Nearly every mechanical system in this game is plagued with balance issues. I have no idea what they were thinking with the Runes. There is something to be said, of course, for the joy of playing a video game with a suboptimal build, but even as a low-tier warrior I don't see how the appeal of this subgenre meshes well with deliberately handicapping yourself. Isn't the musou-style Ye Shall Be As Gods mass violence the core loop's hook here?

Still good for a few hours' worth of cheap dopamine and at least more aesthetically palatable than Vampire Survivors.

The careless copy-editing sets a poor first impression. Someone needs to teach this poor writer and/or editor how to use a comma correctly. The dice mechanic is seductive, though, and even though it becomes so easily min-maxed as to be irrelevant in the last quarter, it gives the proceedings urgency where they otherwise wouldn't have any. I found myself compelled, though never quite surprised and certainly not moved; the game is totally upfront with its themes so there aren't exactly many surprises.

I would show this to a casual gamer who has expressed tentative interest in visual novels.

Incredibly bold to make a game about, in part, music's ability to foster emotional healing and communal growth, and then put all of your chips on Kings of Leon.

Awful ending! It really betrays how undernourished a lot of the characters and subplots are. The game essentially expresses its attitude toward the sum of your choices in Chapter 5's town council meeting and whether or not you receive a council member's support. Four binary outcomes, themselves only supported by one or at most two choices? I was especially disappointed at the handling of Eleanor's subplot, where it falls upon the protagonist to make an uneasy choice about an elderly woman's livelihood and she never gets the chance to justify or even discuss it after the fact.

The romance is its other big payoff, but that's just window dressing, lacking in dynamism and meant to distract you from how static the actual storyline is. I flirted hard with Ryan at first, pivoted to Steph during Chapter 3, then ultimately chose Ryan and never heard a word about it from Steph. You can pretty much just choose whoever, and by extension, whatever ending you want, with not even a comment on your chaotic behavior.

The game has its virtues. There's a solid thematic core around accountability and guilt, even though none of the endings address it meaningfully, and Alex is a fairly compelling protagonist. But there's no nuance between the lines, nothing that makes it feel like the game is actually paying attention to the leads you chase and the interests you delve deeper on. The empathy so painstakingly examined here is not extended to the player or their attempts to create a unique path through the world.

I admit minimal experience with survival and builder games, but for me neither subgenre has yet surpassed Subnautica. In its own quiet way, it's a game about the passage of time and how time changes in relation to the space you inhabit - refer to the game's final post-credits line and how it contrasts to the unforced rhythmic flow of life on the alien planet, defined solely by your basic biological needs and the day-night cycle. Aggressively and intrusively buggy but a lovely, thoughtful experience.

Today I am pouring one out for Konami Computer Entertainment Osaka, who produced four flawed but unique N64 titles - this, the Goemon games, and Deadly Arts - before being forced to handle their parent company's IP shovelware for the next six years. Hybrid Heaven was born from KCEO's hubristic notion that they could make a better game than Metal Gear Solid, and though there's no need to argue over who won that contest, it still proves that spite can encourage surprising ambition.

The game is frequently as stilted as it is expressive. Its only unqualified success is its industrial-adjacent soundtrack, which refines the dynamic music changes KCEO explored in Goemon to give each area a mounting sense of unearthliness. It's a great complement to the lush colors and alien geometry of the underground facility, but the game is so linear, and so hemmed in by its awkward camera, that it's hard to explore the environments and indulge in the experience on your own terms. The story is an explosive B-movie yarn that seems like it has something to say, but can't clearly express any ideas more sophisticated than "clone inferiority complex." MGS this ain't.

The combat system, first off, is inherently funny because this facility is full of freakish animal-alien-human chimeras and all of them fight like mixed martial artists. Playing with spacing and timing is fun and there are some interesting risk-reward elements, but the systems rarely encourage experimentation once you've found your winning handful of moves. Why would you ever use punches over kicks? I found the game too easy on Normal but admit that any of the higher difficulties would probably have been a drawn-out slog.

Certainly not a perfect game but ripe for rediscovery. There must be at least a few MMA/JRPG/conspiracy theory enthusiasts who have a Hybrid Heaven-shaped hole in their hearts.