Recent reviews by pink rot

This game is boring as hell... (I played this game blind)

It starts very nice. Nice atmosphere, nice sounds, nice colors and graphics... and you have that sensation that you live there, but it's not your home anymore. The cool concept is that every piece of history uncover, your character makes a new painting that represents a feeling. In the early game, everything is new: the sounds, the hallways, the spooks and the story is still very blurry. You find a few files, solve some very basic puzzles and after 1 hour you already understood what happened.

You are a very famous painter. You got obsessed with your work and wine. Wife is worried. You hit wife and avoid her and family. Wife pregnant and you don't care. Your work gets ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥. Loose money. Less money = more crazy. Wife kills herself and baby. You lost memory and try to remember (where you start the game)

Don't get me wrong, at the time this story was new and fresh. This psychological tension of not knowing and getting tormented by something you forgot is very cool. The problem is that the game is too long... 3 hours too long. After a while, the spooks are still the same (cheap jumpscares), the house still the same, the halls still the same. The puzzles got worse and the story has already ended.

So, what do you do after the 1 hour mark? Well, you collect pieces of your dead wife and child, and uncover like 0.5% o the story. The house becomes a maze twisted by your degenerate mind, but there is nothing to do in these mazes. Some have a super simple puzzle that (sometimes) adds to the story, but most of the mazes are just walk walk walk spooky wife, walk walk walk, the lights go red, walk walk walk, wife cries in the corner, walk walk walk... And in the end, the game tries to be all "The truth is that your wife died because of you muahahahahah" but you already know this by the end of the 2nd piece.

There is a puzzle very close to the end, that you have to find pieces of a checkers game. ♥♥♥♥ this puzzle. Its sooooo boooring. You are in a big room full of clutter, the pieces are small, and every time you find one, you have to put it on the table before another one can spawn. Every time you put one piece on the table, the room changes and you get some dialog. You have to find EIGHT PIECES. THIS IS AT THE END OF THE GAME WHERE YOU ALREADY HAVE ENOUGH INFORMATION TO CONCLUDE THE STORY. Why are the pieces hidden? Why waste my time on something that I already know? Why isn't this a cutscene? And this last question I made is where I understood why this is so boring.

If the game had ended earlier, it would be a great (7/10) psychological horror game. But the story itself is not that complex or deep, so they made these puzzles to try and make a more interest game than just walk and see. The puzzles are so out of place that they made the game worse because to appreciate the story, you have to solve the puzzles. But when you get the story it is not worth all the hassle.

Play Devotion (by RedCandle games).Its this game done right.

Nice pacing, beautiful visuals, funny upgrades. This is a nice game to play on a rainy sunday

This is actually a very fun game. Very responsive controls, fun mechanics, it has a nice difficulty curve, beautiful art style... can't go wrong with this game. Solid 7/10

This is actually a good horror game. I just don't like these loud noises as a jumpscare. All the puzzles are ok (minus the radio one), and all and all it was worth the price. Short, nice style, simple puzzles and overall a nice game to spend some time.

Please do not refund this game if you had fun.

Shallow and tedious story. It is always the same: go here on the map, now you have to go here. Now you have to go here but with this slow ass car.

Worst NPC AI in the series. People start punching and shooting you just for standing still on the street. Every driver is an ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥. Worst police AI in the series. They just ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ smell you and predict where you go. Oh, you are almost getting away? Let me spawn 5 cops blocking all of your paths, just because I smelled your fear (2 stars).

At least the driving is very good...

Now online... really... don't play online... it is just... grind. 90% of the online experience is grinding. So why do you grind? I guess the first million you make really makes sense as for a progression system. But one of the best cars in the game cost less than 1M. A high-end house is less than 1M. 80% of the guns are ♥♥♥♥ (they are ♥♥♥♥ because all enemies need 498594 shots on the chest to die) and all of the best guns cost less than 1M in total. So with less than 3M on the bank you can experience the "max level" on this progression system. So, what is the problem? Well, everything else in the game costs an insane amount of cash for no particular reason. There are slippers that cost more than a car in this game. There are shoes that cost 120k... You can buy cars that are WAY worse than the 600k best car and they cost 6M. You can buy an Yacht just to show off to your friends.

