I quickly discovered that the the tenor of the prose and overall narrative style in this is really not to my tastes--Not to any unforgivable fault by any explicable metric, it just has some repeated quirks and a specific tonality that really gets under my skin. Your mileage will DEFINITELY vary and I hope to get over my taste aversion and return to see where it leads ~eventually~ !
I decided to bounce after about 90 minutes, so it feels totally unfair to give this a rating. I'm only writing anything here because it MUST be said that the cutscene direction, composition and flow between frames, and overall visual design/execution here are top class and put other static VNS (or like, most games with cutscenes or "cinematic" aspirations in general) coming from studios with infinitely more resources and manpower to shame. Imagine if the charming but minimal graphic novel sequences from like, Bayonetta/Folklore/Gravity Rush were pushed to their absolute limit and treated with enthusiasm as a space for immense visual opportunity rather than mostly a sleek-ish way to save some development time--that's the entirety of Necrobarista, and it rules to see something capitalizing off a limited style this well. This is a really incredible achievement in cel-shading and kinetic framing and I was pretty stunned by the segment I played!! Im sorry though i just really struggle with the whole snarky slice of afterlife anime urban fantasy thing (Necrobarista feels very kindred with Dead Like Me which is another thing my palate just has complete revulsion to) and the little highlighted words with quippy jaded comments did very little for me! Literally no hate if this is your thing i'm happy for you because what a gorgeous masterful package for your thing to be delivered in!!!! maybe it could be my thing too someday but I need to do some wounded child primal scream regression therapy or something to get over whatever it is i cant stomach about media with this vibe
I decided to bounce after about 90 minutes, so it feels totally unfair to give this a rating. I'm only writing anything here because it MUST be said that the cutscene direction, composition and flow between frames, and overall visual design/execution here are top class and put other static VNS (or like, most games with cutscenes or "cinematic" aspirations in general) coming from studios with infinitely more resources and manpower to shame. Imagine if the charming but minimal graphic novel sequences from like, Bayonetta/Folklore/Gravity Rush were pushed to their absolute limit and treated with enthusiasm as a space for immense visual opportunity rather than mostly a sleek-ish way to save some development time--that's the entirety of Necrobarista, and it rules to see something capitalizing off a limited style this well. This is a really incredible achievement in cel-shading and kinetic framing and I was pretty stunned by the segment I played!! Im sorry though i just really struggle with the whole snarky slice of afterlife anime urban fantasy thing (Necrobarista feels very kindred with Dead Like Me which is another thing my palate just has complete revulsion to) and the little highlighted words with quippy jaded comments did very little for me! Literally no hate if this is your thing i'm happy for you because what a gorgeous masterful package for your thing to be delivered in!!!! maybe it could be my thing too someday but I need to do some wounded child primal scream regression therapy or something to get over whatever it is i cant stomach about media with this vibe
4 Comments
It is also kind of unfortunate that the first time I heard about the game was the above thing about the dev doing that. But now this is interesting enough of a sell to me, so thanks for the review!
Yeah there's a lot to enjoy here for sure! Even as someone who pretty much couldn't stand any line of dialogue I left impressed and happy to have at least checked it out. Wouldn't be the first time an annoying person cranked out something neat and definitely wont be the last~
I completely relate to this review. There's something about the lack of self-awareness in the dialogue that gets to me, the pushing for a 'fake smile to hide that I'm depressed' feel throughout the whole thing. As hard as it is to explain, or even understand myself what it is that gets to me, I'd think a good label would be "akin to a fanfic you'd read on tumblr."
KB0
3 years ago