A fundamentally transformative experience that is downright theft for the full price. Consider additionally supporting the developer. Even judged as a VN without giving it any handicap for being an AVN, the game has one of the best cast of characters ever written. Every one of them has their own struggles, hopes and fears, with which you’ll get acquainted. They all have satisfying arcs and develop as people throughout the course of the story. The game could cut out all the NSFW content and still be worth triple its price. There are six major and one minor love interests who in combination provide nine possible successful romance scenarios. Only one of those involving the minor love interest seems a bit short (it’s supposed to be a mid-game love-at-first-sight scenario), but still has us exploring a personal issue of said LI and arriving at a satisfying ending to the journey. All of the women have depth and you will empathize with their internal struggles. All of this is accompanied with a generous helping of cheesy jokes that land in a delightful manner. Relationships evolve and you can see the women develop affection for the main character instead of being dolls pursuing a kamikaze attack onto his member. As a result, you can experience the relationships develop and enjoy the payoff. The main plot contains one of the best examinations of depression and one of the most emotionally evocative scenes that I have ever seen. The scene is so good that it comes with a warning and the possibility to skip it. If you find yourself at a low point or are particularly sensitive, I would recommend using that option. It is not for the faint of heart. In addition to this entire package, the game also contains a spectacular soundtrack of independent and DRM-free music that always drives home the feelings in the scene perfectly. It is efficient to the point that after completing the game once it will make you tear up just by hearing it. Only critique I have is that some renders of the main character look a bit uncanny valley, but that is bound to occur in such a major project undertaken by a single developer. Buy it and enjoy it. Believe that things can get better if you persevere.
The game is a fairly linear visual novel. There will be little to no variety between playthroughs. That being said, the story is intriguing to the point you might find yourself playing it without concentrating on the erotic aspect at all. It certainly is better than your average TV movie. The presentation is good, with some sparse environments, but an overall consistent level of quality. Bugs were few to none in over sixteen hours of play. The characters are intriguing and feel like actual people. They are above the usual fare for this kind of game and actually impressively written in certain moments. Overall, if you adjust that everything is happening in a world where everybody is a hell of a lot hornier (it is an erotic game after all), the dialogue and the story work. The humor hit more often than not, and it had me laugh out loud a couple of times. The hot scenes are satisfying, given you gel with the act being presented. There are no overly exaggerated acts that will have you cringing if you're actually sexually mature. Given the average level of games such as these, this is damn near excellence. There are certainly several better ones, but not a lot. As I said in the title, this is a decent novel an outstanding piece of video game erotica. Definitely recommend purchasing it at its full price, and if you are into these kinds of games, I would say it's a steal on sale.
This is the most biased review you could find. Arkham is one of my favorite game series, and I have hundreds of hours in City on Steam and on other platforms (have this game on every store where it is available). Arkham City is by far my favorite game of all time, so knowing that I was very positive coming into the game in 2024, let’s go: POSITIVES: +Presentation+ The game is a teen. It came out on the PS3/X360 generation and is still stunning. While some facades in the open world are generic, there are hundreds of different spots that the developers inserted lore into. The Riddler trophies will make you focus on some of the stuff, but I would recommend looking at every poster, newspaper and object you find. There’s an insane amount of environmental storytelling, and this is on top of the conversations that you can overhear. The art direction is just finger-licking good. +Graphics+ The game holds up, especially if you enable some additional features in the modded launcher or manually within some game files. Textures and lighting, everything is beautiful, and it is amazing to think that this was a PS3 generation game. Didn’t notice a single graphical glitch and I was just consumed by how perfectly the graphics fit the art direction. +Gameplay+ This is the game where the Arkham Free Flow fighting formula came together, and it plays like the Moonlight Sonata. You are Batman, the best martial artist ever conceived, and it shows. Once you master the combat you enter this flow state where you see the fight 5 moves ahead and enter absolute Zen. I have played the Iceberg Lounge bonus combat map for tens of hours. It’s meditation. So you get this combat, and you get four characters with different move sets. You have Batman who is fully developed, then you have Catwoman, Robin and Nightcrawler, who are more limited. They have less combos, but each has a unique set of moves, so it really feels like you’re playing as separate martial artists. My favorite is Nightwing because it’s gangsta going Philipino Zeus on a crowd. The gameplay is just 10/10. There is a little junk with your character locking onto the wrong enemy, but it’s insanely good despite that. +Story+ The story and characters are in a classic comic book aesthetic like in Asylum, which works great. Mark Hamill is flawless as Joker, and together with the late Kevin Conroy they deliver some of the best voice acting in gaming history. The rest of the cast is also amazing. The story is relatively short, but the quality is just flawless. NEUTRALS: =Music= Like in Asylum, the soundtrack fit the atmosphere perfectly, and there were a couple of standout moments, but there is no singular track or theme that stays with you after the playthrough. It is by no means bad, just not exceedingly remarkable. CONCLUSION: This is my favorite game of all time. Replaying Asylum, that game showed some stitching due to age, but this was perfect. Every last minute detail. It is love. It is joy. If you haven’t played it, I can’t recommend it enough.
