Neue Rezensionen von Mein

I've been a follower of this odd little franchise for a while, but I didn't expect that it would end with me seriously considering getting into candlemaking. Though that's a little tricky to manage for a 30 day stretch for me right now due to my living situation, so I'm just gonna do the comforting drawing one instead. But I'll come back to the candle idea. Somehow, it sounds really appealing now that the idea has taken root in my mind.

My secret word is MEDIDATE. As always, I'm looking forward to Chasing Demons.

This is a VERY tentative recommendation. There is a lot to like about this game - the artstyle, the music, being set in the World of Darkness, the gothiness if that's your thing - but some... let's call them *quirks* of the writing seemed to deliberately try and sabotage the good things it had going on.
The problems of the game's writing (and being a visual novel, it's 99% writing) can all be summed up in one single word: "Julia". See, most of the characters are pretty good as these things go. They're well written, varied, occasionally inflicted with wanky dialogue, but overall, solid performance. But our main girl Julia... Oooh boy. She starts out alright, as a reporter getting to the bottom of some twisted controversy archetype, but after she inevitably gets turned into a vampire, her few appealing qualities quickly get drowned out by a neverending cascade of endless, pseudo-philosophical inner monologues, insulting characters that are much less infuriating than herself for partially really flimsy reasons, and hogging a lot of playtime that could have been spent focusing on literally anyone else.
I can respect wanting the story to be focused on your main character's perspective, and on principle, I think sticking to their internal perspective like that is a good approach, since it allows the player to get to know them better and become invested in their struggles. But all of that only works when your main character isn't such an infuriatingly obnoxious drama queen that you would rather stake her than empathize with her.
I'm giving Julia flak because I genuinely think that I might have liked this game quite a lot if it had gone with a different kind of protagonist. As it stands, if you think that she's someone you can relate to or vibe with, then you most likely will appreciate her constant presence and will probably have a good time with the story. And I will say that despite my annoyances, the ending I got didn't completely leave me cold. It also did not leave me with much desire to go through the game again for the other ending option, but nevertheless, overall I mostly enjoyed the game in spite of my problems with it, and you might too, or ideally you might get a lot more out of it than I did.

.... ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥, Randumb Games, you made me cry.
This isn't the first time the ending I got from one of the Test games got under my skin, but this has got to be the deepest cut you inflicted on me so far. Until now, I thought it was all fun and games, with a nice little psychological twist, but no more than a game - and hell, for all I know or care to find out, it still IS just a game and the questions are all smokes and mirrors, but then, that's all video games. And even if it's just smokes and mirrors, it still managed to hit me deep and tell me some things that I could really do with hearing.
My secret word is Powerful. I'd not gotten that word before, but... Well, I hadn't started work on my own passion project when I played the previous games, either. It may all be a coincidence, a trick of the brain. But then, it's the third coincidence in a row. Maybe you ARE reading my mind with a 1€ RPGMaker game after all.
I cannot wait to start Chasing Demons.

Now this is the natural evolution of the Test series I've been foreseeing! My secret word is 'CONDOM', and boy that was a flavourful scene accompanying it. Thanks, Mommy.

The followup to The Test, the very interesting edgy RPGMaker personality test, continues where the first game left off, in a sense, expanding on the "setting" (aka the one spooky room and your spooky interviewer) and continually trying to get in your head. Like with The Test, I have to keep insisting that the horror aspect just falls flat. I know this is probably just a me thing, but I'm having a hard time believing a 2€ game on Steam would be the thing to finally break down the barriers and haunt my PC. That aside, though, the game asks more interesting and complex questions, and it's a good bit hornier, so that's always excellent!
My secret word is Stranger, which actually did get under my skin because it reminded me of something I did only a week or two ago, so maybe this personality test really is up to more than I expected. Good job, devs, I'm looking forward to the much-hyped up conclusion to this lil franchise.

The game is very much like The Test, but unlike The Test, it leans into the horror angle quite hard, and it didn't really work, fellas. This is an RPGMaker game, you're not gonna convince me that it can predict my future massacre. The idea is nice, but better executed in The Test, and with a more satisfying conclusion. For what it's worth, my word is "Bloodthirst".

