Daybreak 最近的评测

Great fighting game.

Legend of Mercy is a Chinese indie fantasy game that explores themes of, among things, romantic love, conflict, alliances and tensions between nations, and racism.

It is a mix of a Visual Novel with a romantic gift system that ties into a letter system you can pick up from your mailbox. And a point and click open world with mini-games centered around either treating and healing a patient and on the other hand combat.

The English translation is good at least on a basic level ( I am not a grammar lover nor do I know Chinese), though the love poems comes off as lackluster some times more than others which are probably due to the hardship in translating more complex writing.

Romance and sexuality

The fan service on some of the females, like with the armor with the rank and file High Elf soldiers, is jarring and a bit silly, though some of the females and their outfits do look very enticing and sexy.
Furthermore it is a bit peculiar in the internal juxtaposition with the romance element of the game, which focuses by and large, with deviations, more on eroticism and romance than pure pornography, hedonism and soulless nudity.
There's a lot of potential female romance interest in the game, I'd would have preferred a smaller number and then that they would have been given more screen time instead.

The Plot and the setting

The main plot is simple but functions overall most of the time, though the main sentient antagonist isn't fully fleshed out which made certain segments rather silly, maybe the developers ran out of time. Also the use of foreshadowing stroke me as peculiar on a couple of occasions.
The setting lends itself to explore some important real life issues, like mercy and racism and conflict between nations, though I found it and the plot a bit simplistic and unrealistic and unintentionally comical at times.
Also while the way, for instance, High Elves and Dark Elves are used in the setting might be tolerable for a Chinese audience, presuming the don't know anything of Tolkien nor the subsequent western fantasy medium, it would more or less be jarring for a western perspective.

"You? Nightmares?"
"I dream that there are no more humans," he said. "They're all dead. The earth is white. The moon is still in the sky and it lights up an earth that's completely white. I'm alone with the mouse." He was speaking very softly and his expression was that of a very old man. - Simone De Beauvoir, Tous Les Hommes Sont Mortels

Fare Thee Well is a short kinetic visual novel. It tells the tale of an immortal young man and his wanderings and encounter with a young female singer in a small remote town/village, and subsequently how it shapes a chapter in his life and the people he encounters. It sheds light upon basic existential questions through the lens of immortality contra mortality (just like De Beauvoir did with a different focus and more intellectuality and sillyness in some of her characters, in her novel "All men are Mortal".) in regards to love, hatred, forgiveness, human growth, loneliness, solitude and the importance and necessity of especially recognition / anerkendelse--"anerkendelse" is a Danish word I don't know a synonym for in English, whereas German and Danish have direct synonyms more often as the languages are more similar; especially back then. I don't think there is one, but the concept originates at least partially with the German philosopher Hegel and his Master and Slave analogue found in his work, though it is a theme too, in the book as a whole, "The Phenomenology of spirit" (Phänomenologie des Geistes) and how it has been further expanded upon by, for instance Scandinavian existential and/or psychodynamic philosophers and psychologists like Kierkegaard, Schibbye and Kirkeby--by other humans in order for a human being to grow and come to understand oneself on higher level.

Art

I found that the music supports the narrative in lovely way for the most part. The character art is charming for the green dressed woman despite of the silly anime art style with its staple big eyes, though I am bit ambivalent about in regards to Emmeline, the rest are forgettable though serviceable. The anime style of the characters I find a bit jarring in contrast to the beautiful background art work, which is more in tone with the overall ambience of the writing and music and its insight and the "reading" experience the visual novel provides.

- Cruel reminder of Trump
+ Well constructed piece of pop-culture

Emma is a short science fiction, kinetic visual novel, with gorgeous artwork and neat ambience and music.
Alas there's no auto play function and the existential story explored is a bit simple.
Would love to see a longer Visual Novel with this artistic style.

Pillar's of Eternity 2 is an ambitious but a bit rough game. The Main Quest is short and lackluster with its focus on the gods machinations sadly. The game takes place in Deadfire archipelago and explores colonialism as a fairly central motif; through its Side Quests in a rather noble manner, in regards to the power struggles between its nations and organizations within its fantasy world.

The combat difficulty, balance and pacing is lacking as of now as the game becomes almost trivially easy, except a few fights, mid and late game at "hard" and apparently it is the same for "Path of the Damned". Though most likely Obsidian will continue to refine and hone the difficulty and pacing of its combat like they did with the first Pillar's of Eternity. So by the time all of the three DLCs have been released it'll hopefully, and most likely, be much smoother and rewarding experience. If not sooner.

I found the voice acting good to excellent most of the time though I found the narrator annoying as hell and the way she was employed baffled me. Wish I could have turned her off.

- The english translation is uneven, uninspired and lacklustre. The story and characters are meh. Different unpolished stuff in different areas that are just annoying; like a peculiar grunting sound when a character starts to speak.

+ The combat system seems interesting enough off-hand, the art work.

Game refunded.

A House of Many doors is a RPG in the vein of Sunless Sea but with less production values in some areas. Combat can be avoided, and it isn't necessary to grind resources to the same degrees as was the case in the former game. A House of many Doors, in contrast, also have an absolutely wonderful main quest with at least two paths to it, depending on who you join forces with.

The one man developer rightfully cites, among things, Planescape: Torment and China Miéville as further inspirations. It shows.

+ Lovely art work, story and music overall.

- 16 different endings felt iffy to me would have prefered less and longer routes.

Umineko is an interesting indie mystery Visual Novel a bit akin to "The House in Fata Morgana", and here we get the first four chapters. I've seen it compared to the novel "Dream of a red Chamber" by Cao Xueqin from the 18th century, which is of course an utter travesty - this is not high culture. Though the distinction between high culture and popular culture becomes more and more meaningless in, certain regards, in our contemporary world. But overall how about bloody no.

I'd whole heartily recommend to get the patch for the Voice Acting from the PS 3 version, as most of it is excellent - especially for the main characters. Albeit it occasionally, sadly, clashes with the mostly marvelous soundtrack.