As a visual novel I quite like this game. It's charming with a great aesthetic, an interesting start to a story, (that is at times held back by translation issues, more on that later as it's a bit complicated) fun characters, but sadly some of the most tedious gacha-isms I've ever seen. I can imagine this game being absolutely incredible in the future, but for now it's still pretty good.
Firstly though, I want to address easily the biggest strength this game has, which is it's cast. This game is way more diverse than any other anime-styled game I've ever played in my life. (Excluding a few fighting games but I don't really play those.) Characters in this game come from all kinds of cultures, and getting actors from those cultures to play those characters makes the cast feel very alive, and it almost feels like a celebration of different cultures in the 20th century.
Onto it's writing though. This game is very obtuse. Things that should feel incredibly important are never properly explained (seriously, how does the storm even work. If the Foundation has a humanist faction, does that mean humans can survive in the storm too? How are the foundation buildings immune to the storm in the first place???) which means that the story very much expects you to go with the flow and not worry about the large details. If you can manage that, the story has some pretty good moments. Another thing worth noting is that the pacing is extremely fast too. Scenes never feel like they drag out too long, and if anything I would love it if the scenes were a bit longer.
In spite of it's obtuseness, I think Reverse 1999 does manage to cover a few interesting topics however. Chapter 2 and Chapter 4 especially have some surprisingly potent political messages at times. Nothing groundbreaking, but hearing a sixteen year old cry upon finding out that people were killed by the government simply for being poor did make me quite emotional.
Onto the thing most people talk about when it comes to this game: the translation. It's rough. It's not unreadable, by any means, and the dialogue being roughly translated is something I can forgive due the circumstances of this game's production, (Originally written in Chinese for a Chinese audience with english audio for the sake of aesthetics rather than accessibility. As an American I completely respect using British and American culture for aesthetics.) however the unvoiced writing having major translation errors is a bit frustrating.
I think the characters speaking odd english at times is charming and not something inherently bad, though I do wish that the text on screen at least matched what the original chinese writing said, instead of just scribing what the english voice actors say. Hopefully with how much money this game has already seemed to make that can soon become a reality.
One last thing before I get into the gameplay: yeah the yuri in this game is good. That's what most people will probably play for and as an avid enjoyer of lgbt media I think Reverse 1999 is very solid. Having explicitly lesbian characters like Tennant and Matilda is really nice, and Medicine Pocket being agender is super cool (even if that's unrelated to the original point about yuri.)

Now onto the gameplay
As an (unfortunately) active gacha player, I think the main appeal of the genre is accumulating recourses to build a variety of characters and seeing your teams grow in real time.
As far as the combat side of things go, Reverse:1999 is pretty fun. There's fun synergys for team building, and the card mechanics add a bit of randomness to avoid making combat feel stale. However when it comes to recourse gathering, Reverse:1999 is bad. Very, very bad.
Think of every negative with Arknights recourse gathering, but make the stages slightly faster. In exchange, add an additional two tiers of tedium for no real reason.
Easily the biggest issue with this game is that i3 should fundamentally not exist. It is a bullshit recourse dump meant to make you have to play/pay more for what should take far less time. In Arknights, each promotion feels incredibly necessary for the characters. Promotion 1 and 2 both unlock a skill for each character, and promotion 2 especially unlocks a passive than is usually game-changing. It's a large recourse dump, but all steps of the process feel rewarding, especially getting new artwork upon reaching max promotion.
Reverse:1999 clearly did not learn the right lessons from Arknights, because the promotion (or insight) process is literally just the Arknights system but worse.
Instead of having 2 levels, you have 3, for literally no reason other than to make you waste more recourses. Like Arknights, unlocking insight gives your characters new passives, but the primary problem is that insight 2 passives are actually bullshit. Every single insight 2 passive, for every character in the game, is just a 5-10% stat bonus. It has no reason to exist, and all it does is make unlocking their incredibly important third passives much more annoying, as you have you effectively reach what would be e2 max level in Arknights in order to unlock a character's REAL potential in Reverse. Also it's obvious that i3 was an afterthought to earn them more money because you unlock a character's new costume after reaching i2. You don't even get a new promotion line after reaching i3, they literally just repeat the same line from i2. It's a pointless mechanic that has no purpose other than being player unfriendly.
And 4 star units not being able to reach i3 is straight up bullshit why did they do that.
Anyways, gameplay gripes aside, I quite like Reverse:1999. I'll hopefully be sticking to this game for a bit, so I'll probably update this review as more chapters come out (and hopefully as the translation improves.)
If you like games with diverse casts, yuri, and don't mind egregious recourse grinds, Reverse 1999 is a fun time.
Thanks for reading my unedited rant.

