Reviews

• gamedeal user

  Aug 22, 2015

  [url=https://xkcd.com/483/]https://xkcd.com/483/[/url] I haven't even made it past the prologue yet, and this is already cringe-inducingly deep into the right side of that graph. I had to stop when I got to the part where my WorningBird told me to destroy the Blots' mindhearts by blowing up their blacknamel tusks. If you can look past that, the premise seems interesting enough, but I won't bother going any further.
• gamedeal user

  Aug 22, 2015

  This is written by the same person who brought you the Hero Rise Trilogy. As soon as you start you can tell that a lot of effort has gone into the story. You start off on your home planet who is at war with an evil swarm of Blots. You are a soldier on the front line until you are suddenly taken to a stange new world. There are plenty of romance options once you appear on the Versus world. On this world you you are soon given a choice to help one of two sides on this world, you have to manage the political situation between the two groups in your choices as well. Your time on Versus changes when you realise that your planets saviour could be on this planet. Cannot wait for the next one 5/5.
• gamedeal user

  Aug 22, 2015

  This was a fantastic game. So many different choices across the way, with an interesting political goal calculation mechanic I've never seen elsewhere. Everytime I made a choice, I immediately wanted to see what it would be like if I had done it the other way around. I especially enjoyed all the power options in the game, and way they would work together. The only think I'm upset about is that it ended-come on! I need more closure than that! Actually I want more content. Yes it gave me a lot of great content, but the story is so addictive I desperately need more. Can't wait for the next book/episode/game whatever you want to call it. Definitely buy this game! Side note, I never got the Worning bird DLC, even though they offered it here, and in game, because I felt it unnecessary. It's more fun in my opinion to figure it out on your own, without the game telling you in advance which choice is best for your stats. Still I might get it for a later playthrough, I'm not sure.
• gamedeal user

  Aug 22, 2015

  This new series... i dont know what to make of it really. It feels far to abstract and pulp sci-fi for my liking. The terms he uses, the world building he has done... it just dosnt work for me. I loved the hero rise series 'a lot', but this new project by Zach is just... well its disappointing. Story wise its no inspiring at all, and the romance's are simply handed to you, you dont earn them. Far to many muti page narrative dumps, with few choices in between. The whole thing feels padded... with little progress being made. It dosnt feel like anything special happens because my character is one thing or another... at least nothing substantial. The mechanics for this project are more complex then hero rise, but I don't feel thats a good thing in this case. The stats are presented more as a puzzle for achievement's then as a representation of character development. The fact this project was designed specificity to run in series has greatly detracted from the quality as it doesn't feel like a complete story has been told... just the beginning. There is no clear beginning, middle, or end... just a beginning, middle, and to be continued. There was no clean or clear cut achievement the main character accomplished to make a conclusion to this first 'chapter'. It just seemed like "Well that seem a good place to stop, time to work one book two.". Maybe I'm judging this project to harshly based on Zach's past work, but this one has left me disappointed and uninspired. In fact I ended up only lightly skimming and speeding through the final chapter since I had lost so much interest in the choices I was presented. It just didn't feel satisfying. Take my opinion with a gain of salt though... this story just wasn't my 'thing'. That doesn't mean it won't be yours. Give it a shot if it appeals.
• gamedeal user

  Aug 23, 2015

  It says 123.000 words, of which about 10.000 are proper english. The unnecessary made up words will make anyone's head spin.
• gamedeal user

  Aug 23, 2015

  Honestly, this game was confusing at first but I enjoyed it as story progresses. The game has interesting premise and original world setting. Although most of the time the words does not make any sense, the writing has been interesting enough to keep hooked. The game mechanic is complex at first but can be get used to with the help of Rosae and occasional peek at the stats. The political aspects of the game is very intriguing and exciting. Kind of disappointed the game is just the beginning of series as the game is hard to be grasped on at first and as we getting used to it, the game ends. It has long hours of gameplay so very worth of the price. I would like to suggest adding character potraits either fan made or by the author as most of the time the character description is hard to imagine how they look.Although most choose-your-own-adventurers need to tend to their own imagination, I still cannot imagine how disgusting Empress of Blots looks maybe too much description of the characters is a turn down. Either that or my imagination is not good enough. So this is the best Choice of Games release till date beating Heroes Rise Trilogy Choice of Robots,Slammed and many more. Hats off to author Zachary Sergi. Looking forward for more. 10/10 Recommended for Choose-Your-Own-Adventures and Choice of Games fans. It is worth a shot.
• gamedeal user

