Recent reviews by Flufius

Amazing vibes. That was the first thing I noticed. Tremendous work on every little detail in the world shaped with pixels and sprites. Plenty of details and animations in the background, highlighted with this HD lighting that sets the whole mood. What you can't see beyond the 2-dimensional paths you walk, you can hear with sounds going around you. Things like an occasional passing bike that illuminates your room at night can really liven up a scene. Distant pixel art faces could be enough to convey a deep emotion, as we know from Freebird Games works, but these guys decided to add these amazing animated close-ups that make it a bit more personal.
Another thing that connects this world to ours is an online social platform. It doesn't play much of a role, but it's pretty well implemented.
Overall, high production value.
Honestly, I don't know how to describe the story. It was reflective and a little bit nostalgic. Characters are interesting to follow and listen to, and despite having a big age gap with me, they are relatable. The peak of the game, for me, was the first ending. Everything compiled really well, and it was very impactful. Events after that, unfortunately, added more confusion to characters' paths and roles. The nature of some events and their metaphorical meaning is still unclear to me (Why did Louise and Ridel have déjà vu in the first 2 cycles, but when the same thing that caused them intensified and had Mark and Nicole get memories more vivid, they lost them completely?). The real ending was a bit all over the place and stretched—whether it was I cooked or it was truly misaligned, I can't tell. I guess now I can only let go and play along.

The only thing that drags this game down is 2 dungeons, both of which (I think) can be skipped, so I would advise everyone to skip them. They've got essentially nothing—no interesting exploration, visual delight, challenging combat, or tricky puzzles.
Brushing them aside, we have a pure detective quest with quite a few threads to unwind. Each of the problems you face has only 1 solution with some different routes to it, and all that is connected to one of the endings you can get. Overall, there's a lot of room for investigation, and it's made quite effective—it doesn't waste your time on repetitions/pixel hunting/traversal or whatnot. You also get a little insight into presented cultures, and as a barbarian myself, I hope it's accurate.
Most of the dialogues are meaningful and can be skipped. The characters are pretty nice, they all have their approaches, and it's pretty wholesome to finally see them as a community at some point. What unites them is the protagonist, who is an absolute menace to any force in their way, Hercules and Sisyphus in one skin. And what he does in the Canon Route with intimidating? ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ legend.

It's a good reminder that the series is still out there if you still haven't experienced it. Maybe the ending is not any more important, but it's a very nice thing to savor.
In this little experience, you'll get a lot of funny interactions, unexpected meetings, new musical arrangements, and new artwork. Because of some references and other things (Didn't know Kan had a kid, and what a lovely name), it felt less like part of some new fiction and more like opening a curtain to our world. Yeah, definitely a fun day with a lot of reminiscence.

Didn't get the Clara bullying at all even after checking the moment that was supposed to justify it. Didn't see the justification, or point or if it's supposed to be funny. Didn't get the plot up until the moment I have read (~55%), if there were global/general topics they didn't move anywhere at all. Didn't even get what is this novel all about as there's not much going on in leisure time, nor there's anything funny and I can't feel its coziness because of its chaos. Props to the visual style, but again, I didn't get why is it retro (･_･;

Kinda disappointed that the devs don't read emails which seems to be the only proper way to report bugs. The bug I believe a common for everyone, some text doesn't get displayed normally but certanly exists and visible in a log. It happened quite a few times. I noticed it only because I use textractor and it gets extracted with other lines.

(no spoilers)
The game is nice for it's price, but there's not much to see visually or event-wise, necessity of some stuff (esp. 1 character) is dubious, other characters don't speak much and the read overall is a bit shallow.

The best thing I've read or am going to this year.
Beautiful, well directed, if it can be applied to VN, a lot of effort was put into changing "scenes".
I didn't like the writer's previous works, too grim for me, and I'm glad I didn't know he will be here. This novel is lighthearted, with just enough amount of melancholy. And after seeing the ending, I'm glad the guy finally beat dipression 20 years later.

https://sp.zhabite.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2374429970

как обычно для ВН опять стирать штаны, но на этот раз с другой стороны


ну и плакать немного в конце ладно
https://sp.zhabite.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1904532367

It's a tale, which starts as a chilly road trip with your best buddies with a lot of activities. And a classic greek tragedy in the end, about men drawn and submitting to fate, as the game gets darker and narrower as a metaphor to how careless youthfulness changes to adulthood of The Chosen King.

The story displays the insignificance of a human being in front of big forces, and you can feel it in everything - in having a vast open-world, opposing main characters to huge gods in combat, and spanning events by decades and centuries. It's a huge game, with a lot of things to do, to see, and to experience, and a lot of hidden things.

Yes, it's flawed, as any creation of its creator. But despite some people looking for what's not in the game, I encourage you to enjoy what's in there. After all, it's a successful game by multiple factors and there are clear signs that the devs genuinely cared about it.
https://sp.zhabite.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2110865333

Thanks for magically evaporated saves which I still have no idea where are stored.
And for lack of sound settings because of which you can't turn off or at least down this rеtаrded music.
The only thing that changes from your choices in the ending is the direction of zoom LOL.
Apart from this would be nice and insighful guidebook into Japanese culture.

SakuGame on publishing, true to themselves. Misleading screenshots with language that was replaced with mediocre translation. My dollar stays with me.