ความคิดเห็น

• gamedeal user

  Aug 7, 2023

  Yes, this VN does take over 100 hours to complete. Here, you will master the intricate art of selectively ctrl-skipping duplicate parts from Route 3 to Reminiscence (Autumn) because for some reason, a remarkable chunk of text weren't "marked as read", even though you've like, obviously already read though it 3 routes ago Other than that, the virtual reality internet thing and robots and cyberpunk and shit feels like VRChat on crack and I fucking love it. Highly recommended if you want to read a really long sci-fi VN.
• gamedeal user

  Dec 21, 2019

  Unoffical 18+ Patch https://pastebin.com/PvNB7ZNY A full review will follow then i finished the game, waited about 10 years for it
• gamedeal user

  Oct 14, 2020

  William Gibson wrote Neuromancer on a typing machine, kickstarting the cyberpunk genre as we know it and imagining how computers and virtual reality would actually work decades later. Years after, he claimed to have been disappointed by the real thing, probably because he played this game and found out how some people imagined virtual reality as a good place to play incest with your sister. So, Baldr Sky, one of the most legendary visual novels, teased for years and arrived on the English scene just last december. This game is all in all massive, it takes over a hundred hours to even complete the main story and the scope of the game shoots to achieve the matrix-levels of thought-provoking insights on virtual reality and the role of men in a world of rising AIs. Sounds terrific on paper, but the plot is at best very cool and poignant and at worst (and more commonly) barely serviceable. Despite beginning in medias res in a futuristic battlefield where mecha pilots are gutting unmanned wardrones, which is how most of the game will play out, the average time spent on the story of Baldr Sky will deal with teenagers and young adults going around, talking about sci-fi jargon and interesting concept but without much charisma to deliver a compelling narrative. Tens of hours of explanations grow tiring in a story which is also riddled with repetitions, stereotypical dialogues made by stereotypical characters, and where many sections just drag on and on, seemingly forever. I get the sentiment that long flashbacks segments and info-dumping were needed to create a connection with the cast and understanding the core concepts, I really do, it’s fundamental to feel invested in the emotional climaxes and to appreciate the thematic answers at the end of each route. Yet, was it really necessary to stretch the story over so much with so many plodding bits? As an ulterior testament to how mind-numbingly slow this is, despite its length and scope Baldr Sky only has around twenty recurring characters, and not even all of them receive an in-depth arc or development to fully understand their personality or motivations. Almost all of the villains for example have their share of reasoning behind, but that doesn’t make them less repetitive and annoying when they are mostly just the same stereotypically evil caricatures (fat greedy rapists, arrogant violent psychos, narcissistic monomaniacal churchmen, etc.) in every route, furthermore never providing a satisfying counterbalance to the obvious ‘good’ of the main characters. A huge portion of the game isn’t limited by its story restrictions, thankfully, sometimes actions calls in and the gameplay starts. The gameplay is the meat of the game, and it’s worth the entry price: structured as an isometric beat ‘em up, Baldr Sky offers a wide arrange of progressively unlocking weapons (for a grand total of just about 130 different weapons), which can be developed and chained in combos for massive style and damage. The weapons cover every possible playstyle, from long to short range, bullet vs explosive weapons, light vs heavy, slash vs smash, there are tons of finisher and other stuff to try out, but the game doesn’t want the player to just choose a category and roll with it. A long-range stagger can be combined with a dash move to close the gap and then immediately go to an air launch, followed by a high kick, a sword stun, heavy smash, a drop and close with an explosive punch. This is just one possible combination, not even a full one, out of thousands viable approaches to dispatch single enemies or crowd control hordes. It looks like a very retro take on modern action games on the vein of devil may cry, or bayonetta, and the adrenaline rushes are just as strong. There are videos out there showing people one-shotting the final boss in a single, two-minutes long combo on the hardest difficulty and it is just pure video games aesthetic. Of course, it doesn’t always work perfectly. One major complaint regards how chains and weapons can be decided only before every fighting sections and never be changed midway until it’s over and story resumes. Meaning that if the players poorly planned a combo, either they have to start all over again (which can mean even half or a full hour of gameplay) or stick with it and hope there isn’t a boss encounter. This can happen quite often because, and here’s the other great issue, before every section the player is given a simulation where to choose weapons and try them out, yet a combo working ten times in a row in a simulation can still fail during the actual combat or on actual enemies, for some reasons. Moreover, same as for the story, many battle sessions just last far too long: for example, closing almost every major route there is a gigantic rush of enemies that kills the pacing and makes the final boss seems a beath of fresh air after so much repetition, rather than the climax one should be expecting. Art style and sound design are competent, the characters likability requires having some degree of appreciation for anime and the likes, even in the voice department which is pretty good regardless but riddled with typical onomatopoeic clichés. The soundtrack is a banger while the mech designs, despite being small sprites, are very varied and a pleasure to look at. All in all, Baldr Sky is a hard one to recommend, it is certainly worth if one felt invested in anime on a similar vein of fullmetal alchemist, attack on titan or code geass, but it also presents many of the limits of the genre. The gameplay may seem tiring at first to someone just interested in the story, but it grows on the player, and it is also one of the rare cases where the normal to hard difficulties are recommended to fully experience the investment throughout the highpoints of the story. If one can afford the tens of hours needed to reach even a single ending, the tens more needed to form a somewhat complete understanding of the story’s stakes, and can digest standard anime-tier writing, this game can prove to be absolutely amazing.
• gamedeal user

