While charming, this game falls flat on its execution. This Texas-hold em' visual novel should have been up my alley with my love for story telling and an itch for reckless gambling, but fails to present either in a cohesive or interesting way.
The poker mechanics are very basic, it's classic two hand. There's not much going on with no tells from the characters or much challenge from their AI. Once it comes to a one on one showdown, spamming the raise button is the easiest and surefire way to win the tournament. Pacing is an issue with how fast the game goes through all of the poker screens. There's no tension on the flops or hand reveals, it's all instantly shown with little fan fare outside of the win tune or one of the characters giving their two cents about the win. It's not very interesting beyond that, and yet it takes up a lot more of the game play than I think it should.
The VN aspect of this game is straightforward. While you're gambling on winning with a pair of 2s, the creatures on the Sunshine are telling you their story about their life of crime. However, it's difficult focusing on both the dialogue and the game of 2 hand going on at the same time. The dialogue is told to you from a speech bubble that you constantly have to click to advance, taking your attention away from the poker game around it. Clicking also advances the "flop" screen which conflicts with advancing the dialogue, which fucks with the already quick pace of the poker game. An auto dialogue advance would have helped a lot with these issues. Story dialogue also just takes a bit too long to happen sometimes too, with long stretches of nothing going on, then suddenly someone at the table mentions some crazy shit out of left field. I think the poker quips sometimes break the story sequences too. There were moments where they were talking about their gang shit and suddenly the captain is like "Ooh!!! Nice call" and the room goes silent.
I've read other reviews mentioning voice actors would have improved this a lot. While I agree, I feel that a much higher focus on making this more of a VN would help a lot more. Something like having the dialogue advancing between every poker action and pausing on bigger poker events (the flop, all-in's, final hand reveals.) The poker game itself could pause on major story reveals to emphasize the shit that's going down. This is outside of the scope of the review though, if you want something like this go play Pbouxhkiir Night on the Primox Alpha.
The only reason to play this is probably the story. I won't go to into it since I honestly missed out on some important story beats from the fragile dialogue system. It's good enough to keep my attention, but the tone of the story and the tone of the rest of the game DON'T MATCH AT ALL. They're talking about how they killed people and the music is wayyy too upbeat about it. The character designs do not represent how roughed up they should be from the shit they used to do. The whale outside of the boat is so blissfully unaware of the horrors these creatures have seen. I'm not asking for a gritty dark artstyle, but maybe it should at least show that the guys you're playing with have been through a lot. But hey, you can have an arcade cabinet of space warlord organ trading simulator on the ship, so that's nice.
The poker mechanics are very basic, it's classic two hand. There's not much going on with no tells from the characters or much challenge from their AI. Once it comes to a one on one showdown, spamming the raise button is the easiest and surefire way to win the tournament. Pacing is an issue with how fast the game goes through all of the poker screens. There's no tension on the flops or hand reveals, it's all instantly shown with little fan fare outside of the win tune or one of the characters giving their two cents about the win. It's not very interesting beyond that, and yet it takes up a lot more of the game play than I think it should.
The VN aspect of this game is straightforward. While you're gambling on winning with a pair of 2s, the creatures on the Sunshine are telling you their story about their life of crime. However, it's difficult focusing on both the dialogue and the game of 2 hand going on at the same time. The dialogue is told to you from a speech bubble that you constantly have to click to advance, taking your attention away from the poker game around it. Clicking also advances the "flop" screen which conflicts with advancing the dialogue, which fucks with the already quick pace of the poker game. An auto dialogue advance would have helped a lot with these issues. Story dialogue also just takes a bit too long to happen sometimes too, with long stretches of nothing going on, then suddenly someone at the table mentions some crazy shit out of left field. I think the poker quips sometimes break the story sequences too. There were moments where they were talking about their gang shit and suddenly the captain is like "Ooh!!! Nice call" and the room goes silent.
I've read other reviews mentioning voice actors would have improved this a lot. While I agree, I feel that a much higher focus on making this more of a VN would help a lot more. Something like having the dialogue advancing between every poker action and pausing on bigger poker events (the flop, all-in's, final hand reveals.) The poker game itself could pause on major story reveals to emphasize the shit that's going down. This is outside of the scope of the review though, if you want something like this go play Pbouxhkiir Night on the Primox Alpha.
The only reason to play this is probably the story. I won't go to into it since I honestly missed out on some important story beats from the fragile dialogue system. It's good enough to keep my attention, but the tone of the story and the tone of the rest of the game DON'T MATCH AT ALL. They're talking about how they killed people and the music is wayyy too upbeat about it. The character designs do not represent how roughed up they should be from the shit they used to do. The whale outside of the boat is so blissfully unaware of the horrors these creatures have seen. I'm not asking for a gritty dark artstyle, but maybe it should at least show that the guys you're playing with have been through a lot. But hey, you can have an arcade cabinet of space warlord organ trading simulator on the ship, so that's nice.