This is biased. Arkham is one of my favorite game series, and I have 100% completed Asylum once on PS3, once on GFWL and now the GOTY here on Steam. Arkham City is by far my favorite game of all time so knowing that I had a bit of pink glasses coming into the game in 2022, let’s go: POSITIVES: +Presentation+ Even this many years later the atmosphere is great. The island is dark and dreary and it really feels that a lot of work has gone into every inch. The whole place is dripping with lore. The Riddler’s challenges will focus your attention on some of them, but it pays to look at this game’s assets and discover minor details that will pleasantly surprise comic book fans. The art direction barring a couple of designs for me is absolutely amazing. +Graphics+ The game holds up even this many years later, especially if you enable some additional bells and whistles in the modded launcher or manually within some game files. Textures and lighting, everything is beautiful, and it is amazing to think that this was a PS3 generation game. I have noticed a couple of shader glitches that got resolved by just reloading a checkpoint, and I do mean just two or three in 27 hours of gameplay. A notable glitch I did encounter was connected to the game’s physics engine. Foliage layers would just hover above the ground sometimes, and stacks of pages that were apparently modeled to fly apart with realistic physics when knocked from desks would instead just spread apart as if in exploded view. Neither physics glitch affects the game. +Gameplay+ As the first game in the series, the ideas of my favorite combat system are there, but since this is closer to the prototype some of them are at this stage too simplistic. The number of possible takedowns in predator mode is not that big, especially compared to future entries, and the AI is somewhat stunted. Where the game shines, is the crowd combat mechanic. This is basically the dream of the martial artist where he/she is surrounded by enemies that he crumples to the ground with devastatingly precise and powerful strikes. There are essentially 4 enemy types and 3 boss types, each with its own mechanic. Batman chooses from a vast move set that is accessible via the face buttons, and the goal is to enter this amazing flow state, where every point on the combo meter fills great and every move presents an opportunity for triumph or failure. There are a couple of mechanics that seem to not work perfectly, however, which can be frustrating if you are trying to do a perfect freeflow playthrough of the game on hard like I was. +Story+ The story and characters are all shaped in a classic comic book aesthetic, which works great in the game. Mark Hamill is flawless as Joker, and the rest of the cast is great. The only downside to the story is that while short, there are still a couple of places it manages to drag on a bit, but it’s a minor and easily forgivable sin given the total level of quality. NEUTRALS: =Music= While the soundtrack fit the atmosphere perfectly, and there were a couple of standout moments, there is no singular track or theme that stayed with me after the playthrough. It is by no means bad, just not exceedingly remarkable. CONCLUSION: This is the first entry in my favorite game series. Playing the beginning even 13 years later still felt amazing, even though this time I did see a couple of minor stitches in this cozy magical blanket. Playing this game just makes me happy. If you haven’t played it, I can’t recommend it enough.
This game got shafted by the community. Arkham is one of my favorite game series, and I have 100% completed Asylum once on PS3, once on GFWL and now the GOTY here on Steam. Arkham City is by far my favorite game of all time so knowing that I am very biased coming to Origins in 2024, but here’s some thoughts: POSITIVES: +Story+ Although City is my favorite game and we have Roger Craig Smith and Troy Baker instead of Kevin Conroy and Mark Hamil who are the definitive voices of Batman and Joker respectively, for me the story blows both Asylum and City out of the water. In both City and Asylum, we have Batman and the Joker as icons that are fully formed and simply interacting with each other. You know how both of them tend to act and Batman is just this white wall of unshakable morality upon which the Joker smashes over and over again, so you get these epic scenes that have amazing stakes on the level of the characters, but their personalities almost never interact. In Origins, the story is damn near visceral. Both Batman and the Joker get altered deeply by encountering one another and Batman’s convictions get tested to their limits. The story’s themes are elevated to a much higher degree of suffering, brutality and violence when compared to the previous two games. I love both Asylum and City, but this was indeed a step above. +Bosses+ The bosses here are so much better than Asylum and City, it’s not even funny. In past games, most bosses slightly modify a standard combat encounter, maybe force you to use a gadget. Here, you have a mano-a-mano duel, which feels like snorting a line of the Lord’s powder, a fight against our favorite venom user that works differently both times, a thousand knife fight that feels dangerous as hell and a gadget fight for survival. The DLC Mr. Freeze fight is a bit meh, but you can’t have everything. +Graphics+ The game holds up even this many years later. Textures and lighting, everything is beautiful, and it is amazing to think that this was a PS3 generation game. Sadly, if you want to run it the best it can look, you run the risk of instability due to some poor integration. Even so, the game looks great because the graphics fit with its art style. All the X360 generation games in the