Recent reviews by Bailey

Very intriguing concept and I loved the meta use of some classic VN devices as a part of the narrative. The MC is a bit hard to like at the start but as the story unfolds, you learn more about him and it all makes sense. Quick read, and I'm looking forward to seeing how the rest plays out!

I played this game's sequel, BMC, very early in the pandemic and it's always stuck in the back of my mind as a game I wanna replay once enough time has passed for me to get a good fresh second run. I also rushed to buy this game from itch.io (since it wasn't on steam at the time) and planned to play it until I heard that a steam release with major updates was on the horizon. So I sat on that for a while, got it on steam and installed in instantly but just didn't have the energy and time to deal with a mystery vn. and just recently i decided it was time to finally boot this game up. I beat the game in two sittings and was engrossed the whole time.

Obviously there's only so much I can say without spoiling but I will agree with other reviews. There were multiple characters who you really don't learn much about and frankly never care for their fates. And if you want or expect puzzles in this game, you will be disappointed. It's a lot more point and click until you progress than a typical escape room style game.

But what you are here for in a game like this is the story and the twists. And this game delivers on those for sure. It paces information drops to you well always leaving you wanting more, answering questions while raising twice as many in its place. And delivers through and through with a memorable ending. Playing this makes me excited to replay BMC with the information I learned here and the tidbits I remember from that.

From what I do remember about BMC, obviously this is the first game in the (soon to be but not yet at time of writing) trilogy but, while BMC was clearly written to be possible to play first probably due to its nature of being released on steam earlier, I think this game deserves to be your entry point. Without spoilers for either game, you can easily have a good experience with either order and be appropriately shocked at the twists of both, but they are a series and the games do have a reason for their intended order besides just release date.

tl;dr game good, the third game in the trilogy is a day one pickup for me and I suspect it would be for anyone else playing through this series.

until this game, 999 was my favorite game by uchikoshi by a fairly wide margin. this game beats it. easily my second favorite game of all time. i want tokiko and tama to step on me

Good take on the timeloop mystery premise. The acting was good, the story kept me guessing and shocked me even by the end. Nothing felt unfair or like "how could I have known", it was all hinted at in ways that weren't too painfully obvious. Biggest complaint is at a certain point its monotonous repeating the same actions to slightly progress the story with one new piece of info. Still v much enjoyed my time here!

If you haven't played DDLC before, it's great would recommend. If you have, the side stories and added content is great would recommend. Getting 100% is pretty easy except it can potentially be frustrating grinding for special poems. Otherwise it's fairly straightforward and rewarding.

tl;dr, would recommend

WELL worth the hype, especially for a game made by a single dev the puzzles are creative and I had tons of lightbulb moments when I realized the solution to a puzzle. Nothing felt too unreasonable or out of left field and the game did a great job easing into time travel and then expanding upon its ideas culminating in chamber 25. Would recommend especially cuz it's free like there is no downside here.

(note my playtime is probably about 20 hours due to playing offline for a while)

I heard of this game about a week before release from the Zero Escape subreddit as a game with an interesting premise and branching paths. I went in not expecting too much especially being an indie game I hadn't heard much about and it being the developers first game. But as I got playing there was very clearly a lot of time and effort and thought put into this game which shone through the whole time. This game is by no means perfect but for such a large scale project and 20 hours of a riveting mystery and interesting, unique characters, this is EASILY worth the $15.

I played the game on release so who's to say how things change but my biggest complaint is easily the lack of a flowchart. To play this game effectively, you need to keep careful track not only on what choices you've already made, but also what each choice leads to. I frequently found myself looking for specific paths I'd started just to be met with winding branches leading to various other things. I understand there is now a QOL update that lets you skip forward to certain paths which is a godsend but I believe that is only active once you have every choice for the first 3 rounds which is very easy to miss until a while in.

Also if you are looking for puzzles in the style of Zero Escape that is not what this game is. There's maybe 4 or 5 puzzles throughout the game, all of which are fairly straight forward. And if you can't solve them you can progress all the same. They add a bit of a break from the reading but definitely not a selling point.

But overall the deductions in this game were great. It was very satisfying piecing it all together and seeing the culmination of my playtime over the course of the game, both with smaller events as well as larger overarching plots. As I said, easily worth the money and I seriously hope the dev creates more games in the future!

Update: After thinking about this more, I decided the best way to put this is at the time of review, the game is a solid 7/10. Good game carried by an interesting premise and characters who surprised me in ways I didn't expect to be surprised. But this exact game would be 9/10 or better if it was a more experienced/larger dev team and writers. I hope and really think that the 7/10 will continue to grow as the game receives updates. But at it's current state, still easily worth the time and money.

I can think of four reasons why you should play these games:
1. The games are good. It would be worth your time to experience these stories.
2. Knowledge from these games are a powerful tool. You must make sure that you have access to it at all times.
3. The rest of the community is very fun, it would be beneficial to be able to engage with them.
4. You want to test just how serious this series is. Will it kill you? Only sometimes.

i would pay so much money for this game and yet it was delivered to us unworthy humans free of charge.

Finished the main story and really enjoyed it. Did most side quests besides DLC and explored a good chunk before finishing the story, probably took about 40 hours in game. Still have most of the collectibles as well as that DLC (and a few other odds and ends) to finish before I can say I truly beat this game but it was fun. The combat is satisfying and scales really well. The main story is fairly easy if you are doing most side quests as you tend to be overleveled but the quests themselves more than make up for it in difficulty. And the story was maybe a bit predictable at times sure but it was still interesting and such a unique concept that kept building upon itself really well.

As for the port itself, I never experienced any issues besides minor pop ins or Aloy's hair clipping with her weapons oddly. I don't have an HDR panel so I didn't explore a vast majority of the game with that setting but a friend of mine does and I can confirm the game looks beautiful in HDR. The use of lighting is really good, especially for cinematic moments and cutscenes but even in normal gameplay and exploration there are some beautiful areas.