I had been wandering itch.io for days when Hello Girl caught my eye. I stared at it. I had seen thousands of other titles and dabbled in a few, but none of them struck me like Hello Girl. Quite instantly, I knew it would be an experience I'd forever remember. I didn't watch the trailer or read the description or comments. I just glanced at the four stills, clicked download now, unzipped and launched the game. I played the whole thing in one sitting. It is very difficult for me to put into words what I feel. In short, I have a fondness for the story and game, but have fallen in love with its potential. Why do I say potential? Because even though I share the opinion of the many comments before mine that the game is full of care, full of atmosphere, and therefore full of life, I still feel that it is incomplete, and in two major regards, extremely gut-wrenching.
BELOW BE SPOILERS! (From this point on, unless you're fine with reading ahead, I suggest you play the game first!)
The plot was paced well at first, until closer to the end when it cut short what it seemed to have been setting up. Rabbit Zero, the soldiers Twintails and Helmet, even Ana's sister Clara and Yunozha Moonbeam — these plot points and characters which ironed Hello Girl into a compelling story went more or less NOWHERE. In fact, the story felt like it was building up to be much more, and in my opinion, it began to lose this luster with the handling of Yunozha's character. The whole conflict produced out of it, which grappled me with questions like "What will they do when the army comes looking for them?" "How'd Yuno lose her eye?", fizzled quite quickly into non-existence; in Hello Girl's final thirty minutes, the whole story seemed to die on itself. Like a wave it reached the shore with nothing more to it than a final thunderous splash, followed by the silence of a computer screen staring at its audience.
But nothing could have been more fatal to the story than the epilogue. What on Earth were they thinking?! Not only did the characters violate my idealized images of them, but they did drugs. D R U G S! For a moment I thought the surprise Courier was preparing was to be something nice, like Clara's return, a letter, or maybe something romantic — not this shockingly disgusting garbage, this poison. Yes, perhaps for the average itch.io audience this thing, drugs, is a fine things nowadays, but for me it only cemented my sadness over what Hello Girl had been thus far. Having to click my way through minutes of slow brain-frying felt like crawling out of no-man's-land with a bullet-ridden body. I also felt bad for Ana, who quite ironically is being corrupted by her newfound friendships. On that note, judging from the dynamic, I felt it more appropriate that they be besties rather than birdies, but whatever, you can't win them all. It's just me anyways.
There's also the political side of the story, which I believe suffered greatly. At the beginning vague suggestions of the Great Effort were fine, but as the plot advanced, it would have been incredible to know more and more in a gradual manner, especially when you have soldier characters. Economically and politically, what exactly was Gamot? The Eastern Alliance? Their enemies? Why were they fighting? These are questions, like many others, which pass silent in unanswerment.
Ultimately, I give Hello Girl a 3/5. This review itself was somewhat rushed. I actually formed my account solely for the purpose of posting it, literally seconds after finishing the game. That's how much Hello Girl moved me. The soundtrack for one was phenomenal. But all its flaws and shortcomings aside, it was still a worthy experience, an unforgettable voyage.
To Imo Team, I am deeply grateful to you for all your incredible labour. From it, this wretched life saw a star. I applaud you, and thank you twenty million times over.
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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I had been wandering itch.io for days when Hello Girl caught my eye. I stared at it. I had seen thousands of other titles and dabbled in a few, but none of them struck me like Hello Girl. Quite instantly, I knew it would be an experience I'd forever remember. I didn't watch the trailer or read the description or comments. I just glanced at the four stills, clicked download now, unzipped and launched the game. I played the whole thing in one sitting. It is very difficult for me to put into words what I feel. In short, I have a fondness for the story and game, but have fallen in love with its potential. Why do I say potential? Because even though I share the opinion of the many comments before mine that the game is full of care, full of atmosphere, and therefore full of life, I still feel that it is incomplete, and in two major regards, extremely gut-wrenching.
BELOW BE SPOILERS! (From this point on, unless you're fine with reading ahead, I suggest you play the game first!)
The plot was paced well at first, until closer to the end when it cut short what it seemed to have been setting up. Rabbit Zero, the soldiers Twintails and Helmet, even Ana's sister Clara and Yunozha Moonbeam — these plot points and characters which ironed Hello Girl into a compelling story went more or less NOWHERE. In fact, the story felt like it was building up to be much more, and in my opinion, it began to lose this luster with the handling of Yunozha's character. The whole conflict produced out of it, which grappled me with questions like "What will they do when the army comes looking for them?" "How'd Yuno lose her eye?", fizzled quite quickly into non-existence; in Hello Girl's final thirty minutes, the whole story seemed to die on itself. Like a wave it reached the shore with nothing more to it than a final thunderous splash, followed by the silence of a computer screen staring at its audience.
But nothing could have been more fatal to the story than the epilogue. What on Earth were they thinking?! Not only did the characters violate my idealized images of them, but they did drugs. D R U G S! For a moment I thought the surprise Courier was preparing was to be something nice, like Clara's return, a letter, or maybe something romantic — not this shockingly disgusting garbage, this poison. Yes, perhaps for the average itch.io audience this thing, drugs, is a fine things nowadays, but for me it only cemented my sadness over what Hello Girl had been thus far. Having to click my way through minutes of slow brain-frying felt like crawling out of no-man's-land with a bullet-ridden body. I also felt bad for Ana, who quite ironically is being corrupted by her newfound friendships. On that note, judging from the dynamic, I felt it more appropriate that they be besties rather than birdies, but whatever, you can't win them all. It's just me anyways.
There's also the political side of the story, which I believe suffered greatly. At the beginning vague suggestions of the Great Effort were fine, but as the plot advanced, it would have been incredible to know more and more in a gradual manner, especially when you have soldier characters. Economically and politically, what exactly was Gamot? The Eastern Alliance? Their enemies? Why were they fighting? These are questions, like many others, which pass silent in unanswerment.
Ultimately, I give Hello Girl a 3/5. This review itself was somewhat rushed. I actually formed my account solely for the purpose of posting it, literally seconds after finishing the game. That's how much Hello Girl moved me. The soundtrack for one was phenomenal. But all its flaws and shortcomings aside, it was still a worthy experience, an unforgettable voyage.
To Imo Team, I am deeply grateful to you for all your incredible labour. From it, this wretched life saw a star. I applaud you, and thank you twenty million times over.
Sincere as always, Red Echelon.
And to top it all off, what I think of it as music.
the gurls are smoking zaza
this was such an incredible ride, cannot wait for kavaya local maximum!!!
soooo good please let me buy this on steam or something
coming soon!!!
Waiter! Waiter! more unseemingly heart breaking VN from itch.io!
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! ^^
this shit is good