense of gender when it comes to the romance options. Other kinds of diversity are given respectable amounts of attention, but out of the 20+ love interests and side flings, there's only one gay option, and one trans woman. Every other option is a cis woman. I prefer men myself, so it was pretty noticeable to me.
- There's some fetishisation of bisexuality/lesbianism, with lots of mentions of "lesbian experiments". Overall, there are quite a lot of "I fuck women because you, the male protagonist, find it hot, but I don't actually like women" undertones to certain characters' dialogue.
- The dirty talk in NSFW scenes is pretty same-y, with some exceptions. A lot of the characters drop the same phrases and words, which is fine because, I mean, it's hot, but it does start to get repetitive.
- There are some typos, spelling errors, and mistakes between past and present tense, but not so much that it's distracting. There are also some continuity errors, such as having the option to tell Reba you believe in God, but later getting automatic dialogue with Ms. Welsh where the protagonist states he doesn't believe in God and that he instead believes in science. Another is that the protagonist's username in Brandi's Twitch chat is 'BurgerBuddy' at the start and then inexplicably becomes 'BurgerBoy'. There was one instance of the wrong colour and character name used for another character's dialogue, though apparently I didn't note down which one. It's worth noting, though, that the game is still in early access, so it's understandable.
- Jaime's route contains the use of "Asperger's syndrome", which is an outdated term that isn't used or diagnosed anymore. It would just be Autistic Spectrum Disorder.
- Brandi hits that strange trope of "skinny girl who eats a ton and that's sexy because she's Hot And Thin (and a fat character eating a lot wouldn't be sexy)". You're telling me this woman eats 14/15 burgers at a time and she's still model slim? And why is the dialogue telling me she has a "thick ass"? This chick is skinny.
- The male protagonist has sex with a lesbian side character. Again, not something that doesn't happen in real life, exactly, but when it's not being written by a lesbian...

Neutral/Varied:
- The voice acting is spotty in places; Jamie's in particular is patchy and very "reading from a script" rather than sounding natural, with some strange enunciations/emphasis. A lot of the VA work is trying a little too hard to sound 'porn sexy' and hits too close to unnatural. The rest are generally fine; Suzy is notably good, and Mrs. Mills is great - her voice actress fully commits to it and I respect it. Mi-Cha is a little so-so at points, but she sounds so cute that I can't be bothered by it.

Positive:
- This game has some really great diversity in all respects other than gender identity. The love interests include black women with natural hair and dreadlocks, brown women, Asian women, a disabled woman in a wheelchair, a girl with a terminal illness, and older women (both mothers and grandmothers included). Shoutout to the body types of said older women, too - though all the younger women tend to generally fall into the category of 'slim', Lisa and Connie have very realistic body types for their characters.
- I'm refreshed and relieved by the fact that, in my experience so far, Adrian being a trans woman isn't treated as a fetish at all. The fact that her name is Adrian is a little questionable (trans women absolutely can have unisex or masculine names, but when it's the only trans character written by a cis author it invites some caution), but other than that she's, as far as I can tell, written empathetically and respectfully. Maybe this changes later in the updated content, I'm not far in her route in my replay, but hopefully not.
- The characters have a super wide range of personalities and romance/relationship types. There'll probably be at least one dynamic and person that's up your alley.
- I really love that the protagonist cries during a counselling session. Especially with how I mentioned my feeling that he's a very generic 'cishet male gamer' centered design, it was refreshing and great to have him openly show emotion and 'weakness'. I think that's super important for men to be able to do.
- Brandi's Twitch chat was such a fun feature, with being able to see dozens of comments each scene. There's the single somewhat annoying element of there being an ad for the game in the form of a commenter who's always advertising it to the Twitch chat (why? We're already playing the game), which could have just been a fun nod if not for the fact that in my game so far I've already counted it happening 12 separate times. I'd take that down a notch. Other than that, though, it's a really fun addition, and I liked seeing the returning commenters/characters each stream, especially when you have the chance to meet some of them in person.
- The interface. I love the interface. One of the biggest issues I have playing visual novels is I'm incredibly picky with interfaces, the dialogue font/speed, menus, etc., and Come Home's is so clean and useful and easy to navigate. It's changed a lot since the first time I played through the game, definitely for the better.
- Bai coming out to his parents made me super emotional. It was such a lovely scene to include after I've had to sit through so many stories in all forms of media with rough coming-outs. I really, really appreciated the handling of that.
- The protagonist's monologue to Terry after he hits Dana is great (at least, it was in my playthrough; the options I chose to get the scene were "Get Dana and leave" -> "She doesn't want you" -> "Grab him and yell at him"). It wasn't giving 'saviour complex' vibes like some 'rescuing a woman from an abusive relationship' stories do, but it was cathartic and important.
- Polyamory representation! Sure, there's the low-key kind where the love interests are generally fine with you having other partners at least for now, but there are also straight-up polyamorous relationships included. Eden and her husband have an open relationship, and there's also a polyamorous triad between Suzy, Tammy, and the protagonist if you pursue either of the girls, with it made clear that all three of you have feelings for one another.
- Most importantly, and I really do want to emphasise this: the amount of content given out for free by RJ Rhodes with Come Home is insane. I forked out for the purchasable Premium Edition because, damn, she deserves it, and I thought the bonus outfits were a cute enough addition to warrant it. But even with the free version of the game, you are getting hours and hours of gameplay, plot, romance, character development, enjoyment, options, all for absolutely nothing. The amount of work that's gone into this game is a little mind-blowing.

Favourite Male Character: Bai
Favourite Female Character: Mi-Cha
First Character I Liked: Bai
Favourite Character Design: Whitney
Favourite Moment: So far, Bai's coming out scene
Least Favourite Character: You already know it's the protagonist