Recent reviews by 🌟 Stars 🌟

I expected this game to be mediocre, and I was disappointed.

Graphics: The backgrounds and CGs are fine, but good lord is the sprite art ugly. I think it's mostly an issue of colouring, with weird desaturated colours that don't mesh at all with the art style. The UI isn't outstanding but it's fine, and some of the horror glitch moments are well executed. Overall, not great but could be worse.

Music: Not an OST I'm going to buy, but it wasn't grating either. I think maybe one or two tracks were even pleasant. Perfectly fine.

Characters: Pretty bad. All start out as basic anime archetypes, and I think the author attempted to deconstruct these archetypes by giving them all some kind of trauma that explains why a person might end up that way. However, trauma doesn't automatically make something interesting. Most of the experiences aren't really explored in any way besides "man it would suck if something tragic happened, would probably give you some issues". Moreover, none of the personal routes have any valuable execution; I think the creator attempted to make all the route conclusions purposefully unhealthy to highlight that anime archetypes aren't realistically healthy, but like, nobody needs to be told a tsundere irl would be a problem. It also removes the ability to really feel attached to these characters in any way, I was very apathetic towards them by the end. Even then, it was weird equivocating the borderline abusive/psychotic relationships with one girl who just like, was into BDSM. I dunno, something about all the character routes was just unsatisfying; not in a deep way reflective of life or anything, just kinda hollow.

Main Plot: What a mess. Just about everyone I've seen around here hated the ending, for obvious reasons when you get to it. Some of the character interactions in the first half of the game are at least interesting and did a better job at endearing me to the characters, but it was still pretty meh overall. Even though the ending had plenty of foreshadowing, a lot of the content seems to actively contradict it. Most of the horror just seems there for the shock value, though nothing was very shocking. I don't think predictability is actually a flaw, but it needs to at least have something of some merit beyond that if you want me to care about anything.

Gameplay: I didn't expect a writing masterpiece looking at this game, and honestly (as empty as it was), I think I could have potentially even not regretted playing this just because it left me a fun story to laugh off with friends. But what should have been 2-3 hours of lackluster horror turned into quite a few more (my playtime is inflated due to leaving it open, but it was at least 10 hours I'm sure) of raw tedium. The gift mechanic is annoying, raising stats and the like take so long compared to the little strategy you need that there's no ounce of fun anywhere. Also, there's RNG, meaning if you're doing things efficiently you might be save scumming just so you don't have to slog through this whole game over again. I can't express how boring and repetitive this got, and how it might have even ruined the game for me if the story was actually good. Thankfully, there was nothing really to ruin.

Errors: It ran fine, but there were a few bugs and typos. Nothing game-breaking, but I definitely spotted a small handful. Minus a few you kind of have to be looking for them though.

I don't see any reason to buy this game. It would be mediocre but potentially enjoyable up to the brain-numbing ending to main story and to individual routes, but is further ruined by unnecessary grinding. This game was poorly designed from the ground-up; if you wanted a dating sim that makes you feel sad for the characters and fear their safety, give their routes closure and make them interact in ways beyond cookie-cutter archetypes. If you wanted a fun spooky horror game, don't make me do hours of grinding affection between deaths. I could go on, but honestly even though half the reason I finished this game 100% was to leave an informed review, it left me too tired and spiteful to go on.

I hope that if the creators continue to make new works, they'll go in with a clearer vision of what message they want to leave the readers with and limit their scope. Adding more to a game doesn't always make it better.

I know this is a game about dying like 40 times, but it's cute! The characters aren't extremely deep or fleshed out, largely due to the fact that having modular personalities is a major mechanic. I don't think it's a bad thing, though, as the simple characters help make the core idea stronger.
Without spoiling too much, there is a bit of an overall story tying the many bad ends together that's very sweet and genuine; I think it's an experience a lot of creators and honestly even just a lot of normal people go through.
The art is wonderful and though it does make the game possibly too easy for those who want a challenge, the flowcharts are a welcome edition. My main complaint technically is that the flowchart/bad ending menu should be more clearly laid out in the tutorial as I totally missed it until I was at like 39/41 endings despite hearing about it beforehand. The music is pretty fitting, and the ending song was nice (I especially liked the lyrics).

I also find the narrative towards the player a bit of relief; I was a little worried it would take the "the player is evil because they characters suffer" kind of route that's been popular, but the game actually explores why people might like those kinds of stories and isn't judgemental in any way about it.

