Always Sometimes Monsters

Play the first few hours, read (p)reviews, and you'll see an emotionally-driven story about choice and fate, where you're penniless and broken and have to go on a difficult journey getting your life and partner back. Alas, all these concepts get abandoned and by the end you're left unfulfilled, with cop-outs and odd character behaviour along the way, until the game is telling you you're a broke bum who desperately wants your ex back, but in reality you the player are ACTUALLY full of money and don't give a crap about the ex because s/he's a jerk. You might go through hell and do drugs if it meant getting the love of your life back, but would you do it just to go to someone's wedding? No, but the game apparently thinks people do that. As a cop-out, you even get to make some choices about the actual plot. You decide who dumped who, and why, and this one 'choice' hidden away in a conversation (a couple of hours before the end) is what impacts the ending most, without even alluding to it! In one person's story, you dumped a girl because you wanted to bang some more chicks, then changed your mind, crashed the wedding and she came crawling back. In another's story, you got dumped and now you're acting like a crazed stalker to see her again and ruin everything. In another, you may not give a crap about her. The game, however, is adamant that in each scenario you're going to the wedding to crash it or be a wuss and do the whole "I just want her to be happy but I still love her" shtick, and likely end up depressed anyway. Because the plot isn't as flexible with choice as it suggests. Other little things about the game can make it frustrating. Press space to speed up the text, and you might end up accidentally making a choice that pops up without the usual pause, and you'll have to reload your most recent save. Play Blackjack and if you and the dealer have the same hand (a 'push'), you still LOSE. In hindsight, my hours would've been better spent playing something else.

I'll start off by saying that while this is a game, it isn't really a good one, and gameplay isn't really featured all that much. The closest you come to actually doing something is sprinting around town and moving boxes, and while you could say that this is to emphasize the "life simulator" tag added onto it, it's also painfully boring for an RPG. It boasts of complicated moral choices that really only boil down too "Do this dick move" or "Do this slightly less dickish move," and while it warns of very sensitive topics like sexism, homophobia, racism, and the like, it's all handled very poorly. The writing is pretty amateur, is what I'm saying, and it hinders whatever weight important topics like the ones listed above carry by making them seem not that important at all. On top of that, the sprites are ugly (of course, they're basic RPG Maker sprites with minor edits), and in some cases glitchy, as in one location you're likely to see anti-gravity plates and forks, or in several other places characters just walk through you. This game claims it sets out to tell a deep, meaningful story, but really all it tells us is Vagabond Dog Studios are expecting us to pay $8.99 for what boils down to a film school starting project with button inputs.

This game has a lot of dialog, and trust me that isn't a bad thing. I actually love games with dialog and a good storyline. However the dialog in this game is likened to that of a soap opera, most of it is meaningless and ridiculous ongoing. I like being able to make decisions that change the games outcome, but in this game the different "moral choices" don't seem to mean squat in the end. You do get changes, but not ones that really matter. For me, this game was drop dead boring. Good for people who may have a hard time sleeping, because the constant reading the endless scrolls of pointless dialog will get you drowsy in no time. There is my input, try at your own risk. This game is not worth $10, I'd try it for maybe $1 at the most and even that would be a stretch.

I've played this game to the end, and I gotta say it's a big disappointment. The graphics look like SuperNES era (infact they look alot like the Final Fantasy saga, just with a modern setting). The starting idea is okay... albeit quite cliché: you are a failure of a writer that tries to win the love of his life back. Life in the game is harsh. The game itself is really bleak, in an attempt to simulate reality, but it feels forced most of the times. The main character is also braindead or just totally stupid. The alternative choices are not often evident as the bad idea. Little effort is done do remind the player of the stuff to do: since we play a writer, I'd expect a journal of sorts, kinda like the one you can write at end of every day (would have been way more interesting if that journal would be used as a quest/story notepad, with the option of tearing the page off or keeping it at the end of the day). Grinding the same minigames over and over to farm money is outright tedious, as they aren't particularly fun to play either. And you need money. Lots of it. The game contains a lot of indirect preaching and kinda annoys by force spooning you certain ideas and concepts... which I do find really annoying. It seems it wants you to ingrain some kind of morality while the game literally tries to do everything to shift you toward being "evil". Playing the "good" role is annoying, and isn't really rewarding, which I guess is another effort to give off the "it's realistic, life sucks" vibe. you spend around 8 hours or so to get thru 4 cities, that became less and less detailed as you go on, which gives the feeling that like the story writers got tired of doing their jobs and tried to halfass their way thru it. The most annoying thig is that everything you do before getting to San Verdano is USELESS. Doesn't matter if you were a Saint in disguise or the biggest a$$ on the face of earth: your fate is decided on the money have and by three dialogs after that point.Pathetic.

Really wanted to like this game but after playing a few hours I am bored stiff. I enjoy dialogue, wandering around, exploring and interacting with items, huge adventure fan here but this game just doesnt have a point to it, at least not after hours of wandering around. It has some of the worst minigames around, really really bad arcade games for an ex. Talking with npcs often has no purpose as well, just empty dialogue that doesnt change much after story progression. Theres a story hidden in the game, I just am tired of trying to wrangle it out, doesnt help my main char is stuck on a long past relationship in a most emo way. I like RPG maker engine but seeing the same game assets with even the same flavor text attached to them game after game shows a lack of originality. pros: lots of exploration, flavor text, npcs to talk to, some vague missions, dogs, etc. If you like wandering round games to explore and get immersed this will suit. cons: i found the music blaring and obtrusive. no option to tweak game graphics, audio etc. game assets are seen in other games even down to the flavor text. wandering vague storyline and equally vague quest progressive and objectives. Really strange starting sequence that after a few minutes I found out was just to select your char sprites. clunky UI to use items (ex. to use item, hit esc, directional arrow to tab over options, enter, directional arrow up/down to select item, enter, enter to use until gone or action done, esc to get out of menu. repeat ad nauseum to look at each item in inventory or use other food, if there was a way to shortcut this i never found out). after awhile of this I wondered why I was still playing when i have hundreds of other games to explore. uninstalled and hid it in my library. I may if bored try the game again but I doubt it.