Reviews

• gamedeal user

  Oct 23, 2021

  One of the few games to well and truly get me super emotional, and, dare I say it, the best one I've played so far! I'm really enjoying spending time with both of the girls, even if... certain aspects push up some unwanted feelings. Overall, 10/10. Absolutely recommend to anyone who has feelings, well worth the cost.
• gamedeal user

  Nov 8, 2021

  Great characterisation, good art, and very fitting music. It's easily as well written as (if quite different from) others I enjoyed like RazzArt's Starlight Vega, Studio Elan's Highway Blossoms, and Hanako Game's Black Closet. This is on top of its reasonable replayability (ignoring bad endings and minor variations, there's at least two completely distinct endings following each romance). Just overall a very well put together story.
• gamedeal user

  Dec 11, 2021

  I don't say this often, but I was very pleasantly surprised by the game. I did go into the game with as few expectations as possible, but it turned into quite a rollercoaster ride. The good kind too. I would actually say it's worth the full price tag, at least for me personally I'd buy it at full price after how much emotional fulfillment I got out of it. I would definitely put Foul Play as one of my top yuri games. Kind of regret not backing the Kickstarter when I saw it initially, but ugh... Kickstarter projects... The art isn't the game's strongest suit, but the CGs reserved for specific scenes are gorgeous. The studio also put a lot of work into sprite's effects as well; it really help enhancing some of the scenes. Little details like having a subtle blush appear gradually on Winter's face after a particular line and no other, [i]that's freaking neat![/i] And something about having PC's phone remain with a broken screen for the remainder of the game is hilarious to me too for some reason. The over the top anime style sprites might put some people off, but don't let that deter you from the game's plot. The writing is good, solid, sensible, gut punching, and even funny. I was excited to see how things turn out in my continuous 8.3 hours of playtime and bypassing dinner. (Game felt more filling than my would be dinner anyway) Part way through Cythnia's route I realized, [i]Oh shit, is that a sex scene coming up?[/i] I quickly went back to the steam store to download the adult patch when usually it's content I skip through quickly. There are proper build ups to those sex scenes. Good foreplay. Good character reactions. All tastefully written. It was very emotionally filling. I don't find that too often in games with adult content, but maybe I just haven't played enough. I legit had a hard time making some choices because I felt very attached to either of the love interests. I had not been this conflicted in VN moral choices since Fatal Twelve. I had thought I would find Cynthia to be a raging bitch, well, still a bit of one but she really grew on me. There might've been a few bad ends involving Winter, but I can't really hold it against her. For a VN that's supposed to just be a casual thing for me, I am having a really hard time letting go of it. I am sad that the ride is over. I want to see a continuation of either Cynthia or Winter's routes or just read more about them. Noteworthy bits: Foul Play has a LOT of choices. I don't have enough save slots to contain them all. But the hint system the developers implemented mitigates that need a bit. It certainly makes going through Cynthia's route much more easily. Very cool. Though I probably still need to read up a guide on how to get some of the ending variations... Where in blazes does this game actually take place in? Japanmerica? Ameripan? Most outdoor backgrounds scream Japan. Even thugs like Yuri. You can tell by the Yuri tattoo on someone's arm in one of the CG.
• gamedeal user

  Jan 1, 2022

  [h1]Very Short Review[/h1] [h2]Pros[/h2] [list] [*]Story is good [*]MC and LI's are fun and interesting [*]Art is good and there's a good amount of CGs [*]Music [*]The +18 content was top and is very much worth getting [*]Game length is pretty good, should last you at least 5-6h [/list] [h2]Cons[/h2] [list] [*]Have to go back to main menu to load saves [*]Can't always scroll back through dialogue, it sometimes works and sometimes doesn't. Not sure if it's a bug or if there are some things you just can't scroll back past such as decisions. Doesn't seem to work consistently anyhow [*]No CGs for bad ends :( [/list] [h3]In Conclusion[/h3] I can in good conscience recommend the game at full price, it was a good experience through and through. If you're not sure it's a steal at 50% off or more.
• gamedeal user

