adjansen
2017
This game made me feel evil for finding it rather cloying :(
This review contains spoilers
LiS:BtS (no connection to the k-pop sensation) is a kinda fun teen delinquent/disaster lesbian simulator that suffers from excessive devotion to canon. Case in point: the ending. Ohhhh did the ending of this game piss me off. I mean, it strikes an effectively bittersweet note (thanks in part to "Bros" by Wolf Alice being a banger) but it would have been so easy to strike an even more thought-provoking one by just...letting you run away from Arcadia Bay with Rachel??
For a game series built on choose-your-own-adventure mechanics that was willing in the first game to play around with butterfly effect/monkey paw/multiple universe ideas, it seems especially egregious that you have no control over the outcome of this one. Think about it: If you run away with Rachel, she survives and you can live out your dreams together, but Chloe and Max never meet again and the events of the original game are erased from the universe. If you stay in Arcadia Bay, you are, in a way, sacrificing Rachel so that Chloe and Max can reunite and make the events of LiS possible. This would lend so much more gravity to the ending and really hammer home the wistfulness they clearly want you to feel.
I think if Deck Nine had felt more freedom to experiment, and less obligation to include cameos, this could have been a more interesting experience than what it is, which is basically Fanfiction I Would Feel Slightly Embarrassed to But Might Still Recommend to a Friend Who Was Into That Kind of Thing: The Game.
For a game series built on choose-your-own-adventure mechanics that was willing in the first game to play around with butterfly effect/monkey paw/multiple universe ideas, it seems especially egregious that you have no control over the outcome of this one. Think about it: If you run away with Rachel, she survives and you can live out your dreams together, but Chloe and Max never meet again and the events of the original game are erased from the universe. If you stay in Arcadia Bay, you are, in a way, sacrificing Rachel so that Chloe and Max can reunite and make the events of LiS possible. This would lend so much more gravity to the ending and really hammer home the wistfulness they clearly want you to feel.
I think if Deck Nine had felt more freedom to experiment, and less obligation to include cameos, this could have been a more interesting experience than what it is, which is basically Fanfiction I Would Feel Slightly Embarrassed to But Might Still Recommend to a Friend Who Was Into That Kind of Thing: The Game.
2019
short & sweet award 2019
Jenny LeClue pretty much did the trick for me. It delivers the kind of cozy-rainy-afternoon-with-a-cup-of-tea Nancy Drew mystery you would expect, with a level of polish and flair you would not expect from a basically one-person development team. Some people who have never met a teenager in their lives find Jenny annoying, but making her a bit mean makes her a better character, and honestly she's probably on the nicer end of the spectrum for kids this age lmao. Anyway, this was not my favorite adventure game of all time, and there are some mild annoyances here and there along the way (Jenny herself not being one of them), but overall I feel like this game deserves a little more love. It is basically the adventure game equivalent of comfort food but I would play the next installment in a heartbeat.
2021
I liked this more than I expected because I usually hate card games. Drags on a bit though there at the end
2020
Love the setting and choose-your-own-adventure style, but you do seem rather railroaded in some regards, like even if it is realistic it is annoying that you get assassinated for doing anything too progressive lmao
2018
short & sweet award 2018
(2018 was a good year for short & sweet)
(2018 was a good year for short & sweet)
2015
OKay so it's pretty cringe and contains egregious misuse of the word "hella" but it made me feel things when I played it. Yes I'm aware it did so through cheap melodramatic emotional manipulation. I'm sorry I just liked these dumb teenage losers okay, at least i'm ashamed of it now so it's all good.
2018
short & sweet award 2018
(2018 was a good year for short & sweet)
(2018 was a good year for short & sweet)
2019
Unfortunately bounced very hard off this one. It has a certain charm and I was curious to see where the story was going but the core gameplay is just "torturously difficult platformer with levels that never end" so I quit when the challenge started ramping up.
2016
Not an earthshattering story but very well done for what it is, super excited for the sequel.