It's a great visual novel detective game with some rough edges. Excellently written, striking character portraits, really catchy music and it does a lot to make you actually solve the murder without taking off all the reins (i.e. case of the golden idol or Obra Dinn) or relying on nonsensical and tedious court cases like the ace attorney games often do. And the ending chefs kiss.

That being said the Switch version is littered with bugs, and audio issues, that I am told will be addressed at some point. The background and cinematic art looks rough (still serviceable but noticeably lower quality) to say the least. The action point system also feels a little underdeveloped worsened by several UI decisions.

But the core of the game: the mystery, gathering clues, and finding contradictions, the characters, the character design and the portraits shine through its flaws. It's a more toned down and down to down-and-earth vn detective game, that managed to give me the experience I wanted from games like Paradise Killer and Ace Attorney but never got. It made me care about solving the case, and learning more about the characters. By the end, I knew who did it, yet the last thing I wanted to do was solve the case, because it would mean the end of the found family that I had grown to love.

I tried playing the original a while ago, but it lacked so many quality-of-life features that I ended up dropping it. Though a number of fans seem displeased with some of the changes and cut puzzles, I really enjoyed it! Simple, relaxing puzzles a soapy story, melancholic atmosphere, all as a mystery unravels. It has some plot holes, but if you can look past them it's a chill time.

Character models look great, although the backgrounds feel underbaked. The English voice acting is god-awful, so definitely switch to the Japanese, unless you are looking for a Shenmue-level so bad its good experience. Overall its a solid remake, if not the definitive way to play the game. For those that are interested in the original but don't want mess with the DS version, this is a good way to play through it. For long time fans, I would just go in with some lower expectations.

Now the second game is, the second is... well it's a meandering mess of a game that I ended up giving up on about four hours in. Honestly, it's a sequel that never should have happened and it shows by how much they attempted to cut down the original wii game in this collection.

Constant pointless cutscenes, infrequent dull puzzles, too many characters, incredibly ugly environments, a stilted, awkward story structure and so many other issues. The only thing I liked is that Ashley actually has more of a character in this one. Its definitely cool to try a game that never released in the U.S., but I wouldn't expect to finish the second game, its more of a curiosity.

The story and writing are quite poor but the idea and art captured my interest. I love the idea of mad libs conversations solved by balling-rolling puzzles but it is just nowhere near snappy enough to make it work. Too much text and the ball-rolling levels feel too long to keep up the pace.

In general, I'd say text-heavy games do not work well on the playdate. It is far too small to read tiny text on for long periods and even the best writing would struggle with its limitations. I think story-based games can work on the system, but only by relying less on long conversations in favor of environmental storytelling and moments of action.

Although I could see a version of this game, leaning more into the mad libs element, having no idea what the conversation is even about until after you finished filling in the blanks. I would definitely be interested in seeing the idea further explored.

Also, it is kind of unacceptable for a VN not to have an auto-text-advance option. It is like the bare minimum for quality-of-life features.

So a couple of things to note about this one, I was looking for another game to fill the dredge-shaped hole in my heart, and I came upon this one. It looked like everything I enjoyed about Dredge but in a cuter package, but it is decidedly not. Yet I am enjoying the game if for entirely different reasons.

Though it appears to be a game driven by exploration it is decidedly not, it focuses on a more realistic sailing system (dealing with wind, shifting the sail), ship and fleet customization (with a ton of different guns, ships, and mods), and of course naval combat. And it does all this in a way that is just complex enough to remain interesting but simple enough not to intimidate.

In between the battles, there are quests, fishing, photography (for money), a little bit of trading, and the main quest which guides you through the open world of procedurally generated zones. They recently released an update that removes the loading screens between zones so you can sail and encounter islands in any order, but I find myself fast traveling most often.

So if you like building and customizing a mini fleet of ships (including custom paint jobs and flags) and taking on pirates, forts, and supernatural creatures this is for you. In short, I'd recommend it more to fans of the battles in Sid Meier's Pirates! than dredge.

I really want to like this game but after eight hours with it, I'm finding that Sea of Stars loses my interest more often than not. The structure, the charm, the art, the music, the world, and even the combat to an extent are there. Unfortunately between drawn-out enemy encounters that drag on and on, no auto battle functionality or even a fleeing option, incredibly slow mechanical progression and leveling, nonexistent characters, and some abysmal dialogue it just can't remain interesting.

This should have been great but it ends as quite a middling attempt in this new phase of retro-styled JRPGS.

A good not great cinematic platformer, with some stunning backgrounds and a sweet and simple story. Though it has a strong first impression, it fails to vary the level themes enough and falls flat on building enough set pieces, tense chases and fights that the subgenre thrives on.

But if you are a fan of the genre, like me, you'll have a good time anyway; it's a decent way to spend a weekend at around 6 or 7 hours with the usual secrets to check off if you want to keep playing. If you haven't already, I would also highly suggest picking up Bramble: The Mountain King, which also came out this year, and will scratch that limbo/inside itch and keep you a little more engaged.