My thoughts on Haven are split, so I'll go down the game's three big elements in ascending order of non-badness rather before giving a verdict.

The Combat. Don't get me wrong, it's not actively awful to play and it can be... a little fun? But it essentially breaks down to two attacks, each not effective on some enemies, a block and a button to "finish off" downed enemies (non-lethally). There's some more nuance to it and some of the encounters do end up feeling like puzzles, which is neat, but overall it's really sloppy. Despite being real time you need to charge your attacks (so it ends up resembling the ATB gameplay you'd see in games like FF7), but sometimes one of your guys gets hit out of the screen and takes 10 seconds to come back, sometimes both of your guys end up sitting by without doing anything because an enemy is getting his attack first... It's an unpleasant combination of simple and janky, and I'd have expected more out of the people who made Furi, whose combat fucking rules. Obviously their priorities were in a different place and they make it explicit that this is meant to be a more casual game (even though it can be weirdly punishing on the default difficulty), but it just makes me want to avoid all the fights I can. Which to be fair, is usually an option.

The Movement. Most of Haven is, or is at least meant to be you running around the maps, doing some light exploration. And it's decently successful at that. The game can sometimes feel a bit too much like a checklist but I feel like 100%ers would appreciate that, and it's not too much of a bother to ignore. Fast travel is a bit clunky because it doesn't let you warp to areas that you haven't cleared of Rust, which is sometimes a bit annoying. Regardless, all of that is secondary. The game looks pretty great, the music's amazing and the characters have a lot to say during travel, which helps it not feel monotonous.

The Writing. As a proud user of this website, I have obviously never felt the loving touch of a woman OR a man, but as I have occasionally had interactions with human beings who did not fully despise me, I must compliment this game for being really good at capturing the relationship between two people who are madly in love with each other and are really getting to deeply know each other in every way. They have millions of tiny disagreements, a bunch of weird jokes that they know the other one will like (some are kinda cringe but honestly they're two lovebirds in their early 20s, they will be almost as cringe as they are horny), it's not wholesome uwu stuff without substance but it is extremely heartful and believable. Kay and Yu both feel like real people with a personality beyond what we see and beyond what we immediately assume is their stereotype. All of their actions are believable, they're filled with numerous tiny flaws and aren't even really heroes, just people trying to live their lives as well as they can. I will say though, as much as I like the writing overall I don't think there's any scenes that really blew my mind, not even in the ending, it's just a really consistent level of quality and honestly that's great too. Bonus praise for letting you play as a M/M or F/F couple, that's very cool.

So uh, I dunno I guess there isn't a verdict, I lied. The writing is really good but not to the point of just letting me ignore the fact that the rest of the game is kinda boring at times. I liked Haven, though. It has heart and good ideas, and sometimes that's all you need.

Interesting little co-op game. It’s a little haphazard at times (the spoken dialogue often does not match the hastily written text), but it has a little weird charm. Visuals could use a little work. The battle system is just ok but verged on frustrating at times, particularly because you can’t choose what enemies to attack. This is more challenging when the enemies have specific strengths and weaknesses and your character chooses the wrong one.

Ability to choose same sex options was a nice touch. Characters are unbelievably horny which I was not expecting, it’s impressive they manage to get anything done. Plot is a little odd but serviceable.

In ways Haven is the yang to Furi's yin. While Furi focused on visceral combat with light character development, Haven is all about the romance between its two lead characters with combat as a supplementary element.

The chemistry between the two leads is definitely the strong point for me. Yu and Kay are such fleshed-out and lovable characters that it's easy to understand and care about these people as they struggle to maintain their relationship against all odds. Also, the combat being easier when properly using both characters in sync only further reinforce their connection and need for each other.

With most of the gameplay being light exploration, I feel that there was room to tighten up the game and make it feel less like filler. Additionally, I wish they challenged Yu and Kay's relationship more, as the best moments of the game involved their relationships struggles. It feels like wasted potential.

In the end, a solid if unbalanced entry that I see myself replaying.

If you're like me and see the mid reception of this game and think "well, the graphics are pretty and it seems pretty chill, so I'll try it out", this review is for you.

I tried so hard to like this game, but it is the definition of style over substance and is one of the biggest indie sophomore slumps I've seen.

Haven is a video game where you check boxes. Mindlessly glide around a bland land mass of colored grass and clean up gunk, fight the same 5 enemies over and over with a shallow combat system, and gather ingredients to cook recipes that don't offer any useful bonus other than checking a box.

Aside from the co-op, this game doesn't have anything to offer. If you want to spend time with your significant other, turn off the fucking TV and go for a walk. This game isn't worth any level of eye strain and while the interactions of Yu and Kay are a rare great example of good communication and mutual respect in a relationship, they're too horny and childish to enjoy listening to.