kind of arbitrary whenever i decide to log this since i am Not gonna be a completionist about it, and also its obviously a difficult game to write about because it completely resists all normal avenues of game criticism, or at least the ones i care about. ill just say this: i think its understandable to be put off by the vibes, i kinda was and still kind of am. but what puts me at peace is that it is a game that takes the most Greedy types of games out there, and turns it into one of the most Generous. the timesink euphoria it offers is not completely what i want from games, but there is no ill will behind it, it just wants to give it to u freely. its hard to be mad at that.

La verdad lo recordaba como uno de los peores juegos que he jugado. Desde todos los flancos es altamente criticable, la experiencia de usuario es pésima, entras en un nivel sin saber para donde ir, que podes o no hacer, que tenés que hacer y ni motivación tenes. El apartado audiovisual es estridente de varias formas, ademas de que los controles son como poco irritantes, y aún así cuando era pequeño le dediqué muchas horas creyendo que el que estaba mal era yo, y que ahí en algún lado, si lo entendiese podría encontrar un juego que vale la pena ( ademas de que no había muchos cds de ps1 en mi casa).
Sin embargo la semana pasada en el piso 33 del rascacielos donde queda la oficina en la que trabajo encontré una máquina de arcade con un ROM de este juego, como broma le propuse a un compañero ¿Que digo compañero? ¡Un amigo! Bootearlo. el nunca lo había jugado y no tuvo una opinión muy diferente a la mía, sin embargo me comunico desde su visión que toda esa confusión y esa irritación que produce el juego podría interpretarse como un medio para ponernos en los zapatos del doctor Bruce Banner, quien al convertirse en hulk no debería tener una lucidez mucho mayor a la nuestra al encontrarnos con esta obra de arte interactiva. De modo que es cierto que nos vende una experiencia muy interesante y un claro esfuerzo por hacernos sentir como el personaje al que encarnamos, sin embargo le doy tres estrellas porque es medio una cagada y estoy siendo generoso, cualidad que este juego no demostró con sus jugadores.

When They Cry is a series that strives with its sincerity and wishes for nothing more than raising happiness and empathy in the world. Umineko Chiru might just be best example of that.
If you can tolerate (or even enjoy) its amateurish sides, you will find yourself in a beautiful and very inspiring dialogue with the author, questioning yourself on why you're even here reading fictional stories, why are you trying so hard to understand the circumstances of these characters? What is it to you and what is it for the author, trying so desperately hard to craft these stories with the little they have.

Umineko as a whole is what I look forward to the most in fiction and it forever complemented me as a person.

So I can only give a big thank you to everyone creating with the intent of making people smile.

I feel second hand embarrassment that a 5-minute web browser game that was made as a vent game has garnered so much attention with people trying to critique it as if it's a real product, or as is the case with any review site, the one-line joke reviews

Gonna steal this one from my friend, but writing about how this game "didn't resonate" with you is the equivalent of your friend detailing their feelings to you, and you look them dead in the eyes and say "Hmm, you seem to be getting your life back together. I must dock 2 points! The narrative has become severely uninteresting."

It's okay to let your feelings out in an unconventional way because some people fundamentally struggle with communicating them normally; who gives a fuck if people relate or "get it". Best thing you can do is lend an ear, offer support, and move on

Hope the creator is having a good day today

Tech Guy in Movie " Uh You're gonna wanna See this "

Turns Screen to Action Guy in Movie

Tech Guy " Theyre Overriding the Mainframe "

Action Guy " Uh in English Four Eyes "

Tech Guy " They Fuckin our Pussys.!! "

Action Guy "Now you're Speakin my Language " Cocks Gun

Healing isn't the same thing as removing pain.
It's the pleasure we earn as compensation for withstanding pain.
To know the joy of healing, you have to know the pain.
Be proud of your past suffering, they are what makes it possible for you to know pleasure.

