This game has fantastic art direction and takes the best bits of point-and-click adventure games to create an unsettling and at times outright terrifying atmosphere. However, the ending undercuts a lot of the interesting storytelling work that was done. I think the creators were going for a story where the lines between reality and fantasy get increasingly blurred to the point where the player has to come up with their own interpretation. However, that same divide becomes so muddled at the end that the "you decide if this is the real ending!" insinuation felt like the creators didn't want to commit to a definitive ending, rather than creating an opening for speculation. Regardless, Itward gets to join the Skeleton Bro Hall of Fame, and Mr. Midnight is the best kitty.

Someone said, "What if Nier: Automata was a farming sim" and just went for it. The visuals are stunning, the character writing is endearing, and the sidequests tie in nicely with the overall themes of connection, loss, and rebuilding that the overarching story discusses. There's a lot here that will feel familiar to fans of the RPG genre, but presented in way that shows the devs understand why people keep coming back to these games. There's something really satisfying about finally reaching that next teleport point in the dungeon you're crawling through, or getting that new crop in order to finish a recipe you've been wanting to try, or unlocking a new ability in your chosen job. It's not perfect - Harvestella is mainly held back by its budget, which can most clearly be seen in its reused character animations and lack of innovation in both the battle system and farming mechanics - but it more than makes up for it with heart. I loved all the time that I've spent with it, and I'm happy that I can now point at a game other than the Rune Factory series for people who want an RPG plot to go with their farming sim.

(Full disclosure: I backed the Kickstarter for this game, but didn't finish all the routes until recently.)

Despite the dark supernatural twist the story takes, Hustle Cat is a cozy little game that leaves me wanting more without overstaying its welcome. The routes are fast, with just enough details given about the world and the curse the characters find themselves under to keep things interesting without ruining the mystery upfront. While the major plot beats are the same for a majority of the arcs, the character writing really shines in this game. Each character's respective route gives them a satisfying arc, and their reactions to the the redone plot elements keeps things interesting. There's also enough details sprinkled around through each route before the "secret" one unlocks that the player can make a good guess about what's really going on before the reveal.

However, that also leads into my biggest complaint about the writing. All of the endings, even one for the secret route, feel abrupt. Immediately after the final battle, the explanation about what's going on with the curse is handwaved with an "I don't get it" from the main character, a last CG is shown, and then credits. At first I thought that this was just a writing choice to build suspense for the secret route, but at the end of that one I was left with more questions. It was a little sad to get to the very end and think, "Wait...that's it?"

My only other complaints about the game are technical. The gallery to this day remains bugged, not showing two game CGs. The skip button still lets scene transitions fully play out, and there's no option to continue skipping after a choice if the text has already been read. This ended up adding a lot to the runtime while playing through the other routes. Also, and this nitpick might just be personal, but the audio mix was too loud on default settings. I nearly blew out my headphones when I first booted up the game.

But with all of that said, Hustle Cat still really charmed me. I wanted to stay in this world with these characters just a little bit longer. There's bits where the game is rough around the edges, but there's real heart and love in there. I can see why people still think fondly of it, and I'd say that anyone interested should give it a try.

For whatever reason I couldn't get the Mac build of this game to save, which accidentally ended up adding to the immersion.

Random technical problems aside (thank you RPGMaker, very cool), I love the concept of taking the mechanics of a generic, D&D-adjacent fantasy RPG game and using them to tell a time-loop story that digs into the cyclical nature of depression. The character writing and tiny worldbuilding tidbits are the real stars of this game, and do the heavy lifting in getting the player invested in trying to find a way out of the loops. There's a sense of a whole backstory that we're not clued in on as players, which adds to the storytelling about the main character forgetting details, hyper focusing on finding a way out. We become extremely familiar with the "correct" route through the castle, but the only extra details we get are the ones we choose to listen to. The genuine gut wrench I felt after getting the "true" ending speaks to the power of the tiny details in this game.

All of this makes me really excited for the full version coming out later this year, although I'm not sure how it will work in a full game format. However, if everything is as well-considered as it is here, then I have nothing to worry about.

While this is apparently the first VN game that this dev worked on, it does not leave a good impression at all. This is easily the most tedious and disappointing VN I've ever played. I misguidedly kept at it, hoping that the story or characters might improve as I got to the "true" routes, but that wasn't the case. It was ultimately a waste of time.

This VN starts out as a stat-raiser, which is where a lot of the tedium comes in. For three in-game months, you click buttons to see the same bit of text over and over and over and hang out with the guy of your choosing. It's also incredibly easy to get a Bad or Normal end within minutes, making the whole exercise feel like a repetitive waste of time. If you do manage to get on a route, the game moves to a standard VN format, but it's not much of a reward because the story and characters are terrible.

The first plot twist is revealed early as a hook, but the implications of everything that follows after is pretty disturbing. One of the main male leads is the main character's adoptive father, which makes his route creepy from the outset. Subsequent plot twists make his character come across even worse, and definitely not as the tragic romance the writing clearly intended.

The other main route isn't much better, despite having the advantage of not starring a middle-aged groomer. This character's story features a lot of casual misogyny (ex: referring to women as "toys") with an unlikable personality on top of it. It's hard to buy into a fake dating with real feelings storyline when it's impossible to imagine why anyone would catch feelings for the person in question.

Further details and hidden routes get into spoiler territory, but the short version is that none of it ever improves, nor does it make the experience worth the time. Overall, the story is not worth overcoming the stat roadblock at the start. Play any other VN.

