After reading (or rather re-reading) this new western release of Amatsutsumi, I´ve got no choice but to rate the game as high as possible. Amatsutsumi first came out back in 2016 and was accepted very great. The Title Song even won Gold at the MoegeAwards 2016. Naturally I was thrilled ever since Sekai Project announced a western version back in 2019. After a bit of a bumpy ride, regarding it´s release Amatsutsumi finally made it´s way to the west. Although the story itself is nothing to get a Novel-Award for, the cast of characters makes it entertaining to read and watch. Especially the Drama (since this is a Drama-VN) is implemented very well, without "overdoing" it (like in many Key VN´s for example). The Drama always feels "natural" and "relatable" in contex to the story. Especially the Art deserves special mentioning here. What you´ll get a glimpse of in the Opening Cinematic, is delivered through out the entire Novel. So, I´ve got nothing to complain here, same goes for the Sound. The mixture of Mid2000s sounding Anime/J-Pop Songs mixed up with some upbeat songs and heavily reverbed and halling Ambient and Piano Tracks makes for just the right sound in just the right situations. The Game itself is rated very highly in my book and it´s even THE best visual Novel release of 2022 up to this point. HOWEVER..... ...I can´t recommend to buy the gog release! I bought it, since the Uncut patch should be up on gog as well (it even shows on the side that it´s available as a dlc). But as I wanted to add it to my basket as well, it didn´t work. So I basically needed to go to Denpasoft only to get the Patch from there. For Buyers: Just get it from Denpasoft, Sekai or Jast usa directly to avoid unnecessary klicking and stuff. As for gog: Please inform people that the uncut patch isn´t available clearly and do not list it as a dlc, when it´s impossible to buy anyway! If I would´ve known it before, I would´ve got it from jast from the start!
I picked this one up on a sale and was surprised by it´s addictive nature. Runestone Keeper is a mixture of Dungeon Crawling and Minesweeper with a boardgame-like feel to it. The gameplay is very easy to pick up, even for someone, who isn´t that deep into complex rpg´s or dungeon crawlers. As easy it is to pick up, as challenging and hard to master it is, the same way. There is basically no big tutorial at the beginning and also you don´t need to dive deep into complex story-stuff. All these facts makes it great for newbies to pick up and also a challenging experience for more advanced players. You´ve got some time to spare and want to play a fun game? Then that´s the moment where Runestone Keeper comes into play. But keep your clock in view, since it´s very easy to sink into it for many many hours.