  Dec 22, 2022

  TL;DR In my opinion, this is an amazing visual novel for sci-fi/cyberpunk enjoyers - the overall quality of the product, the attention to detail and the worldbuilding are some of the best out there (also, the soundtrack is banger). The sheer amount of content that one gets for the price makes it good value for money. My thoughts: Going into it, I didn’t know much about Baldr Sky. I decided to read it on a whim and oh boy, was I immediately hooked by the setting. So, here I am, 146 hours later, spilling my thoughts out about this piece of art. The most polarising aspect of this VN will most likely be the fact that this is very much a hybrid VN/RPG. The RPG part plays a big, unskippable part of the VN. I haven’t read a VN that had actual gameplay in the way that Baldr Sky does, but I genuinely enjoyed it. I tested out all of the difficulties and here are my thoughts on them: Very Easy and Easy should allow virtually anyone to beat the gameplay parts without any difficulty. Normal offers a bit of a challenge but nothing too crazy. Hard and Very Hard are meant for players who are genuinely interested in the RPG aspect of the game and want to challenge themselves. Make no mistakes, the RPG part of the VN isn’t just something that was slapped together overnight. It is a fully developed system that allows different types of playstyles, much like any other RPG of this type. The story…is enjoyable. I enjoyed the different routes, but more than the story, I enjoyed the worldbuilding. I found the worldbuilding phenomenal and it really lets you immerse yourself while reading, to the point where I feel that my overall impression of the story would have been worse without it. As far as the story itself goes, I found that the pacing wasn’t the best. Some routes offered little to no plot development, whilst others moved the plot at breakneck speed. There is some repetition between some (not all) routes, though it’s not nearly as bad as some comments make it out to be. For example, Dive 1, Route 1 is your first route. Dive 1, Route 2 is identical to Route 1 until Chapter 4 (out of 14 Chapters) and then it goes its own way. You do have an option to automatically skip the already read text that’s identical, meaning you can get past the repetitive parts quickly. Dive 1, Route 3 and Dive 2, Route 1 are the biggest offenders of repetition as their stories are mirrors of each other, though both contribute to the overall plot in a different way. Dive 2, Route 2 and Dive 2, Route 3 are different from the previous routes. I will add one disclaimer - the ‘skip previously read text’ option doesn’t always work as intended. It will only skip if the whole scene that you are reading is word for word the same as you read it before. If there’s one new sentence or a word got changed in a sentence, it will not automatically skip (not even the parts that you have already read). This can be annoying for some, but it didn’t really bother me. You can still manually skip the read parts. Overall though, I did enjoy the story. Next, let's talk about the H scenes: Are they mandatory in order to fully understand the story? No. Do some of the H scenes add a bit of humanity to the characters, making them more fleshed out? Yes. Are some of the H scenes there purely for fan service with no additional context behind them? Yes. Are some of the H completely unnecessary? Yes. I personally read the VN uncensored. As a general rule, I dislike any form of censorship in art. My personal belief on whether it was necessary or not is irrelevant, because it’s not my work. I want to experience art as the creator intended for it to be experienced, whatever the reason behind it is. That’s pretty much it from me. This is definitely a VN that’s pretty high up on my list, next to Muv-Luv, FSN, Muramasa and the Science Adventure series. I would wholeheartedly recommend it to anyone who enjoys sci-fi/cyberpunk stories, and the amount of content that one can get for this price, puts a lot of ‘AAA Games’ to shame. If you do decide to dive into this VN, happy reading!
• gamedeal user