  May 3, 2022

  Pros: - Cute art (very pretty landscapes!) - The game author supports lesbian relationships - Relaxing music - Font that is readable for dyslexic people (so cool!!) - A nice and kind Japanese male friend character - A back button that allows you to go back and read previous dialogue (very handy, I'm so grateful for this button) - An ending that says it's ok to be single (thank you!!) Cons: - The only Black character is a villain (the woman crime boss) - The only bdsm kink positive character Winter is a villain. Decent people into consensual bdsm actually exist in real life. - Characters who are unhappy with police are portrayed as villains (either as sex traffickers or as assassins). Look, we know there are good and bad people who are police officers. The thing is: there are decent people who are unhappy with police due to having traumatic experiences with police too. The love interest Cynthia's statement that people unhappy with police use assassins when the law doesn't work seems dramatic (maybe that happens in real life, I don't know, but that sounds quite rare). Most people unhappy with police trust the neighbourhood watch, go see a private detective, talk to a journalist or a lawyer instead of hiring an assassin. - the only character dating people to humor them, Winter, is a villain. Dating someone you're not in love to avoid abuse with doesn't necessarily make you a villain. If you're dating someone you don't love to hurt them or use them, that's horrible. But if you're doing it to avoid being stalked, verbally or physically abused, that doesn't make you a bad person. Several women and femmes actually date people to humor them because some men turn violent or aggressive if people refuse them. Oh, and dating someone you're romantically interested in but declining sex or dinner doesn't mean you're humoring them. It doesn't mean you don't love them. - The only Brazilian character Winter is a villain ( I understand people from all races can be good and bad, but when you portray racial minorities as the bad guys where there is a long history of books, films, games portraying racial minorities as bad guys and this affects how people are treated in the real world, that is...bad). - The only adhd coded character Winter (impulsive, a big spender and struggles with paying attention) is the villain - There are only two love interests with romanceable routes. The POC woman is the villain and the white girl is the only morally good character you can romance. - The only character who struggles with formal education, Winter, is portrayed as the villain. Plenty of people struggle with formal education due to learning disabilities. That doesn't mean they're bad people. The game dev probably didn't intend to fall into the age old writing trope of 'person who can't focus on schooling is a villain), but unfortunately that's what they did. - The only person confident in her abilities without a formal university education is portrayed as having a self inflated opinion of herself. Look, in real life, many people without a formal university education are confident in their work skills, are successful at their jobs and earn a decent amount of money. TAFE/technical college qualifications are valid. Practical work experience and tech boot camps count as real work skills. Portraying people who don't go to university as arrogant or stupid is classism and ableism. - The only character with narcissistic personality disorder (the love interest Winter) is a villain and a serial killer. Say it with me people: Having a personality disorder does not make you evil! Yes there are bad people with personality disorders, but good people with personality disorders exist too. A more nuanced portrayal of people with narcissistic personality disorder would involve morally good characters with narcissistic personality disorder who don't kill people and who work on becoming better people. Also, unless you are someone's actual psychologist or psychiatrist, you cannot diagnose someone with a personality disorder. Like iconic Youtuber Lindsay Ellis once said, there's nothing wrong with writing a minority villain - as long as you also have morally good or neutral characters from that minority group in your story as well. (Lindsay doesn't know about this review, I'm just quoting her (quote is from an online video from 2015) because her quote is cool). - The love interest Cynthia's toxic behaviour of yelling at people in public, shaming them for not being physically healthy, making fun of people for not knowing how to cook (when poverty, lack of education, and disability can lead to people not knowing how to cook/being unable to cook) and making a grown 64 year old man cry is...yikes. Now I am not perfect either. I've messed up in writing too! I've written problematic characters and tropes in the past and learnt I needed to stop doing that. I'm just mentioning this stuff in the hope that the game creators will avoid such harmful tropes in the future. I am cautiously saying this game is not for me. If you like the game that's fine! But I couldn't get into it. I really, really wanted to like this game. The art is beautiful. The music is great. The game devs are obviously passionate about lesbian rights (would have been nice if they focused on bi, ace, trans, non binary or intersex people too, but the game just focused on lesbians). But sadly this is a no from me.
• gamedeal user

