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Pretty much total majesty

  • kumada
  • 11/24/2011 09:34 PM
  • 9898 views
If careful resource management, well developed characters, snappy dialog, and audacious concepts curl your toes, this is your game. It has a run time of between one and fifteen hours, branch endings, exploration bonuses, and a whole heaping basket of easter eggs. It also has a chef who can make a four course meal out of three mirrors and a block of wood.

I'm not exactly objective when it comes to this game, so I'll list a few common complaints here, but Visions and Voices is the kind of project that has design decisions instead of bugs, so it's mostly a matter of whether those design decisions are your cup of tea or not.

-Healing is difficult. Your resources don't restore a lot, and sleeping at the inn advances the plot. Late game, if you're diligent, you can break free of this, but it's especially pronounced in the beginning.

-The game takes place within a single town. The scenery slowly changes over time, but it can get a little repetitive if you don't want to explore every little nook every day and risk missing items or characters.

-The stats are not explicitly apparent in what they do. All stats represent the mental and social aptitudes of the characters (bravery, perception, logic, etc.) You do get a general idea (bravery influences close combat and hp, perception influences ranged combat and speed,) but there are no Fire Emblem style equations to be crunched.

-The optional bosses are hard. Yes. Yes they are.

If you're in the mood for something that is by turns lovecraftian, heartwarming, and elegiac, Visions and Voices should be at the top of your list.

Posts

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Craze
why would i heal when i could equip a morningstar
15150
Um. Thanks. I wasn't expecting this, that's for sure!

I had to look up "elegiac." +1 word!
author=Craze
Um. Thanks. I wasn't expecting this, that's for sure!

I had to look up "elegiac." +1 word!


Adjective form of Elegy!
If you liked Visions & Voices, you may want to take a look at the remake project that's in the works. It'll probably be a while before Craze and Karsuman finish it though.
Craze
why would i heal when i could equip a morningstar
15150
A very, very long time, considering that we're working on a spin-off of that remake, which we never produced.
Craze
why would i heal when i could equip a morningstar
15150
Oops, double post. Let's make it better: uh, this project involves lesbians! Everybody loves lesbians, especially lesbians who have character traits outside of being lesbians (like being strong women).

Hey, look! The main character, a dark-skinned lesbian protagonist who is both strong and feminine! Woah.

A very, very long time, considering that we're working on a spin-off of that remake, which we never produced.


Aw, I was really looking forward to it. :( It sounded interesting. I even have Popstars In Space bookmarked! Hopefully you'll finish it someday.

What is the spinoff about, and how is it related to V&V, may I ask? Story-related or does it just use the same engine?
Craze
why would i heal when i could equip a morningstar
15150
Let's just say that it's a generational leap.
Whoah. I was not actually expecting people to read this thing that I wrote. That's kind of awesome.

As for your project, Craze, I'll be happy as long as it happens, whether or not the promised lesbians are delivered on.
Lesbians forever.

Also, thanks for the review. =)
Hey, that was literally the least I could do after you guys put so much work into V&V. I will happily review Future Lesbians From the Future when it debuts, too. :D
Wow, dude.

They always roll you out as the welcome wagon?

Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems like the angle you're coming from is that I'm not critical or comprehensive enough. Here's my counter-argument:

-all writing is for an audience. The internet audience is one that typically gives you a few seconds before backpaging and going somewhere else, so the challenge here wasn't to catalog every stuck pixel, but to provide as complete an idea of the gameplay experience in as small a frame as possible.

-reviewing is a subjective art, not an objective science. No matter how eloquent you are, you're still drawing on your personal experience with the game when you tell someone your opinion of it. I tend to embrace this rather than kick it under the carpet, and give the reader fair warning that my point of view is coming from a person, not an objectivity machine.

-if it ain't broke, don't fix it. Unless something dramatically impacted my experience of the game, it wasn't worth blathering on about. A review looks a little boring when it's framed like "the graphics are okay and the battle system is okay and the story is super good and the spriting is okay and the title screen is okay," so I didn't focus in on anything that didn't make the game more or less enjoyable to play.

-feedback is a dialog between you and the author, and between you and the reader. That's part of what all these little posts below the review are for. It's not the most definitive statement anyone can make about the game. The most definitive statement anyone can make about the game is the game itself.

Incidentally, I like that your review of my review boils down to "u suck gtfo," although I'm sure you could expand on the subject. The irony keeps me laughing.
*rolls eyes*

The whole point of the counter-argument was that other modes of reviewing, not just your own, are probably valid too. It's fine by me if you want to stick to your "no screenshots in this? walp, there goes the neighborhood," guns, but it's kind of a purist way to see the hobby.
I have to agree this review is too slim. There's more to reviewing than giving feedback. It's a way to present the game to people who haven't played it, but they're wondering whether they should. If you just wanted to give the authors some quick feedback, you could have just posted it as a comment. It's not really a matter of style, it's a matter of quality.

It's also quite strange that you gave it 5 stars and yet all you listed were complaints. It's quite obvious you should have gone into detail about what you liked about it. You're clearly in condition of coming up with something better, so you should just edit the review and expand it instead of prolonging this discussion. I bet the game's authors would appreciate that too.
Craze
why would i heal when i could equip a morningstar
15150
While I somewhat understand the desire for something more fleshed-out, I don't think reviews need to be the next Gilgamesh. Considering that Karsu and I released this many moons ago, I'm not really looking for constructive criticism any more either, y'know? I'm just glad that people enjoy our effort.

http://rpgmaker.net/games/1044/reviews/388/
^- Like, is this a terrible review even though it's short? I don't think it would have been better if it had ~SECTIONS~ and ~CHAPTERS~ and a sequel.
Thank you both for the feedback.

Calunio, this one wasn't really for author-feedback. It was for a very complete project, and an old one at that, so if there was anything that really needed fixing or discussion, I would've posted it as a comment. What I was writing was designed to be read quickly and to give the reader a clear picture of whether they would enjoy playing the game. I listed what critiques I could find (even though I didn't personally have an issue with them,) so that I wouldn't be trying to sell the reader on a game I really liked, but instead keeping them informed of anything that might sour their enthusiasm.

This isn't a comprehensive/analytical review, but that wasn't my goal. There are already a couple of those posted for V&V. Fallen-Griever writes excellent, detailed reviews, by the way, but by the time I get to the end of one I don't feel like I need to play the game anymore. That's what I was trying to avoid here.

Seeing how much flak this has generated, though, I think I might try a different approach in the future. I'll do my actual review at the top of the page, and then do a more analytical investigation of the game below it, thereby (hopefully) keeping everyone happy.

Questions? Concerns? Complaints?
Can we not start an argument about a review for a completely different game?

Seriously.
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