Interesting and amusing little diversion. It didn't manage to unnerve me, despite some seeming efforts, but I had fun nonetheless. My word is Greed. Now devs, I sure hope you make good on those ominous messages at the end. I'm curious to become a part of that sinister history. :^)

Let me tab out while playing Oblivion without my entire computer freezing for five minutes. 10/10

Shadowrun: Hong Kong is the latest entry in the Shadowrun Returns franchise of games, based in the Shadowrun tabletop setting, big shock. It's the last of the three current games I played, and by far my favourite of the bunch. But it still has some serious problems.

The story: Your foster father sends you a message begging you to return to Hong Kong to help him in some undisclosed way. The intro makes it clear that he's in serious danger of some sort, and no matter how you choose your character to be disposed towards the man, you do return to Hong Kong. Your adoptive brother and his girlfriend await you, and at the designated meeting point, you are met with a group of Shadowrunners. Then a sniper shoots half of you and you have to escape to the sewers. From then, it's a long story of getting in the good books of a local triad boss named Kindly Cheng (who is about as pleasant as a devil rat down the trousers), doing a lot of runs, recruiting new, very curious party members and finding out where your father is and what the big looming plot behind it all is.
While the actual intro is a bit weaker than those of the other games, the story from then on is the most well executed in my opinion. The biggest two factors? Cast of characters, and mission variety. Hong Kong continues the trend from Dragonfall to have a small group of dedicated characters under your management, with the other runners you can hire in being entirely optional. Though the casts in the other two games were already very good, this one is the most intriguing to me. I won't give away their stories here, but suffice it to say that it's colourful.
As for mission variety - I am happy to say that not every single mission involves a shootout with the police now! My dislike of the combat structure in the other games has gone well documented in my other reviews, and there was a point late in the game where the combat became grueling to me once more, but it was much later and to a much smaller extent than in Dragonfall. The runs you can go on now stretch from crime scene investaigations with entirely avoidable combat to fighting ghouls and goblins in a museum cellar, like in that one movie, just with more violence. It's refreshing, and it never gets as stale and repetitive as it did in Dragonfall. The second-to-last mission was especially great, but saying any more would be spoilery, so I shan't.

Sadly, though, there is one big negative I have to mention - I encountered a couple of bugs that forced me to replay certain sections. In one particular instance, meeting a group of NPCs under the wrong circumstances made it impossible to complete the mission because they wouldn't hand you a necessary item. It was frustrating to say the least. A little bit more playtesting wouldn't have gone amiss.

All in all though, despite the bug problem, Shadowrun: Hong Kong is easily the best of the Shadowrun Returns franchise. With this level of quality, I sincerely hope that it won't be the last.

"Notice: To take account for local laws, certain symbols, and content that may be construed to violate § 86a of the German Criminal Code, have been replaced by no less atmospheric alternatives."
♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥.
Look, if it really would break your little heart to leave the swastikas in the game, fine. Put the little eagle symbols on the flag instead or something, it really doesn't matter. But what isn't okay is to lock the whole game to a terrible German dub. It ruins the whole atmosphere when everyone talks German. Cus, yknow, it's a big part of the game's charm to have the nazis chatter in Deutsch, and that just gets agressively flung out the window when your (weirdly aryan) hero is talking fluent German too.
And the really intolerable thing is that there is no way to circumvent that without pirating the game. Even if you get a friend from another country to gift you the game, it'll still be locked to the garbage version for you if you had the misfortune of being born in Germany.
Dear German government, I know you take great pride in being a few decades behind the times, but spoiler alert - the very existance of this game is an indicator that nobody with half a brain is still begrudging us for something only our wrinkliest of granddaddies still have to feel guilty of. The third Reich was a horrible event that should never be forgotten, so why the hell do you keep stomping out all the swastikas, you patronizing ♥♥♥♥♥? That's not gonna make WW2 not have happened, it only makes you look like irrational, fearmongering crusty old suits, and that's probably because you are. Stop.
So in short, great game, can't recommend if you happen to live in the country it's making fun of.

EDIT: Some years later, I was able to get the international, non-butchered version of the game on Steam, so this review is no longer relevant. Wish it hadn't taken so long, but hey, better slow progress than no progress!