  Sep 27, 2022

  Quite enjoyed this VN. The CGs by Ge-B are fantastic. Even if all the lines don't hit 100%, Winter is a really interesting and fun character. Love the vibe of "will she kill me or kiss me." I'm so glad she gets a happy ending. It does have some big things holding it back though: -The choice system and affection points aren't for me. It ends up requiring min maxing to get the true endings which kills the mood and momentum for me. I much prefer when choosing routes is simple and most choices are for flavor. -The social commentary on police and the government is really weak and doesn't go hard enough. -The line "the dna results confirm the culprit is female" is gender essentialism, which is made even worse since this is supposed to be an LGBTQ+ friendly game.
• AkaraVortex

  Jan 4, 2023

  Neat and occasionally amusing visual novel, full of detective and criminal elements, with a lot of yuri and cute girls! Quick summary: ❇️ Perfect: ✒️ Main Character, ✒️ Yuri / h-scenes, ✒️ Character's relationships, ⚙️ Scene variety & CGs, ⚙️ SFX, ⚙️ Animations *️⃣ Good: ✒️ Story & Events, ✒️ Supporting Characters, ⚙️ Visual quality, ✒️ Visual design, ⚙️ Language, ⚙️ Music, ⚙️ Interface, ⚙️ Engine, ✒️ Story progression, ✒️ Visual style ✴️ Neutral: ✒️ Setting & world 💢 Vexing: - 💥 Vile: - There is always not enough yuri in this world. It is genuinely good and enjoyable visual novel, I deeply love Cynthia's route. But I think it can be even better.