This is a "collect all the Bad Ends" type of VN, with said Bad Ends ranging from nonsensical to disturbing. All the gory parts are only written though, with the visuals limiting themselves to blood splatter. As a result, the VN is mostly trial and error on your way to a Good End. After unlocking one of the True Ends, more options open up that further explain what is going on at the aquarium.

The story is fine, although the overly-literal translation makes it hard to get invested. There were numerous points were I felt like I could probably guess what the exact line was in the original Japanese, since the phrasing and expression just felt off in English. I feel like the translation could've benefitted from another readability pass, since by the end the character voices blur together.

That said, I did enjoy the second pass through the game much more than the first. The new route that opens up answers a lot more questions and ties together elements that previously felt like they were only there for shock horror. My initial thoughts on this VN was that it felt like a B-horror movie about a haunted aquarium, but the second pass added a lot more depth and thought to the story that I wasn't expecting, even though certain plot twists and character reveals still felt pretty campy.

At the end I'd still describe it that way, but I enjoyed it more than I expected. While the translation holds it back a lot, I'd still recommend this to someone who enjoys their horror with a side of camp.

(Full disclosure, I was a Kickstarter backer for this game because it looked like an improvement on the first and I wanted access to it when it released. However, I never got around to playing it until now.)

After revisiting the first game, I'd tempered my expectations going into this one. As it turned out, that wasn't fair of me since this game is a massive improvement on its predecessor. The odd art style choices and unfocused storytelling from the first game isn't present here - what you get is a great collection of epilogues focused around the titular demon war. The art style update works extremely well now that there's finally style cohesion between the sprite assets and the CGs, and the voice acting continues to be fantastic. The writing in the routes that I played addressed a lot of the storytelling issues I had in the first game, filling in the blanks while still providing some great dramatic buildup. There's even a polyamorous route, and off the top of my head I can't think of any other game in this style that offers that.

As a result, my complaints this time are much smaller. There's still some random unpolished elements, like the occasional typo slipping through or the parts generically written so that they can be reused regardless of route ("my incubus"). I'm also not quite a fan of having a narrator character immediately pop up to tell the player a list of things that they need to know before starting the game. Clarifying which route was chosen made the most sense, since it's not clear in the main menu, but it made for a strange first impression and I wonder if the disclaimer part could've been handled differently.

I also have mixed feelings on The Wives. They were Kickstarter backer rewards for a big chunk of money, and on paper it sounds like a great idea - let someone have their OC or self-insert be canonically married to the character of their choice when the player isn't on their route. That's fun! I love that the player character isn't the boys' only chance at love, and it's a concept I'd like to see in more dating sims. However, in practice the inclusion of The Wives feels awkward. Outside of their introduction, they don't participate in the main story, and also bring up a lot of questions. Why would their husbands bring them to an active war zone? If all the brothers have significant others, then why is the main character the only one to be kidnapped and cursed? The player character says that they're all friendly, but we barely see them interact. Without knowing the context of the backer rewards, I imagine The Wives confusing players. It was pretty clear that there wasn't a lot of thought about how they would interact with the story, and as a result they're just kind of...around. There was an opportunity here to have all of the couples use The Power of Love to defeat the Demon Lord, not just the player character and her partner, and I'm a little disappointed the game didn't take it.

All of that said, I still think this is a far better game than its predecessor, and I enjoyed my time with it far more than the first. The good endings bring a satisfying close to the series, and I'm happy that I saw this series through to the end after all.

I played one route on this years back and remember thinking at the time that it was fine but not anything groundbreaking. Going through my backlog reminded me that I never played the sequel, so I decided to try replaying this as a refresher, and wow. Time has not been kind to this game.

The art choices haven't aged well at all, with the only style consistency in the UI. The character sprites range from "ok" to "amateur," with awkward eye placement and proportions. The CG images were clearly done by another artist entirely. The backgrounds range from what look like free-use comic backgrounds to blurred IRL photos, which can at times contradict the story (ex: the house being described as having flowers and shrubs around it when there are none in sight). All of this contributes to a constant style whiplash, taking me out of the already convoluted story.

Speaking of, it's clear that the author loves this world and these characters, but it feels like it needed a couple more edit passes, or a narrower focus. The original Kickstarter page mentions a "longer game," two extra routes, and a whole new character (bringing the total to a third extra route) as stretch goal rewards. Since it hit all of those, I think that contributed to the bloated feel of the story. Simultaneously, the opening part feels like I'm talking to someone who is so excited to show me their OCs that they rush through the wild setup that gets this high school senior into the mansion with the boys. Parts of the lore are deeply explored and explained, while other parts of the setting are sped by so fast I can't even think "wait, what" before they've been left behind and forgotten.

As a result, Seduce Me feels like a labor of love attempted before anyone on the project had the skills to fully pull off their vision. This is also what makes it hard to recommend. The lack of skill and polish on the creators' end means that the whole time I'm in the game, I'm not thinking about the story that they want me to experience. I'm constantly being reminded of the choices the creators made, and those choices are distracting me from actually engaging with it on any level. Because of that, it fails as a VN for me, since I am here primarily to experience a story.

It's certainly not the worst VN out there, and it might even be the biggest OELVN widely available for free, given the sheer amount of characters and endings it has. But it is very rough around the edges, and it has a lot more competition in its field than when it released. If the creator feels like revisiting it someday, I'd love to see a remake or remaster of this idea. As it stands right now though, this VN is a great example of unrealized potential in the indie space.