Overall the game didn't necessarily do anything groundbreaking or crazy, but it told a very relateable story in a charming way and the individual bad end hunting was a pleasant experience. It is quite short, but a $10 price tag isn't really steep enough for it to be a problem. I feel like this game gave me pretty much what I was waiting for and expected; no more, no less. It was just a pleasant, relaxing time.

Though there is some adult content, this is a must-play for anyone who likes VNs and can handle that. All four characters have wonderful dynamics with every other girl, the writing style is vivid and elegant, the pacing is well-handled, the art and music are both amazing, and the plot is so gripping that I slept happy going to bed for the first time since quarantine. While I'm sure it's partially post-game hype speaking, I literally can't think of any serious complaints. Even when it comes to nitpicks all I can think of is the title theme being less interesting than the rest of the ost?
Yeah no just play it.

Hi this is both a positive review and a PSA to play BBL.
(By the way, BBL is the route to the true ending of the game that happens if you play every other route first).
Normally I'd break this review down into pieces, but I really want to get the message across that everyone needs to play BBL. Hatoful Boyfriend seems like a gag game at first (which it is), and I don't want to dismiss the humor in any regard, but the BBL route provides a narrative that ties everything together and reveals that so many things you thought were innocent jokes actually hinted at a much more intense plot. The foreshadowing is excellent, not to mention that there's some great art and music to be found.
I know this is a game about dating birds, but there's a lot more than that if you go through till the end. I'm desperate here, guys. Some people found Ryouta's and Nageki's routes to be surprisingly emotional, which they were, but BBL takes that and kicks it up to 11. I hate to say it, but this is actually my favorite and most well-written VN. There's not a whole lot of comedic relief to lighten up the tension of the massively long route, but it's never quite unbearable due to mostly Okosan keeping things just above the brink of despair.
I really want to sing the praises of this game further but I sure know I could write this review for hours and turn it into a college paper if I let myself. So just remember: enjoy the normal routes, but for the love of pudding play BBL.

...The translation involved typos, though, which is kind of rough. Just ignore them if you can.

Frankly if you loved the original you will love this game. There's not that much more to be said about it, but here I go anyways.

First and foremost: DO NOT PLAY THIS GAME WITHOUT HAVING PLAYED EVERY ROUTE OF HATOFUL BOYFRIEND, INCLUDING BBL. I can not stress this enough. Anyone who isn't familiar with the real plot of the original and only remembers "bird dating sim" is going to be incredibly confused and also bombarded with spoilers.

Visuals:
Obviously not the main draw, but HS actually puts a heavier focus on the art than before. Half of the new characters actually have their sprites drawn out, and while it is limited to bonus scenes all the main 8 have human portraits. Nageki's smile in his human portrait will never cease to shatter my tiny little heart. The story books and all the art specific to the last two chapters is actually really beautiful, surprisingly. I wish the gallery included things like backgrounds and the field in the ending.
Sound:
While it's important to note the soundtrack is all royalty free music, it is amazingly good royalty free music. I'm currently on a quest to track down all the remaining downloads for these songs because they are rad and I could listen to them forever. Sound effects work the same as the last game.
Technical/Gameplay:
Same slightly awkward delays and such when making choices as the last game, still not too noticeable. Instead of romantic routes the game is now divided into four linear chapters without romance and plenty of bonus scenarios. I think this new, linear format is much better suited to the story, as it ensures people will actually play through to the true ending this time instead of dismissing the experience solely as a gag game. It's shorter, but I think the length is fair enough for the price. I love all the bonus scenarios and radio Q&As too. Some of the choices rely on prior knowledge, one of which I found particularly clever.
Also oops we got a Japanese-only CD spoiler.
Characters:
Just as good as last time. Honestly I don't feel the need to delve into this too much, if not just because of spoilers, but all the charm mixed with bird-induced depression is still here. The new characters feel like natural additions to the story too and are just as fun and/or tragic as last time.
Writing:
That charming, utterly absurd sense of humor is still there. The translator, bless their poor soul, had so many puns and wordplay-filled moments to work with and they did a great job regardless. Sometimes the translator addresses these issues in a cheeky, direct manner that works fine within the setting. The main plot in the last two chapters has a lot of ethereal fairy-tale like elements to it, and the writing style really helps capture that mood. I love it. I also noticed less typos this time around, which I'm grateful for.
Plot:
I can't believe I'm crying over birds again. Once again this game starts as a gag game (in the first two chapters) but actually provides excellent foreshadowing for a shockingly well-written thriller. This takes place in a weird kind of alternate continuity from the last game where a lot of the background that's brought to light in BBL happened, but certain moments and the overall BBL plot did not. It actually gives further development to several of the characters, and I can not even believe that it's making me sympathetic towards Shuu of all people (birds, rather). The finale is very heartwarming and melts my little bird-loving soul.