I struggle to think of one thing I actually enjoyed from my time with Haven. The art direction is bland, the music is forgettable, and the gameplay is straight up bad with zero variety in strategy. The relentless backtracking and loading screens (paired with fast travel that requires consumables) are tedious and kill the pacing. Even the one unique selling point, the relatively emotionally intelligent protagonists lean way too hard into typical anime tropes with a (excuse while I puke) "western" twist. Maybe the story is a positive, ad there's some good sunday school morals at play here, but the pacing to get there (in a 10 hour game, no less) is brutal.

I rate it two stars in a vaccum, if there are no other games vying for your time, this is just flawed and boring rather than offensively bad, so I'll give it that as a win.

I had trouble putting this game down and completed it over the weekend, it is around 10 hours long and I think that it was perfectly paced, at no time did it feel like it is dragging. This would be a great introduction to survival games to someone who hasn’t played that many games as there is a very low risk - hunger won’t cause death, only debuff, death in combat won’t cause you to lose items.

The game is HEAVILY focused on the romance aspect (whatever you are thinking right now, DOUBLE IT) and there is A LOT of dialogue, the story is as prevalent as the actual gameplay. I was pleasantly surprised that the entire game was voice acted and both of the main actors were perfect.

I did play this on Switch and it ran surprisingly well in most parts, though there were two areas where the fps dropped significantly.

The idea behind Haven sounds interesting on paper and while I was somewhat interested in the story, the gameplay itself is a huge letdown. The overworld mainly consists of empty plains (I know it's supposed to be an abandoned place, but it's just so bland) and the combat system never clicked with me and felt unresponsive. The menus are unorganized and cluttered.

I wanted to like this game, but because of the reasons mentioned above I could never properly get into it. Maybe I'll pick it up someday again for the characters alone, but I don't think it's gonna be in the near future.

loved this game so much! it was so cute and the relationship between characters were so wholesome and even when they were arguing or didn’t see eye to eye i still felt the love between them. the gameplay loop was a lot of fun, altho i do wish the gliding mechanics were a little more smoother. it felt kinda stiff sometimes and maybe it was on purpose but i felt like it would’ve been a lot more fun if you had more freedom to move however you wanted instead of being restricted with having to drift if you wanted to make a sharp turn

If you take Playstation's Flower's gameplay and atmosphere and mix it with a lite dating simulator with a sprinkle of resourse gathering you get Haven. Haven was a good change of pace game. It's a simple yet relaxing game. Challenge is nonexistant and it is a game that you almost play for the mood and vibes. It doesn't reinvent the wheel or have some amazing story but to me Haven is more than the sum of it's parts.

The gameplay of Haven is a simple exploration of a colorful alien world, as you zip and dash from island to island to gather resources and parts of your ship. From food, medical supplies and unexplored junk that you find. There is also purple goop spread among the planet that you can clean up by dashing over it. So what you get in a gameplay loop is basicly exploration, as you fly around cleaning terrain and collecting food and objects you find around the map. It's a simple loop but exploring the artiful world is more of a relaxing experiance. I can see a lot of people getting turned off by this game as there isn't that much to "do" in it and the gameplay loop can be repititve.

There is combat in this game as well but I struggle to come up with a reason as to why it's included. It's as simple of an RPG combat system could possibly be. It's not engaging or enjoyable at all. Everytime i got into a combat encounter I wish that it would just end. It's easily one of the worst battle systems I've ever played. There is no depth and nothing to it at all. It feels like it was implemented at a simple pace breaker to make your character do something more "actiony" but it comes off to me as a time waster in a game that is essentially a time waster game. So why even play this game then?

At it's core Haven is held up by the foundation of it's main characters Kay and Yu and their relationship. You are given the option of assigning the genders of both characters and they are all fully voiced. You can tell this game didn't have the biggest of budgets as the story is told organically from the characters point of view after the fact and told in drip feeds. It works better than it sounds. The story isn't anything to write home about but it does a good job of shaping the characters world and backstories. The crux of the game is on the relationship between the characters like I said earlier and this is one of the aspects the game does very very well on. Kay and Yu are one of the most realistic couples I've seen in a game like this. The chemistry of the characters through their actors and character quirks come off very genuine and rarely if ever feel artificial or cringey. They feel like real people going through a thing that are so in love with each other that they relish in the fact that they are the only two people on this planet and it's enough for them. You would think a two person cast would get old fast but I found them to be the highlight and the reason to keep playing. Plus I really liked the character design and outfits that they wore as well. Very cool looking. A lot of the games scenes are just the characters reacting to everyday stuff, getting into arguments over mudane things and growing their relationship. It's not something for everyone and I do feel the game is a tad longer than it needs to be, but I really enjoyed my time with it. It's a hard recomindation though. I'd say if your in the mood for a simple beatiful artsy game that you can turn your brain off and just zip around in, you might realize despite the fact the you are getting bored of the game that you do wanna keep going.

Platinum #179