  Apr 18, 2023

  Giga is bankrupt and gone, so get any Giga games on the store if you are interested in their work, who knows when they are getting removed on Steam. The Steam version of Baldr Sky consists of 2 games in 1 game, Baldr Sky Dive 1 “Lost Memory” and Baldr Sky Dive 2 “RECORDARE”. It is developed by Giga, one of the older visual novel developers under TGL(Technical Group Laboratory) and unlike your usual visual novel title where you just read and make choices to enter a specific character route, Baldr Sky is very different and unique. Baldr Sky has mecha, yeah robots, something I am not really a big fan of but still ok with. With mechas being part of the story, you would expect to read about mechas combat with descriptive words, but no, that's not what Baldr Sky offers you. Instead, you get to pilot a mecha, you will learn to control your mecha with detailed tutorials in-game. Baldr Sky combat system can be very fun and hard to master, if you are like me who can’t play games that require you to do combos/memorizing the combos, you can just play it with the "Very Easy” difficulty. Quite unique, new and interactive gameplay that I’ve experienced so far compared to all visual novels I’d read. Baldr Sky talks about how Kadokura Kou, our mc who lost his memory during a mission and is trying to find his lost memories while unfolding the truth behind a sad catastrophe that happened years ago. 6 heroines' routes can be read which are: Kirishima Rain, Kou’s subordinate Wakakusa Nanoha, Kou’s childhood friend Nagisa Chinatsu, Kou’s classmate Nishino Aki, Kou’s cousin Minazuki Makoto, Kou’s kouhai Minazuki Sora, Makoto’s sister After finishing all 6 of them, you will have access to the True route. You have to follow all these specific orders of route to understand the story. Not like you can pick which route to read anyways, just follow the guide. As a 2009 visual novel, the art is surprisingly well-drawn, CGs/VAs/BGMs are all really well done and fit into the story itself. Major plus point to an immersive and engaging story, crazy worldbuilding. No more wimpy weak as hell protagonist, introducing a one hell of a badas* protagonist. Definitely a high tier classic visual novel out there. Though, it can be annoying from time to time. When you are reading a climax and you are so focused, wanting to know what’s going on, boom, you are forced to engage in a battle. It's just such a big turn off, especially on Route 6. There are also a bunch of repetitive scripts in every heroine's route but I understand why they did that. For instance, In Dive 2 they force you to read Reminiscence before moving to the 5th route, where 80% of the plots were being told during 1st-4th routes. There are crucial plots, but very little and most of them are at the end of Reminiscence which you definitely should not miss out. Reading Baldr Sky requires a smart brain with a higher logical thinking level and a lot of patience. That’s because there are many factions related to certain characters, the motives of each faction etc which can be a bit complicated and they take some time to be explained throughout the story. But the most complicated one out of all, are the laws of physics that were being brought into the story’s settings. So, if you are a big sci-fi fan, or up for some plot twists, screwed up story, then I highly recommend you to get this game, it will be worth every single penny and time you spent.
• gamedeal user

  Feb 27, 2021

  this happened to oomf
• gamedeal user

  Jan 3, 2020

  Game of the year all years When games made the transition from 2D to 3D, it opened up a whole new world of possibilities. It also applied an unwarranted stigma on 2D games for not being 3D. What ended up happening was that for a long time, hand helds were essentially the orphanage for 2D games where budget was low and everyone automatically assumes the game ranks below 8.0 on respected™ game™ review™ websites™ from video™ game™ professional™ journalists™. The games that did continue to get 8.0s and above every year, like clockwork, ended up feeling more like financial planning brochures. If someone "hits the jackpot" with a good dark souls game, people will make dragon's dogma and nioh and force awakens and et cetera. If someone makes a good call of duty, it will be followed up by battlefield or medal of honor, and when a game that tries to add its own gimmick that doesn't pan out (like titanfall), nobody follows suit even if the game is fun because there's no money in it. The industry seeks out gimmicks, it steals them for sales, rinse and repeat. Baldr sky needs no gimmick. It's plain fun. Combat that makes devil may cry swoon. Story that makes the pursuit of a movie like experience seem infantile. World building and philosophical stands that are inseparable from the story itself. No single part of this game feels like a flaccid effort to tick off a box, even if some parts (especially in the first half (dive 1) aren't ideal. Please play this game (with the 18+ patch). They will never make a game like this ever again.
• gamedeal user