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  ✒️ Visual style ▫️ *️⃣ What's going on❔ ▫️ 🟧 Significant influence It is important, and this VN certainly sometimes do not follow anime style even it partially, gladly that our lead and Cynthia are less affected by this inconvenience. On some sprites, especially Winter's ones, you can definitely see details more common to comic style.. and for side characters this lack of anime appearance can get dramatic. Gladly, CGs do not have such an issue. And I am not talking about personal graphical touch, there are straight out non-reworked visual aspects of humans, on which anime industry has been working for years to make everything appealing. I hope that Studio will learn a bit more about anime drawing techniques and next project will gratify my eyes with my only favorite style in its proper form. ✒️ Female protagonist & Main Characters ▫️ ❇️ Great positive trait ▫️ 🟧 Significant influence She can be really smart and astute when she wants. And she is cutie, sensitive. ✒️ Primary female cast & Supporting Characters ▫️ *️⃣ Positive trait ▫️ 🟧 Significant influence ✒️ Character's relationships ▫️ ❇️ Great positive trait ▫️ 🟧 Significant influence Our female lead will be able to involve herself into relationships with 2 partners. Cynthia is your boss at detective agency, she has pretty a fiery character, but under layers of defense you will find gentle and affectionate woman, she really does care about her employees and aims at the best possible outcome. Girl has quite a guts, you can feel yourself over her back like behind a wall. Because of her qualities and prettiness it is really easy to fall in love with her. And Winter is a person in question, she is wild... even savage. You will learn a lot about her secrets and the past, and maybe you will like it, if you wanted to completely change your life and make it more spicy, but I DO NOT. It is first time when I see so disproportional romance routes in visual novel. And even good endings with Winter looks like drama (and from MC's point of view), because you need to left behind Cynthia. ✒️ Yuri & Yuri h-scenes ▫️ ❇️ Great positive trait ▫️ 🟧 Significant influence Free uncensored patch full of beauty are awaits for you to install. 2. There is 2 scenes, not 4, this is 4 CGs. Even in game files they are named c_hscene and w_hscene. And one with Cynthia is particularly enjoyable, even delightful, blissful, cannot say say such about Winter's one, still it is hot. But we do have a lot of cute yuri scenes: hugs, jokes, kisses and more (with Cynthia for sure, at least), some of them are emotional, but every single one is pleasurable. I do not get a point of such an accent on hardships that people with "nontraditional" sexual orientation can stumble upon, because for average enthusiast reading yuri visual novels homosexual female relationships had became more traditional than heterosexual ones. Well, still it was a good experience, do not often see events like this. And I know that it is correct to call lesbians "gays", but it sounds really weird. What even the purpose of word "lesbian" then, it is first letter in notorious abomination of a abbreviation. I prefer to use something less screaming and tender: "into girls". ✒️ Story & Events ▫️ *️⃣ Positive trait ▫️ 🔶 Average influence On Cynthia's route you will see detective story, not very convoluted and complicated, yet solid and enjoyable. If you will choose Winter... oh, what a madcap, it is less grounded and feels surreal sometimes, even if plot here is sound everything just not feels serious enough... probably it is even good, just not to my taste something silly like Lycoris Recoil. ✒️ Story progression / Routes ▫️ *️⃣ Positive trait ▫️ 🔸 Minor influence There is not many routes and endings, choices are usually affect your relationships or lead you to a dead end death, well, it definitely brings some variety to the story. ⚙️ Visual quality ▫️ *️⃣ Small positive trait ▫️ 🔶 Average influence Sometimes lacks in resolution, you just can see pixels during magnifications scenes. Everything else is fine. ⚙️ Scene variety & Backgrounds, CGs ▫️ ❇️ Great positive trait ▫️ 🔶 Average influence CGs look gorgeous, style is okay here and detailing is brilliant. ✒️ Visual design ▫️ *️⃣ Positive trait ▫️ 🔶 Average influence Everything is up to our world standards (meh, oke), but some clothes looks excellent, like MC's casual outfit with black hoodie or Cythia's home clothes or tuxedo (it only looks good because of Cynthia's beauty). ⚙️ Language ▫️ *️⃣ Positive trait ▫️ 🔶 Average influence No mistakes, great vocabulary. Write style is not boring and everything you can read easily. ⚙️ Animations ▫️ ❇️ Great positive trait ▫️ 🔶 Average influence There are a lot of cool face expressions. Every line there is some activity and movement, novel looks very lively. ⚙️ VFX ▫️ ❔ Not present ⚙️ SFX ▫️ ❇️ Great positive trait ▫️ 🔶 Average influence Ambient sounds are just top notch, city at night, wind behind a window, birds in the morning, I have no modern fitting words for them, they help a lot with making an atmosphere of the place. Sound effects are generic, there is a lot of them, even if in a good quality. ⚙️ Music ▫️ *️⃣ Positive trait ▫️ 🔸 Minor influence Tracks are really fit into the scenes, and there is even catchy ones, you can hear a lot of cool free music. ...Still, it is really hard to impress me with these. ⚙️ Interface ▫️ *️⃣ Small positive trait ▫️ 🔸 Minor influence There is a some text visual enchantments. Contrast is great, but I think interface looks chunky. You can load only from main menu. ⚙️ Engine ▫️ *️⃣ Positive trait ▫️ 🔸 Minor influence What's with texture / pixel fill rate? Sprites are not so big in size. There is some problems with optimizations so it can stutter or lag rarely, skips not really fast. Everything else is great, it is Ren'Py, every tool for VN is here. You can unpack assets and transfer saves easily. Oh... Steam integration, achievements are broken. To fix: download older version of Foul Play from 2021 and copy "steam_api64.dll" and "_renpysteam.pyd" from older version to current in "lib/windows-x86-64", for other systems these files are called similarly. Or just copy it folder to folder, skipping every replacement, to add missing files.

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  Absolute must-buy for every yuri appreciator and primary female cast visual novel enthusiast. А. Чё? Fool Play? В дурака играем?