Higanbana shows a crueler spins on various philosophies shown throughout When They Cry but in Ryukishi's conventional fashion, it is not cruelty for the sake of it.
Reaper of the 13th step and Before the Spider Lilies bloomed specifically are beautiful example of what it is to find joy and fulfilment in our suffering and are a beautiful showcase of what drives us.

I found Higanbana as a whole to be somewhat of a mixed bag but God did I connect with it, it reminded me once again that I value nothing more in medias than having a nice back and forth conversation with an author that I truly connect with, R07 never disappoints me in that regard no matter how floppy his writing can be at times.
If you've enjoyed WTC, I would consider this a must read.

Funnily enough, I do think this game has unironically aged very well. It becomes more clear as time passes that a lot of the things people were complaining about were very obviously intentionally provocative. Poe's Law hit this game hard, which is too bad since Alex's inner-monologue, while not always well written (a fault of the writer, I'm afraid), still comes across as so egregiously self-serious that I'm amazed just how much this game went over players' heads. Not that I blame the player—this game is a bit of a chore to figure out. The writing is inconsistent and arguably unfinished, and the presentation is extremely unpolished and quite often bad. AND the combat system is tedious as all hell. Everything about this game is very cool and smart in concept, but the execution is real wonky.

Judging from the recent I.V livestream, it looks like they might actually fix a lot of the problems I had with my initial playthroughs. Lines of dialogue that weren't working for me are now given a more stylish visual presentation that makes the intentions of the writing much clearer. Originally, you were stuck with Alex Yiik's perspective and forced to take him seriously. Now, even the game itself refuses to take him seriously. It really levels out the tone and gives the player more reason to be invested. Combat looks faster paced and more distinct from the game's contemporaries. New content has a lot of potential. Ideally, if they had the time and money, I'd say they should rewrite the whole game and re-record voice acting with a professional voice director, and change the way dialogue is presented all around--a lot of these lines would sound a lot better if they were presented in a looser, Oxenfree-esque style rather than the awkward visual novel chunks. I doubt any of that would be possible to implement at this point, but maybe it's something to note if they make a new game after this one. At this point, I'm happy enough with the cut lines and new cutscenes.

Regardless, it looks like the Allanson bros have already grown so much as artists (and hopefully as coders), so I'll likely give this game one more playthrough once I.V releases to see just how different a "final" version of this game looks. For as many problems as I have with it, the Allanson bros are two people I generally admire, and I hope that, if this game never really works out even with the upcoming remake update, that they get to make a truly great game on another day. They definitely have it in them, they just need more experience. I love bein' in YIIIIIK!!!

Good morning.
This farewell is as sad for me as it is for you.

I’ve prepared a goodbye party for tonight. A game competition will be included as well, so please feel free to participate.

The difficulty is small, but not to be trifled with.
As this will be the last opportunity, why not take part yourself?

Written in 1928 by S. S. Van Dine, the article “Twenty Rules for Writing Detective Stories” is a fascinating collection of 20 writing regulations that could, in theory, elevate a given investigation tale to its best possible iteration. Described by close friend and timeless author T. S. Eliot, as to one day having a nervous breakdown and spending the following 2 years in bed reading more than two thousand detective stories, the poet argues that during that time, Van Dine methodically distilled the genre’s formulas and began writing novels, to which he considered them to be masterpieces.

Out of his absurdly strict rulings, some may argue that most of them can in fact improve the narrative such as (10) stating that the culprit must play a role in the story and (15) stating that the truth of the problem must at all times be apparent, giving so a chance to the reader to decipher the story alongside the detective and not having to rely on hunches from time to time. The reception for his failed jurisdiction on the detective genre became a moderate success from the makers of such stories but not so much by the fans. It rejected possible clichés such as (11) servants not being able to be the culprits, and narratives that were not explored around enough at time such as (12) multiple culprits. People like clichés what can you do...