  Aug 23, 2015

  Absolutely the weakest interactive novel from this studio that I've played. It is more focused on gender issues than plot, and it shows. The Mysterious Alien Being is shown as transgender for no reason at all, with all the pronouns (Hir, Ze etc.) when NOTHING indicates its gender or lack thereof (based off a single short encounter)! We get to know that the main protagonist had "freedom to experience their sexuality without restricting gender roles", that's very profound I think, but boring to mention. I'm to play a game, not entertain in gender studies, thank you. The number of remarks about gender is staggering and off-putting. That's too heavy handed. Plot... revolves around biggest cliches in SciFi ever. Defend your world from aliens, ok. Standard, but sensible. Go to a planet that holds a mysterious mortal combat tournament between Good and Evil where contestants are from all the galaxy. Now, this is cliche, contrived and childish. There was an old He-Man episode with a similar plot, and it was done better. This is the laziest SF cliche of them all, that allows you to show many alien species and interactions between them without all that pesky world building. Including a map of the planet Versus at one point was a mistake, since the locations made me cringe - single castle, single forest, single range of mountains, single love lake in a shape of a heart... I've read Polish communist children books with better maps than that when I was 8. Either make a good map or no map at all. We have flashbacks within flashbacks, game mechanics many times rammed in our face, and later, a wonderful option of buying a cheating DLC, forced on us during the actual game in a dialog. Hint: things like that ruin the immersion a bit. Had I wanted to by the DLC I would, now please gently let me play the game I've already bought. I've enjoyed Choice of the Deathless, Hero of Kendrickstone, Choice of Robots and other games from the same studio. They had good plot or interesting scenery or great character development and often all of those. This one has gender studies instead, and a silly map suited for a children fairy tale, not a SciFi story. And I enjoy GOOD children fairy tales, mind you, but don't you think profound mentions of "sexual experiences not restricted by gender roles" doesn't fit that? Must I tell the author such basics of storytelling, keeping a consistent tone? Tl;dr; Weak and uninspired, avoid. There are much better games from this studio.
• gamedeal user

  Aug 23, 2015

  A lot of text dumps with made up words followed by a choice that usually doesn't lead anywhere. Pretty disappointing. Also I should mention that in the middle of the game it pulls a Dragon Age: Inquisition and asks you to purchase DLC to gain an upper hand.
• gamedeal user

  Aug 24, 2015

  Wouldn't recommend at all. The first hour or so is spent on nothing but throwing made up names at you and very abstract poorly explained sci-fi things. The story can't move forward because they constantly try and fail to explain things like some kind of a Communist society where everyone is forced to think and feel the same and everything being made of mirrors as a metaphor...because. It doesn't explain what species the main character is supposed to be, what kind of a planet they are on or anything of that sorts. It's simply weird and not very coherent. Almost as if this all was randomly generated. They use made up pronouns like ''ze'' and it comes off incredibly forced. As if they have some sort of a mandatory tumblr propaganda quota to fulfill. Weird pronouns - check. All soldiers are female - check. Men are medics - check. Socialist themes - check. It's another one of these.
• gamedeal user

  Aug 24, 2015

  So, the beginning of this was a pretty rough read -- in fact, I would go as far as to say my impressions leading up to the second half were just plain bad. As others have pointed out, the worldbuilding seemed hamfisted and awkward, the delivery of the made-up words like "blerg" and "furking" was anything but seamless (sadly, this problem never improved) and there were tons and tons of exposition drops about stuff that, to be quite frank, I simply didn't care about. With those complaints being noted, however, I did find myself enjoying this a lot more during the second half. The characters began to grow on me, the writer doing a pretty good job fleshing them out in the end, and I actually enjoyed the political intrigue (despite the narrative hammering in exactly what sort of effects your decisions will have). The writing also seemed to improve as the story went on, though I may have just gotten used to it. I only wish the worldbuilding could have been more interesting; to improve as the characters did over time -- though, there were some cool aspects of it that caught my interest near the end. I'm hopeful the writer will follow up on those and build upon them in future installments. Overall, I did enjoy myself with this, but take my "recommendation" with a grain of salt. This certainly isn't without problems, and if you don't think you have the patience to get through the subpar first half, then I'd say this isn't really worth your time. Overall, I'd put it at a 6/10, which is above average.