Speaking of friends! Almost every mission in this game REQUIRES at least 4 people. So now you need 3 friends to have fun. But it is only fun to the host, because everyone else in your party don't win ♥♥♥♥. You help your friend deliver 4 super expensive cars and get 6K for helping. What can you buy with 6K in this game? You guessed. Nothing.

Every mission online is so ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ long and tedious and with ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ UNSKIPPABLE CUTSCENES. NPCs have demigod mode enabled and can only be killed with headshots. Even on easy difficulty. And for every heist you have keep ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ listening Lester blabbling and mumbling a bunch of nonsense for the whole trip. It is kinda of cool the first time you listen, but since the game DEMANDS that you grind every heist to have money to afford the flying car or the new over expensive ♥♥♥♥♥♥ car, you want to kill yourself every time Lester opens his mouth.

Also, the game think it is funny to turn off the radio every mission start and every time you enter your car while in a mission. So you keep listening to a super boring and ♥♥♥♥♥♥ ambient music and can't disable it. The most infuriating part about this ♥♥♥♥♥♥ ambient music, is that it only plays while on a mission. While you are on free roaming that ♥♥♥♥♥♥ ambient music doesn't play. And I lied, you can disable it. But if you disable the music, you disable ALL music in the game. So say goodbye to your favourite radio song if you don't want to listen to that crappy ambient music.

I don't have say anything about griefing players after I said "to buy the flying car". The rest is like every other online game. There are cheaters. You can find nice players. You can find ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥. It is pay to win. There are microtransactions.

So yeah... I think you can play this game for the graphics and the driving. Everything else Rockstar have made the most tedious, boring and most torturing experience ever.

Please be aware that my review will contain a lot of spoilers!!
Also, be aware that I made this review based on my first playthrough, so I don't know if other choices would influence that much in the game's ending.

Note: I'm not a native english speaker :3

Ok, I'll start from the end. This last ep (third) starts so great and full of emotions, but then it looks like it was really rushed.
This game won't make any sense if you didn't have played the first LiS and you will not understand a lot of references.

I got a little disapointed with this last ep. It shows that almost none of your choices actually matters to the plot and that the side characters development was very weak.

Story:

The story revolves in telling the story of Rachel. That's it. The world circles around Rachel. You also know how David got into Chloe's life but other than that is all about Rachel. Don't get me wrong, the story is really good. But if you're going to show a lot of characters that had a big impact in the first game, you should at least put some effort in showing what they were like. After playing the whole game I've noticed that almost none of my choices, other than the main super important decisions, mattered to the story. Talking to other characters, watering the plant with soda, picking clothes, choosing the colour of the truck's inside lightbulb, talking ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ to others, defying the principle... All of these choices doesn't have a big impact in the development of the story. You could skip talking to all NPCs and you'll still get the same result for the big choices. But talking about the good stuff. The drama that this story build is incredible and you'll get really happy and really sad (in a good way). You create a bond with Rachel and she literally turns your life upside down. The problem is that you spend most of your time creating this bond and chasing after what Rachel wants and in the end the final objective (finding Sera) is super rushed and underwhelming. You find her after 20 minutes (in the third episode after you promisse to Rachel to find Sera) and in just more 20 minutes she is gone leaving you with a moral choice. It is hard to see such a strong and well developed plot being wasted in 40 minutes.

6/10

Main Characters:

Chloe is insecure after the death of her father and is trying to get her life togheter. She is sweet and kind but also have a rebel punk personality. She's kinda a Tsundere character (which I love). I think this game should tell more about her, but she isn't much to be tell about, so not telling a lot about her story is ok and makes the game more focused in the objective. All scenes with her dad are soooo tense and good. This kind of epiphany in her dreams are awesome. It makes you think over your decisions without influencing you to do something. It makes you question your own self. And makes you want to know more about him.

