The game as a game is very simple, with graphics from 35 years ago. The very idea and gameplay are quite pathetic and insulting to intelligence. But of course, this is not why one buys such a game, rather for the erotic content. Here we are met with another disappointment: it is not really clear who this game is aimed at. Is it possible to identify with the protagonist? I, as a heterosexual adult male, cannot in any way. The protagonist of the game is a little boy, about 14 years old (small, skinny, not even a trace of stubble on his face or body yet). According to Wikipedia, the average penis size is about 5.17 inches (13 cm). Personally, I'm quite tall and hmmm... I have a bigger one, but this boy's gear is about 2 feet long. Such a sight to a man is comical and disgusting, to a heterosexual male repulsive. So maybe female figures are attractive? Unfortunately, no. Here again we are dealing with porn for clowns: the bodies are monstrous, inhuman, not attractive in any way. On top of that, the characters are mostly grandmothers. But the faces of all the women are are almost indistinguishable (regardless of their age). I think the authors of this game should get out in the fresh air sometime, try to at least talk to some girls. It looks as if they have never known any up close and their erotic experience is limited to the cheapest porn comics. All in all, the game gives the impression of being aimed at adolescent boys. I just don't think it's going to teach them anything meaningful, rather it's going to foster false perceptions.
I love TES, especially Morrowind. After the lousy Oblivion, I was looking forward to Skyrim, which I would have gladly paid $300 for. Unfortunately, it turned out to be only on Steam. My IQ is above 70, so Steam's terms and conditions are impossible for me to accept. Therefore, only now, years later, thanks to GOG, I could finally buy Skyrim. And for that I give two stars. The game itself is prettier, but definitely inferior to Morrowind (no mood, no interesting quests, artificially prolonged, boring, repetitive missions in boring corridors that are always the same, with boring enemies. On top of that, the game often puts you in a situation that doesn't allow you to continue. For example, in order to go further with any thread, the player must murder someone innocent, defenseless, or steal something from such a person. I won't do it (it's not why I play to violate my entire character, value system, to make me extremely uncomfortable), so I have to leave the game, load the previous save and 80% of the further game is unavailable to me). Basically, I expected this, I was waiting for something else: the most valuable thing about these games are the modification options. I was looking forward to it. And here - a surprise. There are no tools for creating mods. They are not available for the GOG version. You can only try with ready-made mods, which is immensely frustrating, because most don't work with this bizarre GOG version. It's a huge disappointment. I'm afraid I have to go back to Oblivion, where at least I could make any modifications I wanted.
The game is about 999x better than the much more commonly purchased "Being a ..." (which is hopeless in terms of aesthetics, ethics, sense of humor, elementary logic). But 999x better doesn't mean it's without flaws. There is too much male nudity (as a rule, the game is aimed at straight men, so the sight of male nudity is rather unpleasant). The level of ideas is... how to put it delicately... let's say correct for a 13-year-old boy. That's the impression one gets: that the game is a 13-year-old's dream (spoiler: the boy saves the girl, helps two poor girls, generously buys them clothes, wins the heart of a pop star, has sex in threesomes, a previously unknown dad gives him $200,000, his girlfriend turns out to be a secret agent (here I couldn't stop laughing), to tell the truth I was waiting when it turns out that he is selected for the national soccer team or an astronaut or at least a cowboy). When we think for a moment, the guy is a complete zero, he has achieved nothing in life, he continues to prey on others (he got cash for an apartment from dad, his girlfriend subsidized his salary for 2 years, he attached himself to a rich girl, even a job in sewage he did not get on his own, as it turned out someone had to provide it for him.... Simply a genius. He is mortally angry with his father (but doesn't offer to give him back the money), he doesn't offer to give back the two years' earnings the girl gave him. Instead, he squats on the rich bimbo). Dialogues and "life wisdom" of the protagonist are often naive, often heavily overplayed. I see that I have written a lot of "no". However, compared to other games of this type, this is a brilliant work. The story sometimes is really interesting and moving. There really are touching moments there. People write that the music is worthy of attention - not exactly my taste. But for others it may be an additional plus. Definitely one of the best games in its genre.