If you finished the original and liked it at all, this is a must-play. If you only played part of the original, go back and finish it and then buy this game.

Arcade Spirits is a lovely and underrated dating sim. It's got something of a niche demographic, but anyone interested in this game is almost guaranteed to fit that niche.

Visuals:
Frankly, the art is not the selling point of this game. The background art is perfectly fine and some of the CGs are pretty adorable, but the art takes a bit of time to get used to. It's not awful, but it definitely turned me away from the game at first. Having your character appear in CGs is cute, but it may have been a better idea to provide two or three well-designed characters (one more masculine, one feminine, and one androgynous) to pick from than the blander looking protagonist. The character designs for everyone else are lovely, though. The colours and UI work really well with the arcade theme.

Sound:
Not a shock here, but the sound is fine. The voice acting isn't above and beyond, but it's good. Their emotional range is honestly pretty outstanding for such a low-profile indie game. Sue is the only voice that seemed a bit distracting and out of character to me, but she still was pretty fun. The music was also pretty decent, but I wouldn't go too far out of the way to listen to anything but the main theme. The sound effects, though, are very charming. The beeps and boops all further help build the game's atmosphere in a subtle but noteworthy way.

Technical/Gameplay:
One of the big draws of this game is that it is a personality quiz in addition to a VN. There's 5 traits scored by your decisions, all of equal value: basically, quirky, steady, kindly, and I forget what they called boldness. I like this both in theory and in practice, though there is one issue with it; almost everyone will receive kindly as their top stat because everyone wants to be kind to people. The issue is that choices are often imbalanced; most decisions have the kindly answer as what any normal person would do if they thought about it. Especially in tenser moments, nobody is going to make jokes about the most dire situations. Quirky is also a bit disadvantaged due to the fact the protagonist has naturally quirky dialogue in their every day life and most quirky people act funny in moments where there's nothing on the line. Meanwhile, choices are usually given where this is some sort of weight to your actions. That said, the overall mechanic is lovely.
The game is very easy, and near impossible to fail until the final encounter without trying to. This isn't a bad thing; it encourages you to stay true to yourself on your first run, which is where most of the fun of this game comes from. There's also romance and non-romance routes, and in general the game helps encourage you to do a "personality run" on your first go. The weird exception to this is that one route is secret and requires very specific choices to get on, which was problematic when said secret character was the only one I would have had any romantic interest in; I was trying to stay true to myself, but asking out who I liked required going against my own moral code a bit. Some options are also a bit more aggressive than written, but that's inevitable in a game with so many choices.
There's not much difference between routes, but that's okay! Each tiny decision helps build your character and so many inconsequential ones still have extra dialogue that helps your choices feel impactful. There's enough variation in minor dialogue choices that makes it worth at least two or three runs, though the sheer amount of dialogue makes seeing absolutely everything difficult. There's a lot of love that went into this, and it shows.
I do feel like romance is a little too shoved to the side though. The romantic routes kind of take a back seat the main plot, making the individual character developments less noteworthy. They do a lot with a little, but I feel like they could have given more screentime to that aspect. Moreover, being on any romantic route prevents befriending every character; as with many players, I think that's a terrible design choice. In real life, you should never drop your friendships just because you have a new S/O, so it's frustrating that has to happen if you do it in the game. It seems small, but it betrays a fundamental belief that romance means placing your romantic relationship above your platonic ones, and I can never agree with that.
Anything else is basically a nitpick? I would have liked a CG gallery and I would rather have rollback unlocked from the get-go, and I do feel like the icons for each decision should be hidden by default or easily changeable so I don't have to zoom through the tutorial each time. Not sure I like being flat out unable to pick options that "aren't true to your personality" either. (E.x. even if I'm a generally funny person, I'm not going to make jokes in the serious situations where you're forced into your top personality stats).
Regardless, the personality interpretation feature and very-few-wrong-choices aspects work great and make the game stand out from other VNs.

