Desperate Love Feast

I approached Desperate Love Feast trying to rid my mind of bias. I initially came into knowledge of this game due to the glowing 5-star review that some people seemed to say didn't make sense. I am not undermining the authenticity of that review in any way, and in fact I approached this game with the mindset that it might be a great game after all.



But upon playing the game my benefit of the doubt slowly eroded as I got more deeply and deeply invested into a... very boring experience. Gameplay is really linear, like a keychain, consisting of you walking into rooms and grabbing keys that open other rooms. And that's... it. Just a series of keys, nothing particularly useful other than maybe dodging a dog that KILLS YOU UPON TOUCH. Those things irk me so often, especially when the game hasn't prompted you to save beforehand and you're stuck playing through the 10-minute intro to where you were again.

The game is full of bad design decisions like this, that inspire frustration rather than admiration at the game. The mapping is too basic, empty rooms in which you can interact with every single thing in the room, but almost nothing is actually useful. There are descriptions of objects in the room that go along the lines of "this is a wooden crate" and "this is a cup on a table", to which I felt like saying "DUH I ALREADY KNOW THAT FROM LOOKING AT IT" and left me helplessly interacting with everything in the room in the hope that one or two things might actually do something. But they don't.



At least it's got a semi-nice atmosphere, right? But oh wait, we're bombarded with ellipses again......... not just 3 dots................ but 22 dots for added pause effect! Couple that with some really cheesy and cryptic observations like when the main character stares into the 105th pool of blood and makes the smart observation: "it looks like some kind of blood." Obviously if you've got blood smeared all over your kitchen walls, it is imperative that you discern whether the blood was of blood type AB or O. It's like when you exit the first intro and you are meeting face-to-face with some guy behind what seems to be a jail cell... but it turns out it's just some metal grate in the middle of a hallway. And apparently when there is "something sparkling in the pool of blood", it's actually a left arm. Oops, I forgot to unglitter my arm again (my bad).

The characters I found poor and indistinct, some guy with a mysterious past that isn't talking to you, your dead sister doll providing some cheap scares in the form of HOLY CRAP LOOK AT HER GOOGLY EYES AND LARGE GAPING SMILE that must be really scary, isn't it.

Some really weird design decisions later, like the main quest requiring you to walk into the back of a house through an entrance that is not visually indicated in any form. Other core gameplay mechanics including walking, reading notes that don't expose much, and looking at all the blood, everywhere, in every single orifice imaginable. A few mentions of sexual assault and Satanism later and we've got ourselves your stereotypical bad horror game, except without the restrictive lighting system (a bit fat phew!).



Given that the game is of poor quality, it shoves further insult into the players' face by bringing the touchy topics sexual assault and grisly murders of children into play. I mean it's OK to be a bad game, but it's especially bad when you're dealing with topics like murder of children and sexual assault, and dismemberment of little girls when you need to display at least some kind of tact. There is no depth of analysis here, just something really shocking to give you a sense of false horror.

So no, I do not like this game at all, not only because it is hilariously bad, but it also brings touchy themes into play (apparently the evil being raped your entire family), and not with finesse either. With a name like "Desperate Love Feast", I'm not sure I've been outraged by an RPG Maker game this much in a while. And I've played the Dooms series.

Verdict

Underdeveloped game with few redeeming qualities. It handles touchy subjects with lack of finesse and ends up being offensive in its attempt at horror. The only horror here is cheap jump scares and offensive low blows. Avoid.

Presentation 1/10 - Lack of attention to detail, bad presentation values.
Graphics 2/10 - Mapping isn't beautiful, very bare, but at least serviceable.
Story 0.5/10 - Story made zero sense to me. Handled touchy topics like child violence and sexual assault in a tactless manner.
Gameplay 0.5/10 - Basically a chain of keys unlocking doors unlocking other doors. Nothing interesting at all.
Lasting Appeal 2/10 - Interesting concept marred by obviously bad development.

Overall 1.3/10 - Poor, needs a lot of work.