This is without a doubt the most disgusting game I have encountered. I expected virtual novel with dating, the development of friendships, with, of course, nude scenes for dessert. I'm straight, so I expected FEMALE nudity. What do we get? Graphics - the author doesn't really know what people look like (the bodies of most characters are distorted, not natural). Erotic scenes - most of the nudity is male. I'm straight, so the sight of various male... pieces is disgusting to me, and the game forces you to watch it, through long dialogues. To keep from throwing up, you have to cover the monitor or scroll through the dialogues. The game should give you a choice of orientation, not force you to be gay or bi. But that's still nothing. Far worse is the atmosphere of the game itself. There is basically no normal life there. There is a pathological environment full of sexual violence, no human feelings. It's generally about students who don't have money to live comfortably, so they want to get housing from student groups organized like mobs. In exchange they are expected to accept brutal, inhumane treatment, prostitution, libations, public sex with random partners. And I am supposed to be the boy in the game, whose beloved girl easily accepts such extreme humiliation. And I am supposed to continue to respect her, like her, etc. No character will even think about getting a scholarship, a student loan, to get a job. The girl prefers to get into a student group that will make her not even a prostitute, something far below that level. I understand that there are couples who like slightly dislocated forms of sex - that's fine, as long as both parties are willing to accept it and it makes them happy. But here is hideous breaking people's character, making them slaves. And still some characters in the game explain that this is great, because after destroying the psyche, you gain "great friends". All in all this is not a game for a sane person.
I used to spend a lot of time with PR2 - a game perhaps simple, not too demanding, a little too easy, but nevertheless very nice, relaxing, comfortable to use. The only drawback was the repetitive naval battles: excellent at first, but a bit tedious in the later stages of the game (we always win without losing ships and take over the opponent's ships, but it takes a VERY long time and repeats dozens of times). On newer computers the game unfortunately broke on the graphics of the sea (instead of it there are flashing dots - it is simply impossible to play, the same with the underdeveloped GOG version). PR3 had low ratings, I deliberately skipped. But I threw myself into PR4 with great enthusiasm. Here are impressions from the first four hours (yes, I know, it's too early and maybe something will change in the later stages of the game): PROS - is almost the same PR2 that I liked, - a little more production and trading options, CONS - graphics probably worse than 15 years ago, when I first saw, I thought the game was released maybe in 2008 (higher resolution of course, but everything unreadable and clunky), - interface definitely worse (unintuitive, inconvenient, everything has to be searched for, is not available at once - from the annoying adjustment of the pace of the game to trade and construction), - I don't think I'll marry (in PR2, governors' daughters were an important element), - naval battles have become VERY strange (simple, no longer requiring dexterity and quick thinking, and really strange). - I've been playing for a short time, but I've already noticed some underdevelopment of missions (I was supposed to sell 300 t of sugar to Netherland, having a capacity of 200 t I had to sail 2x and even though I did it immediately - I didn't make it on time). I don't know why in all companies larger than two people (when managers appear) they strive to spoil what works perfectly and to add garbage. Despite all this, I'm glad to be playing PR again.
Discouragingly easy game. Tried it twice for 15 minutes each - after a while I had two tons of fish. No challenge at all. I have no idea about fishing. I get the impression that the game is meticulously equipped with millions of rods, hooks, lures, floats etc, there are probably maps of a hundred rivers and lakes, a million species of fish, simulated behaviour, habits, what they do after work etc. But it's all very thoroughly wasted. In practice, you cast a hook (I don't even know if there is bait on it) and after a minute you pull out a fish. You cast, you pull it out. You cast, you pull out. You cast, you pull out. I lasted a few minutes - not for my nerves. I thought some knowledge, experience, dexterity would be required. Nothing like that. You cast and pull.