Rachel has this kinda rich and perfect kid feeling. But she has a big and dramatic story. She is manipulative and have a big ego, like she can do whatever she wants because she'll never get in trouble (which I hate). The whole plot of the game resolves around her and it is not a bad thing. Her story really is dramatic and intriguing. But somethings that she does feel so SO exaggerated (like putting the forest on fire just because she saw her dad kissing another girl, confronting a super dangerous drug dealer, getting stabed). Also the game forces you to see her as a BIG, powerful and dangerous girl (horoscope in her bedroom, being the main actress in the school play, etc). And it feels exaggerated because it's not even a little necessary to create the drama that the game creates.

8/9

Side Characters:

This is such a disapointment for me. A lot of good side characters have almost no presence in the game. You could finish the game without interacting with any of them. They seem like to be in the game just for nostalgic purpouses and never actually get developed in the main story. Also the scene with Elliot could be easily removed since is such a unecessary drama. I've ignored the guy the whole game... I even forgot that he existed until that scene. But again, as fast as he shows up, he goes out. The Prescot family tries to have a big impact but unfortunately it is not well developed.

4/10

Gameplay:

Just like the first game but with some improvements with the exploring mechanic. You have the objective in the palm of your hands (literally) and it is really easy to access. It is more intuitive and easy play. Just some movement glitches and sometimes Chloe gets kinda grabbed in some corners. But most of the time it is flawless. Since Chloe doesn't have the power to go back in time, they added a feature where Chloe can "rap battle" to get what she wants. It is nice, but they feel more like bad choices than good choices (with some exceptions) and because of that, I mostly avoided using this feature. Also there aren't many occasions where you use this mechanic later in the game.

9/10

World:

It is small... really small. I guess it is because in the first game you could get kinda lost easily, but you had that sensation that you could go anywhere you want. The world doesn't have much to explore and it feels kinda pointless to do so. They offer some complement to the story, but that's it. You don't have that eager to explore every bit of the world and it makes it feel too much linear. The graffiti is kinda lame... it's not like the photographs that Max takes. Which makes sense since Chloe is not an artist like Max. But maybe she could have a spray can and do some more cool and artistic stuff. It would still fit Chloe's personality.

7/10

Art:

This game's art is beautiful. It is one of the selling points of the game. This painted world is what makes you feel that the game isn't that deep and then you get hit with this incredible and dramatic story full of drugs, danger, emotions and deep moral baring. I just wish it had more light and shadow work and more lightning effects (Ambient Occlusion, Indirect light and more God Rays), like, more contrast between environments to create this really dramatic and emotional scene.

9/10

Graphics:

It is simple yet stunning. It could have just a little more love to the animations, but it is the way the game was meant to be played.

10/10

Soundtrack:

Perfect! Every tune hits you as hard as the story. Every moment have its perfect song fit right into the scene.

Platinum 10/10

Overall:

A generous 7/10 but it could be an easy 6/10 or even a 5/10 with a more critic analysis.

I love the LiS series and despise all the good ratings in every aspect besides story and side characters, you have to understand that this is a story driven game... so story and characters matters the most. Unfortunately for LiS BtS it is one of its big flaws. If this game had at least one more episode (not the bonus) it could be better for developing more the side characters and by consequence making the story better. I don't mind that much in exaggerating Rachel's personality and character, but the ending choice is just... poor and rushed. Like, all you went through to find Sera didn't matter that much since depending on your choice she doesn't even get to meet her.
So... I really recommend this game despise my "low" score. It really gets into your heart and moral actions. And you MUST have had played the first game before this one to better understand what it is happening and to understand the appearances of all characters and the importance they have in the story (maybe this is why their development was so weak). It worth every penny.
Not as good as the first one but definitely a good game.

This is one of the best games i've ever played. Simplistic and beautiful, with a gorgeous soundtrack!
10/10

My review will be based in a few things:
1 - I Love Hairy Petter and Hairy Petter games
2 - I Finished 100% of the game
3 - I've played with an Xbox 360 controller
4 - I'm not a native english speaker
5 - This is my first review

Let's start õ/

Like I said, I love Harry Potter and I kinda like Lego games... so this was very interesting.

