Reviews

• gamedeal user

  Sep 12, 2017

  [b]14.09[/b]: Word wrapping was patched in. Script still desperately needs to be proof-read and edited for grammar though. -- I really wanted to like this but compared to other Dogenzaka Labs VNs (which I like overall), it's a gigantic mess. I can ignore the low resolution backgrounds and cluttered main story screen. For whatever reason, characters aren't given their own screens in this so it's up to you to sort through 6 pages worth of stories and figure out the character continuity if any. Sure, OK, I can deal with that. What's unforgiveable is the quality of the translation and its presentation. [strike]There is no word wrapping in the text box so words will be cut mid-line and continue on the second line. If you can get past that without your brain melting eventually[/strike], you'll have to deal with what appears to be [b]a total lack of editing/proof-reading[/b]. Within seconds of starting the butler route, I was inundated with so much truncated gibberish, I couldn't even tell what was going on. I promptly stopped and came here to write this. Judging by the cluttered main story screen, this VN seems to have a lot of text. Out of the 36 stories, about 19 of them are dedicated to the main step-brother, some of them "main" (with a significant amount of chapters), a lot of them side. The amount of content seems staggering but none of this means a thing if it's unreadable. This sort of thing can be patched but until it is, there's not much point getting it now if you intend to read it in English.
• gamedeal user

  Feb 21, 2018

  I've played this game on android and loved it, so I was super excited to see it in the Steam Store. But, the fact that it was published by Dogenzaka Labs, I hadn't expected the dialogue to be so poorly thrown together. Phrases repeat often, the grammar is bad, there are a lot of lines of dialogue that don't flow well with the conversations. They REALLY need to review and edit it all. I expected better from Dogenzaka. :( Until it is fixed, I would not recommend buying this game.
• gamedeal user

  Jun 23, 2018

  Forbidden Love is so bad, I don’t even know where to start. I’ve played my fair share of Dogenzaka games, so I had my expectations pretty low going in, but I was in no way prepared for how truly awful this piece of garbage is… It’s actually stressing me out trying to figure out how to approach this review. I make it a rule to read through an entire visual novel before reviewing it; sometimes a route or character is good enough to make it worth reading through for just that, but no human being should ever be forced to read through Forbidden Love. Doing so may be considered cruel and unusual punishment… Before I even get to the translation, let me just say that I don’t care about the characters, the story, the artwork, nothing. They’re all bad. The whole premise of the MC getting caught up in the drama over who’s going to inherit her step-father’s business is boring and stupid, and it’s not like the characters give me any reason to care about their struggles either. Everyone is an asshole. Everyone treats the MC like a piece of meat. The MC herself is a witless twat who makes every stupid decision in the book, which usually leads to her getting nearly raped at least once per route. And can I just say that I’m tired of rape being nonchalantly tossed about in these games just so the MC can be rescued by her beau? Is there no other horrific event that can threaten our heroine besides being physically violated? UGH!!! Now, I’ve forced my way through every other awful Dogenzaka title, and even though the stories and characters were usually boring and stupid, at least the translations were always fluid and easy to read. I even admit, I’ve found some of the dialogue and writing to be quite humorous and enjoyable, but… Forbidden Love makes me want to cry. At times, the translation is SO bad that it literally hurts my soul. To be fair, I’ve seen worse from SakuraGame and other small indie devs who use machine translation because they can’t afford to hire actual translators. But this is Dogenzaka. There is absolutely no excuse for this travesty. There are so many mistranslations of words and phrases that it makes my head spin. Sure, if I sat down and thought about it long enough, I’d be able to figure out what the original intent was (pretty sure “Daddy-Long-Legs” was supposed to be “Sugar-Daddy”), but I SHOULDN’T have to play a guessing game when I’m trying to read through a story. What’s worse, little is sufficiently explained in the narration or dialogue, and I’m not sure if that’s the fault of the translation or the original writing itself. There are no transitions from scene to scene, visual or otherwise, barely any background given on people and places, and the characters are constantly referred to without explaining to the reader who they are, it’s just assumed we’re supposed to know. And I haven’t even mentioned the lines that are repeated over and over again like a broken record… It’s clear that absolutely no quality control was put into this, and yet they’re expecting women to be desperate enough for steamy otome to throw away $15 on this garbage? I keep telling myself that this will be the last Dogen VN I ever read, that I won’t put myself through that torture again, that my time and money is worth more than this, and yet inexplicably, I continue coming back. I’m really not sure if it’s out of some sense of morbid curiosity or if I really am just a masochist, but I do know this; Forbidden Love has broken me. And as a broken woman, I plead with you, DO NOT put yourself through what I have. You deserve so much better than this. [code][h1]Curated by: [url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/32217440-Bad-Otome-Games/]Bad Otome Games[/url] & [url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/33004802-Chudah%27s-Corner/]Chudah's Corner[/url][/h1][/code]
• gamedeal user

  Jul 11, 2018

  This is actually a halfway decent port of a mobile-phone game. It is better than many of the Dogenzaka Lab games, probably because they only published the version on Steam, and didn't develop it. There are a LOT of paths to go down. The characters are decent enough. The protagonist... suffers from differing levels of "otome-protagonist-syndrome", depending on the route chosen. That aside, it appears there are some stories not transfered to the PC version, and the main story is that of the MC and her step-brother Mike. And those stories are sequential (1st-7th). Also, the achievement for completing all scenarios triggered for me when I finished all of the "Rainy Day" scenarios. Another thing to note is that aside from the "bonus" scenarios, the stories last an average of 20 chapters. One was as short as 15, while another took 34. Would suggest getting this game when on discount, but it will take hours to get through.