Unreal Life, a game about a girl named Hal who has lost her memories. She finds she can read an object's past by touch, through the help of a kind AI traffic light. She will then be sent to suffer through a gauntlet of the most obtuse, senseless, and slow RPGmaker style puzzles imaginable. All for a chance to meet her teacher, Miss Sakura, who is the singular link she has to her past.
Was it worth it? All those hours of slowly walking around aimlessly, trying to figure out what the game could possibly want from me? I suppose it was. The game has a very solidified style that it presents and it does it well. Visually, its perfectly crafted and beautiful to look at. The story it tells and the mystery that comes along with it was very interesting to me, and I appreciate how it tries to break the mold in several ways. For example, I really enjoyed how it presented Hal's memory flashbacks. They were confusing and violent and often unexpected, and I liked how they kept some vaugeness as to what exactly is happening until the very end. Stories like these where reality is clealry warped arent always best completely explained, as attempting to do so might just completely deflate any sense of electricty the plot has generated. I was worried this game was going to go down a stereotypical path (youre a serial killer!!! this whole world is fake and in your head!! Youre craAazy!!!!) but I'm more than pleased on the emphasis Unreal Life puts on the power of imagination and of yourself. The message the ending portrays and its resolution are a good one, and I'm glad to have read it.
However, this game is held back a lot by its gameplay. If you have a game that is mostly story oriented, any gameplay that occurs should work along with that and never obstruct the player too much. It would be a good thing, for example, to not add the most horseshit, time consuming puzzle you can think of and instead maybe just leave that out all together. I hate puzzles to begin with but I hate them even more now as they seem to love popping up in otherwise good games just to make them worse. The speed at which the character moves, the lack of direction or hints, and the general clunkiness of some of the puzzle mechanics introduced are all parts of the reason that these puzzles simply suck. The ones in the beginning half of the game arent so bad, but they always teetered on frustrating. While the later half of the game had me in tears trying to figure out just what I was doing wrong. Unreal Life would of benefitted greatly from some kind of hint system... considering you have a hyperintelligent AI with you, I dont think it'd be too unreasonable.
Overall, the story is very sweet and well thought out, except for the whole car crash thing which resolves in the same manner as a whoopie cushion deflates. Im pretty bummed this didnt have as big an impact as it could due to how frustrating it was to play, but I dont regret my time spent with it at all.
shoutout to the moss ball with the same name as me. Shes great. And round.
Was it worth it? All those hours of slowly walking around aimlessly, trying to figure out what the game could possibly want from me? I suppose it was. The game has a very solidified style that it presents and it does it well. Visually, its perfectly crafted and beautiful to look at. The story it tells and the mystery that comes along with it was very interesting to me, and I appreciate how it tries to break the mold in several ways. For example, I really enjoyed how it presented Hal's memory flashbacks. They were confusing and violent and often unexpected, and I liked how they kept some vaugeness as to what exactly is happening until the very end. Stories like these where reality is clealry warped arent always best completely explained, as attempting to do so might just completely deflate any sense of electricty the plot has generated. I was worried this game was going to go down a stereotypical path (youre a serial killer!!! this whole world is fake and in your head!! Youre craAazy!!!!) but I'm more than pleased on the emphasis Unreal Life puts on the power of imagination and of yourself. The message the ending portrays and its resolution are a good one, and I'm glad to have read it.
However, this game is held back a lot by its gameplay. If you have a game that is mostly story oriented, any gameplay that occurs should work along with that and never obstruct the player too much. It would be a good thing, for example, to not add the most horseshit, time consuming puzzle you can think of and instead maybe just leave that out all together. I hate puzzles to begin with but I hate them even more now as they seem to love popping up in otherwise good games just to make them worse. The speed at which the character moves, the lack of direction or hints, and the general clunkiness of some of the puzzle mechanics introduced are all parts of the reason that these puzzles simply suck. The ones in the beginning half of the game arent so bad, but they always teetered on frustrating. While the later half of the game had me in tears trying to figure out just what I was doing wrong. Unreal Life would of benefitted greatly from some kind of hint system... considering you have a hyperintelligent AI with you, I dont think it'd be too unreasonable.
Overall, the story is very sweet and well thought out, except for the whole car crash thing which resolves in the same manner as a whoopie cushion deflates. Im pretty bummed this didnt have as big an impact as it could due to how frustrating it was to play, but I dont regret my time spent with it at all.
shoutout to the moss ball with the same name as me. Shes great. And round.