Castle Chase is a an adventure game/dating sim hybrid. The primary color theme is done in pastel shades of blue and purple. The main character is a princess.

Needless to say, I went into this game expecting to be overwhelmed with cute, girly fantasies, and shallow, datable guys. I didn't really have high hopes.

Fortunately, I was pleasantly surprised to find otherwise once I actually picked up the game.


Gameplay:

Castle Chase's gameplay is that of a fairly straightforward adventure game. You run around a rather large castle and it's surrounding grounds, talking to the many people frequenting it, picking up random objects scattered about, and presenting them to people for various results. It doesn't sound like much, but the simplicity seems to work for the game, rather than against it.

While most of the tasks you're set to wind up being of the fetching sort, the game manages to mix things up and spice it up a bit. Most objects you find don't have obvious uses, so there's a certain level of puzzle solving for each item and conversation. Some items even have secret uses that can give you alternate solutions to certain puzzles, or even give you entirely new endings. Furthermore, finding certain things often takes quite a bit of asking around and questioning, leading up to some of the many entertaining conversations the game's characters bring up.

Conversations with characters also give you a lot of opportunities to make your own choices. While, for the most part, the correct choices for certain endings tend to be pretty straightforward, you do occasionally wind up set up with a decision that requires some extra thought.

Also, while it's an extremely minor detail, I found myself far too amused by the fact that you could use certain items any time you wanted to, and could even get unique reactions from each of the different characters when you presented the wrong object to them. I often wound up just running around, shoving random objects in everyone's faces to get their reactions about them, and tossing the cat just about everywhere I thought I shouldn't be. I really have to appreciate a game that goes to that amount of detail.

The gameplay isn't without it's flaws, however. While most of the issues are minor, they're still worth mentioning.

One of the more notable problems I ran into was the fact that I couldn't immediately figure out how to switch and present objects. I spent quite a few minutes mashing buttons on my keyboard, before I eventually discovered it. Since the game doesn't use the typical RPG maker control scheme for all of it's features, it would probably help out a lot of people if there was a short controls tutorial at the start of the game.

Also, as much as I liked the size and opportunity to explore the castle, wandering around it started to get really tiring after a certain point. In the end, it was actually the only thing that almost kept me from 100 percenting the game.

Aside from those two details, though, the gameplay was quite solid for the type of game it was.

3.5/5


Story:

Castle Chase's story is even more straightforward than the gameplay. The entire concept pretty much boils down to the tried and true "Rebellious princess is sick of princessing, and decides to break the rules to look for a date." concept. Normally something so heavily used and simple would bring down the game by quite a bit, but there's two things that prevent this from happening. One is the twists to the concept that you have the potential to bring up, such as deciding the patch things up with your arranged fiance, and dating him in the end. Second is the...

3/5


Characters:

The characters in this game are what make it. Every one of the datable guys come off as unique, charming, and human. There are very few particularly cliched character concepts here, and those that are have enough personality to make up for it. Every character is likable, and every character is, even more importantly, flawed. You're not going to find any perfect, sparkly, fake men in this story. Instead, you find people. Adorable people. I'm not going to elaborate on any of the characters, simply because the game is most worth playing for seeing what each of these guys are like.

To top this off, the writer doesn't stop at the datable characters for personality and charm. Everyone in the castle has their own personalities and fun dialogue, and I was often even surprised when some of them turned out to be undatable.

I will confess that not everyone is particularly "deep" by typical writing standards, but considering what kind of game we're working with, and the length of each of the character routes as a whole, I find it pretty excusable. Castle Chase does a very good job of working with what it's got.

4.5/5


Writing:

The writing is great. The grammar is solid. The dialogue is charming. Character routes even overlap and counteract each other. I don't think anything else even needs to be said.

4.5/5


Sound/Music:

The music in this game is specifically written for it by two separate composers. One of the composers is Tarranon. Tarranon is awesome. So yeah, the music is extremely good. All hail Tarranon! The song by the other guy is really good too. Unfortunately, I can't find his name right now.

Unfortunately, there is one small problem with the music, and that's the fact that the main castle theme is played for so long, and so often, that it gets really old at a certain point.

4/5


Graphics:

The graphics for Castle Chase are probably the most immediately noticeable part of the game, and for good reason. All of characters in this game, even the less important NPCs, have custom faces. They're all very well drawn, and in a unique style that fits the game perfectly.

To add to this already nice aspect to the game, each of the endings come with their own CG, all of which are worth seeing.

The UI and related menus are also customized in such a way that really helps give the game a unique look. Even with the pastel color scheme, it never winds up looking completely over the top either.

The sprites are a little less interesting, as they use the usual VX RTP template, but most, if not all of them are still made specifically for the game. The pixel graphics aren't all that interesting, because of this, but they're still good enough to stand out among a crowd.

The mapping also seemed pretty good for VX, though I'm not as capable of judging that matter, due to my lack of experience with the engine.

4/5


Final:

Castle Chase is an adorable, well made, well written adventure game that, while a bit sugary, manages to keep it's cuteness under control enough to be stomach-able by just about anyone. If you like a good adventure game, and don't mind the dating aspect to the story, I strongly encourage you to pick this game up.