Love the music, but we're talking about visual novel here, so... here I go. Sometimes it's fine not to have a story and base your work on some experience. And if experience was to make me deaf when I exit the game and return just to find out (the hard way) that sound is still on 100%, the devs made a great job. But okay, nevermind that bug - that still isn't fixed - I still like the songs. But what was this expecrience about? What does it have to do with an actual story? You wake up in cold abandoned world with no one but other girl - Sasha - who seems just as cold and not caring. Sasha is pretty rude, but for some reason still helps our character and, although she tells she's not, still interested in finding out what happened to the world. And that's pretty much it... This is the story, basically. And the experience is... about being alone in this world, I guess. But I can't help but think that constantly hearing music in the background destroys the immersion. The aesthetic of the album really fits that one of the novel, but when you combine those two together it doesn't work the intended way. Get's hard to get rid of the idea that this is fake story just about this album. HOPE LEFT ME is about some feeling. Well, I'll just go listen to the album then, since the visual novel holds no value in itself.
For all what I can tell, this visual novel depends on album. Which is fine by itself, but it doesn't make up for a good story in any way. It's short, characters are shallow, and I didn't really care that much because there isn't any substance to it. And you are reading this review from someone who absolutely loves Milk Inside a Bag of Milk Inside a Bag of Milk. Each time I replay it I find its main character more captivating in her despair than these two girls in HOPE LEFT ME. Because everything second novel presents is confusion. Maybe I didn't see it in the details. Maybe I don't understand this experience well enough. But I don't see them as people with some tangible problems. They're exactly characters with a few traits to me. And I certainly don't feel whatever they're going through.
It's fine to make the story about anything but the story itself, when you give something in return. You can't just break the rules for sake of braking them, there is no concept behind it anymore (people already have been doing this to art like 100 years before us, so there is nothing new in that). I am a bit too negative for review of a novel I didn't care this much about. I don't hate it, I just want to find more reasons to say good things about it. But I only like the music.
For all what I can tell, this visual novel depends on album. Which is fine by itself, but it doesn't make up for a good story in any way. It's short, characters are shallow, and I didn't really care that much because there isn't any substance to it. And you are reading this review from someone who absolutely loves Milk Inside a Bag of Milk Inside a Bag of Milk. Each time I replay it I find its main character more captivating in her despair than these two girls in HOPE LEFT ME. Because everything second novel presents is confusion. Maybe I didn't see it in the details. Maybe I don't understand this experience well enough. But I don't see them as people with some tangible problems. They're exactly characters with a few traits to me. And I certainly don't feel whatever they're going through.
It's fine to make the story about anything but the story itself, when you give something in return. You can't just break the rules for sake of braking them, there is no concept behind it anymore (people already have been doing this to art like 100 years before us, so there is nothing new in that). I am a bit too negative for review of a novel I didn't care this much about. I don't hate it, I just want to find more reasons to say good things about it. But I only like the music.