Nerd Chat

Dream Daddy

Genre: Visual Novel, Dating Sim

Buy it here for $14.99

This has been an unexpected treat. Jumping on the internet obsession train doesn’t always end well. But I don’t find that the hype for this game has resulted in me not enjoying it. It did get delayed and that always is hard. But the wait was worth it. 

Gameplay is pretty typical. Read along and make choices that impact your relationships with other characters. There are a few mini-games scattered in the routes to complete. They are pretty simple, but don’t offer any guidance on the controls and you just gotta figure it out yourself. 

This game allows you to be cis man or a trans man. It allows you options over whether your previous relationship was with a man or a woman and whether you adopted your daughter or not. You get to create you dadsona in great detail which was delightful. This adds an extra element of personalization that many games don’t allow for and adds to the replay value of the game. 

This game has a great sense of humor. I found myself laughing out loud several times. It also makes a ton of references….plenty of which I’m sure flew over my head, but I liked what I understood. Plus plenty of dad puns…..

Routes: 

I skipped Mat’s because not understanding the music references made it a bit of a chore (went on two “dates” before quitting) and added a lot of guess work to my choices that I didn’t enjoy. I’ve skipped Brian’s as well. The show each other up game is one that makes me squirm in real life and playing it in a video game isn’t much better. 

Damien is stupid adorable. He is quirky, but that is kinda charming. His route was great fun to complete. 

Craig is a bro and a fitness fanatic. A little too many “bros” for my taste, but it takes all kinds.

Hugo is the literature teacher. Trivia nights and cheese plates galore. 

At the completion of each route you get a snapshot of art. There are no actual CG’s in this beyond that. 

Type:  RPG

Price: $19.99

Time Played: 17.5 hours

Surprise, surprise I like capitalism games. 

Games like the old Harvest Moon games and Stardew Valley float my boat. 

So, it isn’t shocking that an item shop game would also meet the craving. 

This game not only has the challenge of paying off your debts via buying things low and selling them high, but also social interactions, interior decoration of your store and dungeon crawler elements. 

The dungeon crawler doesn’t really require much strategy beyond bringing food to keep your HP up and having quality weapons. There is  variety in the monsters you face and what they drop varies. You can sell items outright or create fusions in order to add value to the items sold. 

The social elements in the game are entertaining as well. You get to know which customers will pay higher prices and which ones are horrible and whiney about how much you charge. Some of the in-game dialogue is pretty funny: 

(Somebody go rescue this guys grandchild- he is clearly being starved to death)

Personally, I found this game pretty entertaining. There is a wide variety of items to buy and as your merchant level goes up the items you can buy increases as well. If you fail to raise the required amount of money you loop back to the beginning of the game (you keep your items, but not your gold though). Which makes the game even more entertaining as you don’t feel like you’ve lost just because you failed to save up 500,000 pix in your first or second loop. 

Game: Pub Encounter

Genre: Otome, Visual Novel

Buy it here for $17.99

I grabbed this copy for $6.29 during the steam sale. 

Overall, I would say this is typical Dogenzaka Lab fare. If you’ve like their other games I don’t see why you wouldn’t enjoy this one. If you like very emotional and nuanced story telling this may not be the otome game for you. Keep in mind this story has some sexual content. This game has no explicit visuals, but does have some steamy descriptions.  

This game provides you with 5 romantic interests that are 40-60ish years old. As a result of their age they aren’t the typical bishi boys that are prevalent in otome visual novels. 

You play as a young woman who is very down on herself. She spends a lot of time stating that she sucks at her job and is often down in the dumps about it. She is ridiculously quick to fall for which ever love interest you select for her. Frankly, I wasn’t a fan of the character I was suppose to be playing as. 

This game has some spelling errors. I caught at least one time that the person speaking was labeled incorrectly. There was some odd flickering going on during some of the scene changes that was a tad annoying. If those kind of errors really bother you then this is not the game for you. 

Type: Visual Novel

Rating: 18+ OR All Ages

The steam game does have a patch for 18+ that is available for free. 

Buy it here or here

Price: $24.99

I’m honestly surprised I liked this as much as I did. It has comedy, voice acting and a fun premise. 

There are many references to popular culture and memes. The humor does tend toward the more adult side of things at times. It also tends toward humor that is a tad more ridiculous in nature. The all ages version isn’t really all ages in my veiw. It still skews fairly adult. 

Sidenote: There is some body negativity going on in this game. If this concerns you this isn’t going to be an enjoyable game for you. 

Graphics

The artwork is decent. It’s generally consistent too. It has an anime style to it. The CGs are a bit weak in comparison to other games of a similar value. There were a few CGs were the proportions seemed off (Saito and the MC sitting on the stairs for example). The chibi style atwork was humour and a good match for the game. 