...but GOG didn't make any effort to make it run on modern systems. I own a 200-years-old CD of PR2, played it 1000000 times. It refused to work on new computers, so I purchased it again from GOG. Unfortunately it is not possible to play: the game starts OK, but 1) it forcibly stretches to the 16:9 format, 2) instead of water you can see flashing bright spots all over the water surface - eyes and head hurt after 5 minutes. I tried for three days all possible settings. The compatibility settings written by MicroSoft in general are hopeless, it never works, I write about far better solutions, but still nothing works. That's why my rating is 4 - I rate the GAME, not the GOG version (that would be 2).
The game is ABSOLUTELY extremely sexist, based on stereotypes. But it is not unpleasant - it is given in a fun and enjoyable form, the stereotypes are so exaggerated that no one can take them seriously and get offended about them, you know they are jokes. The visuals - well, whatever you like. I don't like the manga, but I understand that someone might like it. The game features girls (supposedly) white, (supposedly) yellow, (supposedly) black. In real life they can all be gorgeous and each has unique features of colour, physique, facial features. In the game, they are indistinguishable from each other. They are all identical, only the names distinguish them. Three teams clearly worked on the graphics. One drew the faces in an anime style (inhuman, unsightly proportions, 2D), another drew the bodies (natural but with inhumanly exaggerated female features, 3D), another did the backgrounds. The three elements don't fit together. It looks as if clumsy drawings of faces have been pasted over the pictures of bodies. The proportions, the colours, the impression of spatiality don't match. It gets in the way, but the game is still enjoyable and fun. You just have to play as a woman, otherwise the final images in the series are hideous from a male point of view for some physiological reasons. The only thing that really puts the game off is one of the characters - Momo. The others can be liked or disliked, but are within the norm (including the goddesses and aliens). Momo is a child. Personally, I'm not very tolerant of paedophilia. Anime and manga generally represent such a direction (exaggerated childlike features in faces - small mouths, noses, big eyes), but this is too much: Momo makes it clear that she is a child - a "kitten" - in this situation, you have to be a bit of a strange person to feel pleasure in dating, sex and suggested BDSM elements with someone like this. Apart from this, the game is really likeable, fun and worth every dollar of its price.
The game at first seems complex, because you have to learn by force dozens of rules. They are not logical so you can't understand - you have to memorize them by force. Once you get through that, you can play, because once you have accepted these rules, the game is very simple. We played (in two people) three times. And completely enough, we are unlikely to play a fourth time. The game develops very slowly, then suddenly everything can change purely by chance (card draw). Nothing depends on knowledge, strategy. One person has a big advantage from the beginning, but suddenly in the last round a random trifle reverses the scoring. You might as well play something like this: players draw a card, the higher one wins. The end. This way the gameplay is essentially the same, and you'll save a few hours. The only advantages are the pleasant pictures and sounds and some interesting information about the birds (which you can find in Wikipedia too).
I played a lot Guild 2 despite its tragic flaws. I hoped that the 3 would be a progress, devoided of flaws. Wrong. In Guilds 2 everything was simple, intuitive, clear, and yet it gave lots of possibilities and overall the game was quite complex, and gave a lot of satisfaction from the effort put into developing a family and a business. I played Guilds 3 for a couple of hours. I didn't know anything about what was going on. Nevertheless, I had more and more money. Why? I don't know. I didn't know how to control the workshop, how to organize the work or where to get raw materials from, but nevertheless it worked and brought in income. I didn't notice any dynamic economy, I didn't see price differences. I didn't notice the need for character development (maybe I played too short a time, or rather the game was on too short a time). I talked to some lady and after 15 seconds I was married. No challenges. I was simply VERY bored. Maybe after 10 h of play something would appear. However, everything was so discouraging that I preferred to return to Guild 2.
