everytime i read the comments for this game, i feel very alienated. there's so much praise for this game, and perhaps i didn't go through it thoroughly, but the entire game left a very bad taste in my mouth.
spoilers
The start is very strong for this game, having a genuinely AMAZING intro, a great hook that engages the players, and myself into the story. The atmosphere is great, the art and mix of the real world images adds to a very worn-down and depressing atmosphere. However, that's pretty much all I can say. Ana, the main character, has a sister who's a medic in the war. I assumed that the intro was from the point of view of the sister, but that's not even true. The whereabouts of Ana's sister, a mystery that has been built up since the start of the game, was never disclosed. The closest thing we EVER got to that, was Yuno talking about how they killed medics during camp raids. Afterwards, Ana has a literal panic attack, and then.. what?? Nothing, it's never resolved, and Ana seems like she doesn't care at all, ESPECIALLY in the epilogue/extras. The entire game is just filled with dropped plot points, like 'Rabbit Zero', or how the military generals mistook Ana for a commander (making us assume her sister is the commander, even though she was established to be a medic?). It feels like the writers wanted to make an apocalyptic and dystopian war novel, and got distracted half-way because they wanted to see cute bunny girls smoke weed (actually happened in the epilogue). They couldn't choose a side, which causes BOTH aspects of the story to struggle. The dystopian parts are very undeveloped, massive plot holes everywhere, and the cute bunny girls hanging out feels incredibly underwhelming, especially considering they introduced Mailard to be apart of the main friend group, even though we've seen her twice, and half of those times were spent seeing her sleep.
I've seen a few reviewers praise the story because it had them theorize. That doesn't make any sense to me. It had them theorize, because there were no answers at all. I can definitely understand how time constraints effect a product and how hard it is to actually put work out there is, but the writers had two ideas that didn't go together well, (dystopian horror and the MC's sister being killed in a war, and lesbian rabbit girls smoking weed and dapping each other up), and tried to make them fit together, and didn't take the time to effectively develop any one of them.
please, i beg. i see the vision. please just cook on the sequel 😭
This was honestly surprisingly good for something I only heard of by clicking the "random vn" button on vndb!
The game is insanely immersive and engaging, be it in writing, in style cohesion, or in sound design (which btw, the OST and sound direction throughout the whole thing is fantastic!!). It's instantly gripping, with its unsettling intro scene really taking full advantage of the medium. But the cozy, yet desolate vibe is nailed here, in no small feat due to the really cute yet faded art style that really fits the tone of the VN!
And the world is one of the core parts of this VN, the whole political intrigue and war going on are essential here, and they managed to get explained really well! At no point did I feel lost or like I didn't get enough exposition, like living in this war-ridden world felt as natural to me as it is for the characters in this game. Getting Ana to peek at the conversations she's routing, or having her and Courier explore outside of Ana's house are really good opportunities to get a closer look at how the world works outside of Ana's secluded lifestyle.
Speaking of which, all the characters here are really charming, from their designs to their personalities! Ana, as the protagonist, definitely takes center stage here, and as such, gets a lot of development from it! Her naiveté and innocence mixed with the exploration of her work, relationships and backstory makes her a really interesting and memorable character! Same could be said about pretty much every important character as well, like Courier, Maillard, Yuno or even Clara despite her never appearing once, which manages to make the story feel really full, especially with the extra adding some more personality to the cast.
The ending sequence especially (aka anything from Yuno's arrival onwards) was really great, and a fantastic way to close it off. Rabbit 0 made me speculate a lot about theories for what could happen next, and I'm honestly really excited to see what the next game will give us! The only real issue I have is that it does feel like part of a bigger whole that we don't have so far, and as such it could have gone on for longer, but for a jam entry, this is already a really impressive level of quality!