Characters:
I honestly love the characters in this game. The protagonist isn't great, but they do have more personality than most dating sim protags at least. That said, the "family curse" and portrayal of depression feel a little ingenuine? Their sarcasm and wit makes them a bit more bearable, though. The drawbacks of the main character are hidden behind a lovely, colourful cast of NPCs. I love that the minor characters like the coffee shop owners, Francine, the ghost monsters, etc. all stand out just as much as those with more screen time. The main characters have such lovely arcs and real struggles, all while remaining fun and entertaining. They're just amazing. My personal favorites are Ashley, Juniper, Iris, and Gavin, but everyone else is enjoyable too.

Writing:
The dialogue in this game is great. The core of this game's writing is in a quirky, fun tone with lots of semi-retro gaming and pop culture references. Sometimes those references really date a game, but they are carried out in such a silly manner that the writing is still poppy and enjoyable for those out of the loop. The more tense moments are also well written, and every line feels very polished and well thought-out while still keeping the overall mode outrageous and silly. The more realistic setting doesn't make the world feel any less fantastic, so fans of more standard visual novels can enjoy this too.

Plot:
While you can romance plenty of characters, by far most of the writing focuses on one overarching narrative. The plot is very cheesy, but that doesn't mean it's bad; despite the gushiness of sorts the story is genuinely heartwarming. Admittedly I found one major plot twist is very easy to see coming, but the rising and falling tension is well crafted with some genuinely surprising moments sprinkled in. The pacing is perfect, with a great balance of comedy and emotional moments. The finale is pretty fun, too. The side-plot with a certain game and post-credits sequel hooks do pump me up for another game, so I'll be pretty sad if it never comes to be.

I don't regret my purchase of this in the slightest, and I do hope it eventually gets enough love to help fund a sequel. Please buy this game. I need that Arcade Spirits 2: Electric Boogaloo.


OH ALSO I FORGOT TO MENTION GOOD LGBT REPRESENTATION THANKS I LOVE YOU ALL
(Seriously though, they found that perfect balance of highlighting the struggles while not making the characters be all about their identity. It's pretty rad.)

Undertale is, as you probably already know, a curious game. It's difficult to describe what makes this game so worthwile without spoiling anything, but my best effort is separated by the different game aspects below.

Gameplay: Undertale is a puzzle-RPG, with a battle system that consists of moving a pixelated heart around to dodge. The system is reminiscent of Touhou, and you do not have to take damage on any given turn. The puzzles aren't anything new to people familiar with the genre, and are generally rather easy.

In a battle, the player is presented with four options: Fight, Act, Item, and Mercy. Fight is a standard attack with your equipped weapon, the item menu allows you to use anything from your inventory of up to eight items, and the option to flee is found the Mercy menu. This leaves the two more interesting options: Act and Spare, the latter of which is also found in the Mercy menu.

When a monster's name appears yellow, it means you can spare them and sacrifice your XP to end the battle without fighting. The main way to make a monster spare-able is by using the Act menu. Each monster requires a different non-violent method, which can make the battle experience much more enjoyable. There's often more than one method to spare an enemy, some of which can be highly amusing.

Graphics: The graphics, admittedly, are somewhat poor. The style is decent, and some of the enviorments are nice to look at, but the game's visuals overall aren't really up to classic standards.

Music: Composed by Toby Fox, Undertale has an unsurprisingly wonderful soundtrack in an 8-bit style. The music fits well into every area and battle, providing a strong sense of atmosphere. I highly recommend buying the game's full soundtrack, as it will both reap legal music for the buyer and support for Toby Fox. There's also many musical motifs, which can actually be seen as spoilers if one listens close enough.

Replayability: The replayability for this game is both high and low, for different reasons. There are multiple routes you can take in the game which drastically alter the experience and even tone of the game, and MANY secrets to discover. Despite this, the game also purposely deters you from playing again, which may be enough for some players to quit after their first few runs.

Story: There's absolutely no question that the plot of Undertale is its' selling point. The characters are easy to attach to due to their charm and depth, and it's difficult to take a completionist route simply due to the cruelty potential in the game. The morality system is an important one, as you must remember your consequences are final. Trust me, there's no undoing the greatest mistakes. Depending on your course of action, the game can range from a comedy to a tragedy to a horror. It's vital you go into the game with as little understanding of the plot as possible, but Undertale showcases one of the best storylines in any video game.

Basically, go buy the game right now. Despite easy puzzles, slightly wacky humour, and sub-standard graphics, the game is one of the best ones PCs have to offer, if not the best. I can highly recommend this game to the majority of people, and have done so, only to have them show a similar love for the game.

Also, you can date a skeleton. Don't forget to date the skeleton.