  Sep 15, 2020

  An epic experience marred by typical atrocious visual novel pacing, fluff, filler, and bad porn scenes. It would have been great as a 40 hour story, but it's a 150 hour one (±30 hours, depending on how much you get into the combat). There’s an 18+ patch you can find separately, but it’s hardly worth installing. The H stuff adds nothing to the story and is as grating and meaningless as it is in every non-Urobuchi Gen visual novel. The game’s music is excellent. I expected the combat to be an afterthought, but it’s a highlight of the game. It draws heavy inspiration from fighting games, despite not taking place on a horizontal plane. If you’ve played pre-2009 fighting games, you’ll even recognize some of the attacks. The air juggle physics are consistent, and so are the hitboxes. There are anti air attacks, otg attacks, attacks that re-stand enemies, there’s a super meter, and you can spend meter to cancel attacks. Having enemies up against walls can even improve your combos, like the corner does in fighting games. There’s a huge diversity of actually-interesting combat options to choose from, with meaningful differences. The moves aren’t just for combos either, there’s also a ton of ranged attacks, quick “get off me” attacks, mines, charged attacks, defensive walls/chaff grenades, etc. Importantly, the combat has a good resource system—heat—which increases with attacks. At maximum heat, not only can you not attack, but if you get hit, you take a lot more damage and hitstun, like being in a counterhit state in a fighting game. This applies to enemies, too. You can dodge some of them until they have high heat (which prevents [i]them[/i] from attacking too), and then do more damage than you normally would. You disperse heat very slowly while dashing, at a moderate rate while moving, and almost instantly while standing still. This makes heat management interesting; you usually want to be moving, but if you find a moment to stand still, it lets you attack a lot more. Different weapons let you start dispersing heat after different periods of time after you attack with them, which will also influence which ones you’ll want to use, for which situations. The problem is that the game is so long that even the excellent combat system can eventually wear out the player. After the hundredth hour, and especially in the later parts of the game where they throw a lot of meaningless filler fights at you, you may find yourself autopiloting through the combat segments. I have a bunch of complaints about plot elements in the story, but after looking at the list, they’re spoilery and wouldn’t help someone in determining whether they’d like the game. The overall story definitely shows its age. Written 11 years ago, there are several plot elements here that are no longer surprising or new to the genre. The overall story’s pretty good, but the juice is [i]not[/i] worth the squeeze. There are a [i]lot[/i] of intentional timewasters here, including the infamous Reminiscence mode that has you play through flashbacks you’ve already seen 3+ times, with 10% new content, 1% of which is important to the story. You can tell the English translation took place over a long period of time. The translation in the first 70% of the game is free of modern trendy lingo that's quickly going to fall out of favor. The last 30% is full of it, and it's annoying. "My dude", "my guy", "___ if true", "ayy", and a couple others. Taking liberties with translations is a good thing—a translator should translate the meaning, not the exact words. The problem with [i]these[/i] liberties is that these terms are temporary flash-in-the-pan expressions that are already on the decline. They already sounded stupid to begin with. In another 5 years they'll look even worse, and probably not even make sense to readers. By far the biggest problem with this game, and the reason I don’t recommend it, is that it doesn’t respect your time. Better stories can be told with fewer words; the pacing is abysmal and the writing has some dumb problems. The characters sometimes do nonsensical things that are inconsistent with their previously-established values, and other times their motivations or reactions just aren’t believable. It’s not worth doing just a route or two, because you need to go through all of them to get the whole picture. If you really like the combat, though, it can go a long way in carrying you through to the end. There [i]are[/i] high points in the story.
• gamedeal user

