VirtuaVerse

Summary: As others say, this is style over substance. The parts of the game -- the setting, the art, the music, the characters, the plot -- should've led to a better game. Instead, it's incoherent. Half of the game is actually fairly good, with standard P&C puzzles. The rest is a mess, with very random "puzzles", excessive backtracking. A word on the pixel art: Superficially, it looks good. However, there are three big problems: 1 - The animation is poor (e.g. the main character never moves his head when walking) 2 - There is no scaling, yet perspective is used - this means objects visually grow in size when they move away from the camera; or it's overly done, like the floating heads in the slums scene 3 - Sprites and scrolling is not locked to pixels, making it look very jarring Positives: - Decent length of game-play with different scenes - Music has a unique style (for games) - Pixel art is superficially good - There are enjoyable sections of the game, with thought-provoking comments on our modern society Negatives: - The characters are all obnoxious - Writing is clunky - The puzzles often make no sense - characters suddenly offer new dialogue choices with nothing to explain why they would Meh, not great, but can live with: - Lack of voice acting - It's often hard to tell who's speaking in dialogue - The music becomes bland, with little variation in the use of synths, and gets in the way of the game at times - Derivative elements (such as a rainy city with an Oriental/US mix, like Blade Runner)

The cyberpunk setting and retro pixel graphics are usually an instant purchase for me, but VirtuaVerse was such a dissapointing experience for me. -The main char gets more and more unsympathetic as the game progresses, from blackmail, drug dealing, to getting someone killed so you can loot their corpse just to name a few. -Puzzles in this game tend to be very drawn out and often require you to interact with the same person/ object multiple times. -Jaming as many retro references as it gets into a futuristic setting just feels out of place. -No voice acting and even the way the text is represented line by line in the same color and font makes the dialogs less enjoyable, especially when they don't behave like real persons - e.g. providing a bunch of code for something that is not relevant for the story in any way

VirtuaVerse looks and sounds nice. I like retro pixel graphics, and I like retro bit-music. In terms of presentation, it had me hooked from the start. The story was fairly stereotypical for this genre, but that's never an issue... as long as the gameplay is fun, the same assortment of tropes can still be fun. Sadly, the story, characters, and puzzles dragged the experience down for me to the point where I no longer enjoyed it. The characters became more unrelatable and unlikable as the story progressed, the plot devolved into Tell-Don't-Show for many of its beats, and the inventory puzzles were convoluted, arbitrary, and frustrating more often than not. A few parts of the game rose above this trend and managed to be fun and engaging, but not often or consistently enough to save the game as a whole. The frustration of getting through parts of the game was only made worse by an unsatisfying ending. I appreciate what Theta Division was going for, but they sadly fell rather short of the mark.

This game's presentation is great. It's a beautiful 2D-rendered pixel game which evokes feelings associated with games of old, such as LucasArts and Sierra games. Unfortunately, that's where the comparison ends. The story isn't very immersive nor interesting. The game has a hard time keeping you emotionally invested; the mediocre writing and unlikeable protagonist are mostly to blame. The biggest disappointment is the logic associated with the game's puzzles. This game unfortunately falls into the "try every object in your inventory against any actional items in the game world" trope and it gets frustrating quickly. Most of the puzzles are illogical as they are not conducive to the character's intentions and actions. Sometimes you have to attentively listen to a conversation. Other times you can tell that these puzzles would make sense from the POV of the developing team but are nonsensical from the POV of an actual player. Ultimately, I was not able to solve this game without the use of a guide. If you have some extra funds in your pockets and are dying to play a point-and-click adventure game, I wouldn't recommend against it but if you're on a tight budget, do yourself a favor and grab one of the classics instead of this game.

The graphics are pretty nice (provided you like pixel art). Also the music is pretty sweet (if too much in your face. But that's ok given there is no voice acting). Worldbuilding is pretty good if very stereotypical. BUT: About one third through (when you are joined with your girl friend) the story deteriorates from following inconsequential objectives and being almost nonexistent into complete and utter nonsense. Also, some of the puzzle design is probably the worst I have EVER seen - and I have played point and click adventure games since Maniac Mansion. The puzzle chains are completely ridiculous. Example? So you need to get access to a computer in an internet cafe, but the only functioning computer is occupied. So you get the business card from the local mechanic in a garage, give it to some random dealer type guy which then signs up the mechanic for some VR spam ads so that he gets on the phone and leaves his stuff unguarded. You then pick lock him inside the room with the phone, which keeps him from stopping you to push the button that controls the lifting platform, pushing the car that's sitting on it against the roof - which (and I'm really not kidding here) scares the cat that's sitting on the roof of the garage away. This causes the dog inside the carage to try to chase the cat, but he's on a leash so he can't, but you cut the leash and then he runs after the cat. The cat then escapes into the internet cafe, -- and that scares away the guy blocking the computer and you can use it. WHAT THE HELL? Clearly, there is no way you do all these things purposefully. The only way to get to this result is to do whatever you can do, and be surprised by the outcome. That's NOT how good puzzle design works. This is just one example, but it's indicative of the writing of this game. Most of the time you run around and do things just because you CAN do them, and with no clue why you SHOULD do them. Give this a pass and play Whispers of a Machine instead.