Recent reviews by fatcoland

A fantastic followup to The Cat Lady. Great psychological horror. Too many trigger warnings to list. Not a game for everyone.

First off, it's a Kagura Game. All graphics are 16-bit at best. If that is acceptable, then it's worth considering. This game is a visual novel with some simple puzzles thrown in. Three possible endings, with a bonus scenario available after the third ending. The game itself is pretty basic, with no battles, no game over screens. It's all exploration. The story itself involves some BDSM, torture, and more taboo subjects as well. While it's a very short game, the story plays out like a movie without filler. Honestly, I liked it for exactly what it was. It's definitely not for everyone, but considering it's a Kagura Game, you should have an idea of what you're walking in to.

I put myself in to debt 16M through my schooling to become a pop star. Most accurate simulation ever.

It's a combine 3 puzzle game with half way decent hetero H-scenes. It seems infuriating at first as every time you lose, you lose all of your progress in romancing the ladies. On the flip side, every win you achieve, you can build up your stats or gain items. This creates a grinding mechanic that entices you to keep at it. Some scenes are unlocked through role play decisions, and some are just straight forward clearing boards. I cleared the entire game in five hours (100% unlocked, 100% achievements), being a pretty average, but seasoned, puzzle gamer.

TL;DR: As far as T&A goes, lots of T shots of G~H size, a couple shots of A. Artwork will spoil you. Linear story, one proper scenario.

Oppaidius Summer Trouble! is a visual novel with a heavy emphasis on artwork and music. The artwork and style of animation is reminiscent of the early 90s punk/ska era that you might find on Liquid Television. Taking 8-bit graphics with hand drawn art, mixed together in a 1080p animation, simply looks spectacular. The music also may ring close to midi music of the same era, but it hasn't aged as well. The updated sound effects and music, when applicable, does help breathe emotion in to the game appropriately.

While the visual novel itself is not totally kinetic, the story is very linear, as there is only one option on who to "date." There are small options on choosing scenery for the next scene, but it all leads the same main path. This results in either a good or bad ending without any other options for deviations. This does hurt replay value when you reach the positive ending which you'll want to repeat about five times if you want to unlock secret content. As far as the negative ending goes, the game does give you clues on how to reach the positive ending. That is actually a big plus which should be offered in more games.

There are two mini games that actually hurt the game more than help. The swimming contest has you pressing the left and right arrows on your keyboard to simulate swimming strokes. This wouldn't be a big deal if it wasn't for the fact that you NEED to win this part to advance the story. If you lose, you have to try again until you complete it. I'm personally lucky to have a mechanical keyboard to do this on. I would never try to do this on my laptop, as I would hate to ruin the keys. It really ends up hurting my hands when I was trying to cruise through all the options in the game. The poker game is a test of your patience. It is a very primitive version of video poker that you can find on electronic handheld games prior to the real video gaming era. You have five credits to start with, and you can earn more by completing the game with positive endings. The game is Five Card Draw, and you have to reach a certain amount of points through winning combinations to defeat your challengers, and eventually win. I guess it has a little more strategy than the typical Blackjack game, but it lacks strategy and reading players. Be prepared to lose, even if you start with ten credits. There is a third mini game sequence, which is a variation on Whack A Mole, that is slightly slow paced to help the story progress faster. It isn't bad, but isn't skippable either.

If you want to hunt for achievements without spoiling the story, make sure to check the global achievements. Most of the names of the achievements are the perfect clue on how to find them. Not all of them are explanatory though. All achievements are reasonably achievable.

The first time I played it, I wanted to give it a solid 9 out of 10. It was tremendously fun. The followup times of completing it to search for everything ended up making it feel like a 6.5 out of 10. After leaving and returning fresh, I feel like the game deserves an 8.5 out of 10. If it wasn't for the non skippable mini games, I would stick to the 9.

Experience is a platformer shooter with free aim. It feels like an experimental game that never got properly finished. It feels like one of those games you got just for the trading cards.

This is a novelty disguised as a game that gives you 4000+ achievements. It is buggy, unstable, and broken. Usually I would try to play any game for at least two hours, but I was afraid this abomination would crash my hard drive if I played too long. I can't recommend it to anyone, outside of people who want an artifical achievement boost for their Steam stats.

Frisky Business is a straight forward visual novel with a late night 80's cable television programming vibe. The humor is mild, but not atrocious. The visuals are cell shaded cartoons (take that any way you will). The main storyline is pretty basic, with slight dialogue deviation options that lead to different endings. The reaction sound effects were more of a plus than I expected, as it helped make otherwise flimsy characters have some life in them. Lots of achievements are offered to encourage trying all different dialogue options to see how the story plays out, but a lack of speeding up text option can make replays somewhat tedious. I came across two different bugs, neither are game breaking. All in all, it is a mild distraction that offers silly ways to get in bed with multiple ladies, all while solving a scooby doo-esque mystery.

I crushed a train car, and inflated it with a bicycle pump. When I realized what I could do, I had to do it over and over again.

Summer Fling is an erotic visual novel released from Dharker Studios. If you are familiar with DS, you can expect the same recycled artwork from previous and future titles. This isn't meant to be positive or negative, just an expectation. There is also an uncensored patch available on Dharker Studios website at the time of this review release. With the patch, you can expect to see mostly upper female anatomy in more detail. No full frontal.

The plot and storyline are paper thin. They did put in a little more effort for aftermath in the multiple endings, but still felt had little to no illustration to character development. The erotic language was graphic in detail, but was barely par compared to most mainstream erotic literature. Thankfully, it is much more detailed than the actual story. The ambience would have been much greater if they had more illustrations to accompany the erotic detail. Instead, we get about five erotic images per scene, most which are variations of the same image.

I read all of the dialog offered in about an hour. The whole game reads like it was a part of a bigger story at one point. Obviously price is relevant to the buyer, but I would recommend buying it as part of a bundle package. Personally, the $10 MSRP is way overinflated. I'd recommend buying it for ~$1, just for the sake of supporting the developer.