Voice Acting

The voice acting was in Japanese (of course). The voice acting in this was pretty great. The MC wasn’t as fun because she had a high pitched voice that I found grating (luckily you can turn down each characters volume separately). The romanceable characters each had a distinct voice and personality that shone through. The background characters were also voiced solidly. 

MC

The MC is an awkward social outcast at her school. She has no idea how the real world works and has never been in love. She isn’t that unusual for an MC. However, the levels of ridiculous that she reaches are a bit beyond anything I’ve ever played before which ended up endearing her to me. 

Romanceable Characters

Miki is a bit of a goof. He is intensely emotional, creative and loving. 

Saito is more rude and temperamental. His scenes were more fun for me as a reader because his personality was more abrasive which I enjoy in otome games (not in real life though :P)

Overall

Genre: RPG, Casual

Price: $19.99

Hours Logged: 30

Do you like Stardew Valley? If so, you’ll probably love My Time At Portia. 

This game is so well done for an early access game. It has voice acting, tons of quests, beautiful graphics and a customizable protagonist. Plus they have issued multiple patches since the game release onto early access. The creators seem very invested in the success of this game and it shows. 

They provided a demo which offers plenty of gameplay and will give you a good taste of what My Time At Portia has on offer. I easily logged 8 hours on the demo alone. And within two days of the release I logged an additional 12 on the game itself. 

I don’t typically look at DLC, but since Hakuoki is one of my favorite visual novels it seemed wise to check the DLC that was offered. 

The Wind Treasure Box is the DLC available for $3.99 for psvita and $2.99 on steam. It requires the base game (of course). 

As with the visual novel the DLC additional content is voiced. 

It provides short additional scenes for: 

Hajime Saito- Prepare dinner with Saito by your side.

Heisuke Toudou- Administer first aid to Heisuke’s injury.

Sanosuke Harada- Take a walk with Harada. 

Shinpachi Nagakura- Visit a festival with Nagakura.

Hachiro Iba- What does the palm reading say about your future? 

Susumu Yamazaki- Yamazaki offers to help you with your chores. 

Once you’ve completed all the scenes you gain access to a singular CG with all 6 of the men in it. 

Do I think this DLC is worth it? Not really. I mean for me yes. But I just couldn’t stand to not see whatever additional taste I can get of Harada. If you are a huge fan and a completionist this is an obvious buy. But if you are just an everyday fan….. the content really isn’t enough to justify the purchase. I finished all 6 additional scenes in about 30 minutes. 

Date Warp

Visual Novel

Buy it from steam for $9.99

I bought this game awhile ago and never really got to playing it. It started it, but the art didn’t really appeal to me. However, now that I actually gave it a chance I’ve gotta say this is a solid visual novel. It has romance, mystery and science fiction and a story that makes up for the less polished artwork. 

The characters that you can romance each have their own backstories and reasons doing what they are doing. They have a variety of types: sweet and innocent, lecherous and clever, genteel and polite, rough and tumble and the boy next door. There are good endings and bad endings. There is a final ending, but you have to complete all other routes to get there.

It’s pretty typical on gameplay. It does have the added twist of a fairly simple puzzle you have to do before you pick your answer. Once you’ve picked an answer you can skip the puzzle and pick that answer the next time you play through without having to redo that puzzle. Its a little twist, but as the puzzles are the same type all the way through it isn’t much of a challenge.  

The artwork gets a little awkward at times (proportions are off), but it isn’t a total loss. Some of the CGs are higher quality than others.

But it’s the story that really gets you going. You are warped to another world and then stuck inside a house with 5 strangers. As you play you get to know one of the guys and find out the secret of what is going on. Your choices will impact your ending. 

I’d say that for a $10 price tag this is a solid addition to my ever-growing steam library. I don’t think I will play it again, but I got 5 hours of enjoyment out of it and $2 an hour isn’t bad. 

Period Cube

Type: Visual Novel, Romance, Otome

Price: $39.99

Rating: Mature

I nabbed this game at a small discount from Amazon with a preorder (with prime you get a discount). 

Completed Routes:  Hiroya,  Libera,  Astrum,  Radius,  Demento

Happy Ending Route Only:  Poyo-poyo

The play style of this is pretty typical. Your choices impact which characters you meet and your choices impact whether you get a happy ending or a merry bad ending. 

The artwork is lovely and there are a variety of backgrounds as well. Each romantic interest has a good selection of CG’s to go with them, but you’ll need both happy and merry bad endings to see them all. 

As far as the story: You really do have to go through and play different routes to have a firm grasp on what all is going on. Some routes give more background from your past than others. But the interconnections of the stories is great. 

I gotta confess I really enjoyed some of the merry bad endings. Its kinda satisfying seeing a pretty messed up ending once in awhile. I did really like Sound Of Drop Fall into Poison which is a horror visual novel. 