  Jan 7, 2020

  Though I am generally positive about this game, I can't put my whole heart into recommending it to everyone, or even to many people, and since others are singing its praises I shall hum out my issues with it. The biggest problem is simply that the game is too long and repeats itself one too many times over the course of the first 5 out of 6 routes. And by long, I mean I'm half sure this is the longest Visual Novel I've played, even longer than playing through the whole of Muv-Luv. I can forgive length if it is needed to tell a better story, but honestly a solid 20 or so hours of this game could have been cut down to make the game less of a drag at times. However, what I just said might not apply to some people because of the existence of the, admittedly kind of fun, gameplay, which gives you a much needed breather from the story, and without it the VN would be a good deal more insufferable than I sometimes felt it was. My other negatives are issues I felt when playing which I can't really define with much accuracy. To put it simply, the way the story treats some characters (in particular Isao) ticked me off. Sometimes the story presented certain characters and decisions as irrational and bigoted when if you actually think about the situation for 10 seconds you would realise what they are doing is far more reasonable than other characters constantly suggest. This is why [spoiler] Chinatsu's route in particular is terrible because when Kou goes along with Isao's plan the only real reasons to think what they are doing is wrong is the fact that they are planning on bending another intelligent being to humanity's will and the fact that people Kou trusts are in opposition to Isao's plan. However, what actually makes this so annoying is that the situation could be resolved way sooner if Rain and the others just told Kou what their plan was when the siege on Ark happens, but instead they just indicate they are disappointed in his decision and that he is wrong for not blindly believing that a private Multi-National Corporation will do the right thing or have things under control in a situation where humanity potentially FACES BLOODY EXTINCTION! [/spoiler] It's all just really stupid, and the story has a few things like this elsewhere as well. I also think Kou isn't as strong of a Main Character as some seem to think he is. He works well in chapter 1 as the fish out of water, and in chapter 6 where he gets some great character moments mostly due to the fact that he is finally pursuing the goal that is most important and personal to him as a character, [spoiler] saving Sora [/spoiler]. But otherwise the way he reacts to things and the way the world in general treats him have a faint scent of artificiality about them. This is not always the case, but its something that I felt pretty strongly by the time of chapter 4 when I'd been with this character for so long. Of course, I find that this is a typical VN problem, so the only reason I bring it up here is because you'll be with Kou for an absurd amount of time if you play through the whole thing and with that much repetition I at least felt him to be somewhat stale. My last negative is quite simple, but no less unfortunate. I think the central message/s the story presents gets lost somewhere along the way, and doesn't really hit the reader with the kind of focus and clarity as something like Muv-Luv's message does. This is only a negative insofar as it is a lack of a positive which could have elevated this game to greater heights. And those are my muddled thoughts and excuses for why this game genuinely made me want to stop playing by the end of chapter 4. Luckily I kept going, because chapter 5 is pretty good and chapter 6 is almost unbelievably great in comparison to everything else. Seriously, chapter 6 redeems this VN hard, at least for me. It actually has some fun with its setting and digs deep to make it as interesting, fun and engaging as possible. In many ways, the final chapter uses the sci-fi concepts and structures within the world of Baldr Sky to great effect, and is a brilliant payoff to all that came before. If you think that you won't be too bothered by the negatives I've listed and you like hard sci-fi, I can recommend it wholeheartedly. It's definitely a good VN with fun gameplay, I just don't think that, as a whole, it is truly great.
• gamedeal user

  Dec 22, 2019

  Ghost in the shell with a light sprinkling of Gundam = this visual novel. It surprisingly holds up for a novel about 10 years old as of re-release. While this does have more depth than expected to it's gameplay please keep in mind this is a visual novel first and foremost. The gameplay is and story are meant to supplement one another. Playing for just one or the other will only lead to disappointment. Bonus it does work with a 360 controller but may need some light in-game button re-assignment to get it to work and feel right. Edited review to fix above late night spelling and grammar mistakes. Those wondering about the routes and not wanting to stumble upon spoilers: They are fairly linear similar to Devil on the G-String. Except each character route has 2-3 "ending types" I assume based on the trophies available. Based on light googling i assume at minimum all the "good ends" for each of those routes must be completed to unlock the route for the next heroine as each playthrough solves another piece of the puzzle presented in the first route. At least on the first run through on each route the choices determine the type of end you get rather than which characters story you will follow. Which is a system I personally enjoy since instead of worrying about how a choice will impact the whole cast. It will at least initially only impact that characters route type instead.