Graphics:
Nothing special, but they have done a great job recreating the cenario
7/10

Cenario Immersion:
Sometimes it feels empty, almost no interaction with the castle except for the parts that you must interact to continue the game. There is not that much places that you can go, but still made me feel disoriented and I've made myself a mental map to know where was i. Even knowing that there is not that much to go, they made it in a way that i almost didn't care, which is nice.
7/10

Story:
They've cut a lot of the 4th year... the whole ball... NOT EVEN A CUTSCENE DDD:
Well, frustrations aside, they've made some changes from the original movie(s) just to make it "comic". I know this supposed to be a kid's game, but Harry Potter story isn't something very... kids safe... but... well, ♥♥♥♥♥♥. Like i was saying, those changes doesn't affect the story that much and some changes had to be made to save time and not to make the game too long, but all the other parts were quite accurate.
8/10

Gameplay:
AI sometimes can ♥♥♥♥ you up, but is very well programed for the other parts, and if you play this game as it should be played (no exploits nor glitches) you'll have no problems with AI. Even in parts where two players need to separate in order to complete a puzzle.
AI 7/10
The controls can give you a hard time if you want to finish this game quickly... the spell selection is kinda of confusing and messy (Xbox 360 controller) but... you get usued to.
Control 7/10
The spell detection sucks... you want to cast a Leviosa on a purple thing and then you are levitating Ron. To kinda "fix" this, they've made a manual target. But still... even with the target on the purple thing, sometimes it doesn't recognizes the object's purple aura.
Spell detection 3/10
Character control is fine... not perfect due camera angles and some leviosa's sensitivity, but it does the job.
Character control 6/10
Action detection: i don't know what is worse, spell detection or action detection... when you want to put the skelleton arm in the cauldron, you have to be almost inside the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ thing... when you want to use your pet two passes away from the cauldron, you get teleported to the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ cauldron...
Action detection 2/10

Overall gameplay 7/10

Sound:
Can't tell a lot, but the soundtrack is like the one in the movie(s). BUT it doen't have a big collection, so you hear the same music in Hogwarts over and over and over and over again. I like the music from Harry Potter, but who isn't a fan and really pay attention to soundtrack is going to get bored really quick.
Sound effects are ok, not much variation either.
7/10

Extras:
This is where i've spend the most time playing. There are a lot of things to collect in Hogwarts and if you want to complete 100% or not, i really recommend getting at least all character tokens. It makes you explore the whole castle and see all the other parts that were really well done and with a lot of details. Some parts of the castle you wouldn't even know it exists because just playing Story Mode doesn't give you the complete hogwarts experience.
There are some collectibles that are really a pain to find (Students in Peril) and if you want to get 100%, you have to play the game twice (one in story mode and one in free play).
9/10

Other things:
A few glitch here and there, but nothing serious. EXCEPT for the save file. This is the worst type of save system that could exist. I've said that you have to complete the game twice to get 100%, well, i've completed 6 times because of the poor checkpoint system, only one save file that is easily corruptible, no cloud save, file location is "hidden" and you can't force a save... only when you get a token, get a golden brick, a red brick, save a student or finish a story sequence. I've got so frustrated the first time that i was 82% and then all the sudden, my save got currupted. I've waited another holiday season to play it again. If you are trying 100%, I recommend creating backup files every time you see the auto save icon.
This is easy a 5h game or 22h 100% game.

Overall:
It's a nice casual game that makes you want to complete 100% and gets you addicted quite fast. Even with this save problem, the game is well done in general and i had a lot of fun playing it alone.
I recommend this to a Lego games fan or a Harry Potter fan.
7/10

Okay, this is a short story about the household before the protagonist moved out. Nothing that explain how the other neko girls appeared in the first place. But now you can pet them *u*

♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ love this game
10ten/Twen