Really cute, well-written VN, can't wait for Kavaya Local Maximum! ^^
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everytime i read the comments for this game, i feel very alienated. there's so much praise for this game, and perhaps i didn't go through it thoroughly, but the entire game left a very bad taste in my mouth.
spoilers
The start is very strong for this game, having a genuinely AMAZING intro, a great hook that engages the players, and myself into the story. The atmosphere is great, the art and mix of the real world images adds to a very worn-down and depressing atmosphere. However, that's pretty much all I can say. Ana, the main character, has a sister who's a medic in the war. I assumed that the intro was from the point of view of the sister, but that's not even true. The whereabouts of Ana's sister, a mystery that has been built up since the start of the game, was never disclosed. The closest thing we EVER got to that, was Yuno talking about how they killed medics during camp raids. Afterwards, Ana has a literal panic attack, and then.. what?? Nothing, it's never resolved, and Ana seems like she doesn't care at all, ESPECIALLY in the epilogue/extras. The entire game is just filled with dropped plot points, like 'Rabbit Zero', or how the military generals mistook Ana for a commander (making us assume her sister is the commander, even though she was established to be a medic?). It feels like the writers wanted to make an apocalyptic and dystopian war novel, and got distracted half-way because they wanted to see cute bunny girls smoke weed (actually happened in the epilogue). They couldn't choose a side, which causes BOTH aspects of the story to struggle. The dystopian parts are very undeveloped, massive plot holes everywhere, and the cute bunny girls hanging out feels incredibly underwhelming, especially considering they introduced Mailard to be apart of the main friend group, even though we've seen her twice, and half of those times were spent seeing her sleep.
I've seen a few reviewers praise the story because it had them theorize. That doesn't make any sense to me. It had them theorize, because there were no answers at all. I can definitely understand how time constraints effect a product and how hard it is to actually put work out there is, but the writers had two ideas that didn't go together well, (dystopian horror and the MC's sister being killed in a war, and lesbian rabbit girls smoking weed and dapping each other up), and tried to make them fit together, and didn't take the time to effectively develop any one of them.
please, i beg. i see the vision. please just cook on the sequel 😭
This was honestly surprisingly good for something I only heard of by clicking the "random vn" button on vndb!
The game is insanely immersive and engaging, be it in writing, in style cohesion, or in sound design (which btw, the OST and sound direction throughout the whole thing is fantastic!!). It's instantly gripping, with its unsettling intro scene really taking full advantage of the medium. But the cozy, yet desolate vibe is nailed here, in no small feat due to the really cute yet faded art style that really fits the tone of the VN!
And the world is one of the core parts of this VN, the whole political intrigue and war going on are essential here, and they managed to get explained really well! At no point did I feel lost or like I didn't get enough exposition, like living in this war-ridden world felt as natural to me as it is for the characters in this game. Getting Ana to peek at the conversations she's routing, or having her and Courier explore outside of Ana's house are really good opportunities to get a closer look at how the world works outside of Ana's secluded lifestyle.
Speaking of which, all the characters here are really charming, from their designs to their personalities! Ana, as the protagonist, definitely takes center stage here, and as such, gets a lot of development from it! Her naiveté and innocence mixed with the exploration of her work, relationships and backstory makes her a really interesting and memorable character! Same could be said about pretty much every important character as well, like Courier, Maillard, Yuno or even Clara despite her never appearing once, which manages to make the story feel really full, especially with the extra adding some more personality to the cast.
The ending sequence especially (aka anything from Yuno's arrival onwards) was really great, and a fantastic way to close it off. Rabbit 0 made me speculate a lot about theories for what could happen next, and I'm honestly really excited to see what the next game will give us! The only real issue I have is that it does feel like part of a bigger whole that we don't have so far, and as such it could have gone on for longer, but for a jam entry, this is already a really impressive level of quality!
Really cute, well-written VN, can't wait for Kavaya Local Maximum! ^^
don't wanna paste a wall of text in the comments so:
https://www.backloggd.com/u/HurtingOtherPPl/review/1139540/
this shit is good