series have trouble with the integration of the Physx drivers and later version of DX, but are still gorgeous. +Gameplay+ The game is pretty much a carbon copy of City as far as gameplay, with some notable additions and subtractions. The major addition is the martial artist enemy type, which is a bit of a mixed bag. On the one hand it adds some variety, but on the other it pulls you out of the flow of the fight because your character is suddenly playing Patty Cake in the middle of half a dozen thugs. Shock gloves are also a cool addition that allows you to get an additional gear in your flow, but they charge slowly and last too short for you to really be able to mentally sink into one rhythm or the other. There are some additional gadgets that give you more angles in predator encounters, but there has been some jank introduced that makes the gameplay. For example, instead of most edges, railings and surfaces in the open world being valid targets for grapples, now they have been limited to just a few types, and this makes the traversal very clunky when compared to city. All-in-all, it’s still the awesome gameplay of the Arkham series, so a buy just for that, but there are some issues. +Music+ For the first time the music in an Arkham game has made me notice it. I won’t spoil the moment, but the use of some classical pieces fit so perfectly in a confrontation between the Joker and Batman that I was genuinely impressed. The original soundtrack is still fitting and well executed, but unremarkable, like in the previous two games. NEUTRALS: =Presentation= The atmosphere is great, but there is far less of it. Gotham’s size has grown, but it feels like it is less dense. There is less detail to the environment, and thus, less reason to explore. The art direction is still amazing, though there are a couple of designs that I generally dislike when it comes to Arkham in general. =Side missions and activities= It feels like there’s more side content of lesser quality. Like in City, there are a couple of missions that genuinely expand on the ideas of the game and provide a good, albeit short story or idea, but there is a lot more of doing the same thing a given number of times in this game than in City. NEGATIVES: -Collectibles- In the previous two games the Riddler trophies served as a means of making you explore the environment and were genuine short puzzles and riddles. Sadly, in Origins, they are just collectibles. There is neither challenge nor mystery. It’s just a checklist of the most mundane UbiSoft style trudge that you have seen a thousand times. Was a genuine pain to collect them all. CONCLUSION: This game is indeed jankier than the first two in the series. It does, however, deliver a great experience that is worthy of the series. I will definitely agree that as a whole it is worse than both Asylum and City, but it is insane to refer to this as a bad game. Very few games in this genre manage to deliver such a good experience, and although this does not feel like Colombian table salt like City, it sure as hell gets the job done.
Spectacular game. Not a fan of the Telltale style games, but damn is this good. Is it railroady? Sure. Is there barely any gameplay? You betcha. HOWEVER, the story is great, the atmosphere is amazing, the soundtrack is perfect and the dialogue is chef's kiss. Every time you see characters, they work perfectly in the scene, and there are damn near no filler lines. This would be a steal for a full 60$ and at the prices it goes for in 2024, you should probably pick it up both here and on a separate platform, so that it doesn't feel like you're picking the studio's pocket. The only criticism I have is that the game should definitely have a skip function. Replaying the whole scene again just because you thought a dialogue option's description meant something else is just a pain with the current system. The games aim for an interactive television show feel, but the lack of such quality of life features is a bother. 9/10 only due to the technical issues. Buy it, play it, love it.
A truly spectacular game. Usually I try to provide a bit of critique, but here it is pointless. From graphics and presentation, through story and world building to soundtrack and mood, this game is truly flawless. That is not to say that it is the best game ever or my favorite game, but as far as what it has set out to do, and what the developers have actually achieved, I cannot think of a single thing that could be done better. Many games pretend or aspire to be art, but this one actually is. I feel ashamed to have bought this on sale. Will buy again on GOG for full price just so I can thank the developers for making it.
A fine game especially for those who like platformers. It's easy, though there is some complexity to the move set due to the violin bow mechanic. Still, great work.
I don't typically play cutesy games, but I got this on Epic for free way back when, and my brother and I checked it out tonight. After the 3rd level I came over here and paid full retail on the spot because we had so much fun that I wanted to support the devs. As soon as I scrape some money together, I'm getting the second one as well. We laughed, shouted and cursed at each other and the game for nearly three hours straight. We stopped because earlier in the day I was training, and now my hand was cramping up. The only minor critique I have is that we didn't see the dash ability on the layout, and it's tremendously useful. It is insanely fun together, though I don't know how it would be solo. We also used PS3 controllers with my PC, so I don't know what it would be like to share a keyboard. If you want to curse in a kitchen more than Gordon Ramsey, this is most definitely the game for you :)