The merry bad endings made a great contrast to the happy endings. Because things really could have gone very very badly. The happy endings have more content. Also, you can go look under bonus features to see your romantic interest perspectives. It just reading and doesn’t come with CG’s, but you could get a kick out of them. 

The main lead is okay. She isn’t overly exciting (except in some of the merry bad endings). I can’t really say what the romantic interests would be all that interested in her as a person. 

The character development for the romantic interests is on point though. Each one has a clear personality and has their own issues going on in the real world (some more sympathetic than others). You have a range of ages, maturity and characteristics. However, they all are pretty boys and if you don’t like bishounen boys this might not do it for you. 

Overall, since there isn’t a huge range of visual novels out there I don’t see why you wouldn’t want to add this one to your collection (even with the price tag). If you are sensitive to gore this may not be the game for you. It isn’t overly graphic in the gore department or in the sexual side of things. 

My Lady is a very short visual novel. A few quick choices decide your fate. You play as a wealthy young lady who is in love with your butler. 

Steam: $0.99

The art is very simplistic. But it has its own appeal and style. There are only a few different backgrounds. There is a small selection of CG’s as well. 

The gameplay is very simple. Read and then make a choice. There are only a few choices in the entire game. But that’s mostly because the game is sooooo very short. I unlocked all the endings in under an hour. 

But the question is: Was it worth it?

I liked it. I thought it was clever that a couple choices really could decide you fate. While it is very short it is also very cheap. The artwork was charming and the story got it’s point across quickly. If you are looking for something to kill an hour with this could fit the need. 

Price:$9.99 on steam

Genre: Hidden Object, Point and Click

Time Played: 3 hours

This was a fairly fun puzzle game. I’m new to this style of game and for a first game I could have done worse. 

I chose to play on regular mode because I’m a beginner. Which of course means I probably got through the game much faster as a result of sparkly hints while playing. 

You play as an investigator of some rather intriguing murders. The plot is pretty basic you and your partner explore and walk around until your discover what is going on. 

The puzzles had enough variety and were challenging enough to keep me interested. I had to skip a couple because I got stuck and I didn’t want to stop progressing (that shell one…..IDK). But generally I think the puzzles are pretty beatable. There is a variety of puzzle types: shifting around puzzle pieces, mirrors and light and of course hidden objects. My one issue with the hidden object is there were a couple items that I didn’t know what they were. So, I just ended up clicking random objects in the hope that I would click the right one. 

The voice acting was pretty subpar. But the fact that it did have voice acting was a bit of a surprise for me. 

As far as visuals…..they were fine. Some of the background images were great. Especially in the bonus chapter. Those were just a little spooky especially in contrast to the earlier visuals. 

Honestly the main game was was just fair. But the bonus chapter is where this game got points for me. It was much more entertaining than the original chapter. But there is also less to guide you through the game. 

Quick Look: My Butler Visual Novel

Genre: Dating Sim, Visual Novel

Buy it: Steam

I bought this on an impulse without properly looking at it. This is a Dogenzaka Lab game. And it falls very much in line with their usual stuff. So, if you like their usual stuff you will probably like this. For me though their stuff doesn’t really float my boat. I played Destiny’s Princess as an introduction to their stuff and this game follows the same general principals. 

As with Destiny’s Princess this game has fairly unhealthy relationships. The naivety of the self-insert character makes much of one transpires feel a little icky. Just gonna say trigger warnings for generally unhealthy relationships for this game. So, if that is an issue you have been warned. 

The gameplay is pretty straightforward. You select a choice and the story progresses. Your choices really don’t seem to impact the story all that much and really just effect which ending you get: happy or normal. I prefer my visual novels to have a lot more going on. More endings. More impact on the story. Just more. As you progress you can check your likability. Keeping track of that means you can guarantee a happy ending since you can immediately see if you made the choice that increases your likability. So, save often if that is the goal. 

There are three romanceable characters.

KIRA Yosuke is a model. He likes to play with the main character and enjoys upsetting and embarrassing her (you can see why not so much healthy relationships). 

KAMISAKI Makoto is an idol. He is a former childhood friends and doesn’t seem to know how to handle his emotions regarding the main character. H came off in particular as creepy and obsessive.

YONEKURA Shohei is an actor. He switches personas and is very pushy. He is super aggressive physically and doesn’t ask for permission. 

There are a good amount of CG’s for the price. The some CG’s get their own space in the gallery and all they are is a close up of a different CG which felt kinda cheap. The art is good quality. The backgrounds had an issue for a bit, but a recent update has fixed that issue. Although some of the images still are pixelated. I’m assuming they will fix that in time. 

The music gets REALLY repetitive. Especially, if you binge play. 

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