Over time however, reception of it started to get even worse, not only because of what was mentioned before, but in no small part due to the release in the following year of a much more CHAD reasonable article dissecting the mystery genre and its inner workings, called Knox's Decalogue, written by Ronald Knox. In one of literature's biggest middle finger ever, his 10 points were almost 1 to 1 with half of the Twenty Rules, prioritized giving the viewer a fair challenge of a tale, but this time allowing cliché tropes and creative liberties about its possible cast. Imagine Van Dine’s reaction seeing that become overwhelmingly more praised from writers and viewers alike. Take this big fucking L, nerd.

And while we get gaslit into thinking that the viewers rights to “fight back” in the intellectual game wasnt started by Dine, he will probably keep seething in his grave over the fact that some rules are obviously made to be broken at times, simply for fun. Even looking at the books in "golden age", some break fundamental rules that are praised nonetheless for it's creativity, as sometimes you can fix this unfairness in the game by using foreshadowing effectively (hats off to Disco Elysium). I am here solely to add to his perpetual torment in the history books arguing that his ruling number 3 in particular, is fundamentally why people like me and other highly sexy and intellectual individuals preffer the CHAD reasonable Knox's Decalogue more.

COMMANDMENT 3:
THERE MUST BE NO LOVE INTEREST. THE BUSINESS IN HAND IS TO BRING A CRIMINAL TO THE BAR OF JUSTICE, NOT TO BRING A LOVELORN COUPLE TO THE HYMENEAL ALTAR

It’s easy to just stop here and think about how many great mysteries would have not existed or be less impactful had every writer followed up on that, but we have to remember that this comes from someone living in what was soon perceived as the “golden years” for said genre. While you could argue that love could bypass any resemblance of a logical reasoning to which it would be the ends but not the why’s (aka when love devolves into lunacy with the killer incessantly screaming “I loved her” while being taken away) these are far and few between to be argued on Van Dine’s favor. Human affection can and will lead to insanity, but if the ultimate end goal is also one, was it really love?

The important element about love as a reason that has failed to be comprehended here, is that it can take many forms that I simply wouldn’t have time to begin describing here, as with just the change of a simple word in “love for others” becoming “love of others” you can turn tragedy into fortune. While the advent of romantic love that is heavily implied here does mean that the amount of plausible given possibilities are diminished, lesser infinities are still endless.

Now I’m sorry, but will there EVER be a better motive to kill, murder and slaughter someone, than the reason that brings up the loss of reason itself?

I will go further. There CANNOT be a single plausible reason for a murder in a tale that values the life of its characters and doesn't treat them as pieces waiting to fall off the board, other than actions relating to the innate fondness of others that we so desperately need. A given character in a tale that has their own romantic life all figured out should never be the killer nor suspect, as the most impactful and sincere motivation, from the bottom of their hearts, cannot be present.

Van Dine’s precepts make it very clear that (17) crimes by house-breakers and bandits are the province of the police department, not of authors and brilliant amateur detectives. If you fail to treat your victims and killers with the same amount of respect for an action that isn’t guided by an illogical leap-of-faith that seeks adoration of some sort, was it really a murderer or an overly intricate common burglar?

Love is the reason we sin.

Love is the reason we go further.

Love is the reason we are humans.

And to put it extremely bluntly.

Love just makes us do some stupid ass shit.

“ Love is generous, love is merciful.
Love does not envy, it does not boast. “ - Zepar & Furfur

" At times, love can make the invisible visible. " - Featherine

“ The love we give away is the only love we keep. “ - Ushiromiya Ange

“ To fear love is to fear life, and vice-versa.
One must never embrace death as long as love persists. “ - Ronove

“ Without love, it cannot be seen. “ - Beatrice

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Welp, I’ve used all my pretentiousness for now.

I know someone really special will be reading this soon so I’ll be brief now.

Merry Christmas Audrey.

I love you so much.

Do you want to be my girlfriend?

not morally egregious per se but rather a depressing culmination of a decade's worth of design trickery and (d)evolving cultural/social tastes and otherwise exists as insipid twitchcore autoplaying bullshit that should come with a contractual agreement binding its devotees to never speak prejudicially about mobile games or musou ever again lest they face legally enforced financial restitution. just play nex machina man. or watch NFL. been a fun season for that. fuck the review man let's talk sports in the comments