Recent reviews by Humblebee

I think Payday 3 is fun. I think it has improved quite a lot since launch. However, I cannot, in good conscience, give this game a recommendation.

I have been patient with this game. I've played it despite its flaws, despite being a clearly inferior game to both its predecessors. I've waited through all the controversies for the game to get better. And it has gotten better: we've had Armor 2.0 which actually made armor interesting to use, and we've also had Skills 2.0, which removed the asinine Edge/Grit/Rush system and completely revamped a lot of the skills in a way that made the game much more fun to play... in loud in particular. Yeah, sorry stealth players...

But every time Payday 3 updates, I feel like a monkey paw curls one of its fingers. A big update happened? We're also cancelling offline mode! New heist? By the way, Almir Listo, the most recognizable face of Payday himself, leaves the company! Skills 2.0 update came out? Here, buy our plushie and look at our AI slop! Also, that's the only content you're getting for the rest of the year. Merry flocking Christmas heisters!

It just doesn't stop. This game is cursed to take a step in the right direction, only jump right into traffic and get hit by a truck. The Advent Calendar event is the straw that broke the camels back for me that made me write this review. How do you make a 25-day event with content for every day, and deliver less than one piece of in-game content? The amount of teasers we were getting kind of led me to think we might actually get a heist. And my expectations were as low as low can be by this point. When the event began, I thought we'll get the Skills 2.0 update and a gun; not even a heist. We didn't even get that.

And this is a relatively small gripe, but why is Teddy Moo so damn forced? In the almost 15 year history of this franchise, Teddy Moo made his debut in No Mercy in PD:TH, he re-emerged in No Mercy for PD2, then he got a mask in PD2 and an outfit in PD3. That's four times he's even mentioned in the franchise, and only two of which where he's actually played a role in a heist (both of which are the same heist in different games, mind you), in almost 15 years! And now you're expecting everyone to just accept him as the new mascot of the Payday franchise? Get out of here with that contrived nonsense! Let me give you four words that you could work with to use as mascots: "Dallas," "Hoxton," "Wolf," and "Chains." The original four heisters, the ones who's faces are all over this entire franchise, aren't good enough anymore?

So, no. I cannot recommend this game. Not until Starbreeze and OVK get it together and actually focus on making the game good and not showing half-hearted efforts to appeal to your fans in trying to keep the franchise alive by any means necessary. The 180 they have to pull on this game has to be on the level of Cyberpunk 2077 or No Man's Sky, but I really don't see that happening.

I'm otherwise a relatively patient person. I've been waiting for a sequel to something I love for well over a decade now, and I thought I could wait until Payday 3 could get to the point where I can happily recommend it to my friends. Unfortunately, this game has stretched my patience so thin that I don't think that day will ever come. So all I can do, at this point, is to keep following this game until the inevitable death knell rings.

... At least we still have Payday 2.

To quickly address anyone reading this who has not played OneShot before, yes, the game is absolutely worth it! I can't go into details without giving away spoilers, so I won't, but I would consider this to be one of my favourite games of all time. If you're in for a story with meta elements, puzzles, and potentially some emotional moments, I can't recommend this game enough.

With that said, I'm going to assume that whoever is reading this review right now has already played OneShot before and just wants to know if the new version is worth buying over the original Steam release. And the answer to that is... maybe? I would say it's already worth it just to support the developers for making an incredible game, but really the biggest thing you may really want out of this is the capability to play it on your Steam Deck. Funnily enough, as a Steam Deck owner... I... didn't actually think to do that... So I don't actually know how well it works on that.

But the main difference in this version is that the game is now completely self-contained. You don't actually have to search your own computer for the files, as all the files that would be in your actual folders in the original Steam release will now be on a fake operating system that also runs the game itself. It's kind of like Doki Doki Literature Club Plus with all the meta elements happening in the game itself rather than in your actual game folders, though in some ways better implemented, less so in others.

What I mean by that is, keeping the game open to fiddle with the fake OS is no problem. Much like the original Steam release, it may feel slightly cumbersome, but nowhere near unplayable. On top of that, the World Machine Edition also includes character profiles, a CG gallery, a music player, as well as customization options for the fake OS, including wallpapers and colored themes. However, at the time of writing this review, navigating some of these galleries is kinda cumbersome. You can't just pick the music track or picture you want to open, but instead you have to click through all the ones before the one you want to get to. At the very least, a drop down menu would be appreciated. Or a folder like with the wallpapers and themes.

That said, the issues are minor and shouldn't hinder your experience with the game itself. OneShot is truly one of those games that you just can't overstate how amazing it really is. If you have played OneShot before, chances are there's not a whole lot extra for you here. But if you're looking to play it on the go on a Steam Deck, or if you're looking to play it for the first time, then this is absolutely the version for you.

As an avid Jackbox fan, this one is a huge disappointment. It takes two previous games and one original game and applies a naughty theme on all of them, and... well, I feel like it doesn't get the "naughty" theme across as much as the "what is up my fellow degenerates" vibe. It just doesn't feel right if the game is providing the horny prompts as opposed to the players providing the horny answers. But that might just be my own preference.

The games themselves are... Well, they're fine, in a sense... But going over them one at a time:

Faking It All Night Long
It's Faking It, but naughty. This one got the best treatment out of all of the games in this pack, since it now supports remote play, something that wasn't supported in the first game, so you had to do some huge workarounds to get it working remotely. Honestly, if the we could have the prompts from the first game and apply it to this new version of the game, I would absolutely love that.

Dirty Drawful
It's Drawful, but naughty... That's it. Nothing more to it... I guess it does have an undo button, something that the previous Drawful games didn't have. Beyond that, I would argue that every other version of Drawful feels more fun to play.

Let Me Finish
The only original game in the pack and it's bare bones. You're given pictures, and you're supposed to make drawings on them and then present your argument for the prompt. It feels like the very base of an idea for a game, the place where you start building a game upon, but there's just nothing beyond that.

In its entirety, the pack does have fun games to play, but there are much better versions of those games already available in previous packs. If you don't mind fiddling a little bit with Discord (or whatever communication app you use) to play a game of Faking It remotely, then the original, in most cases, is more fun to play. If you want to play Drawful, any other version of that game is about as good, except with less raunchiness. And if you want a presentation game, Junktopia, Talking Points and Patently Stupid all have so much more to offer than Let Me Finish.

To finish off, I do not write this review because I think the games themselves are bad. I just think that the naughty theme does not exactly work with Jackbox games as a whole, and the games that have been included are either inferior versions of games we already have, or there are already different games that work so much better available. So the question I leave you off with is: while the games in this pack can be fun, why would you buy this when there have better alternatives for sale for many years already?

I haven't really kept up with Helldivers 2 all that much since Sony tried to force PSN onto it, which would have prevented me from playing the game with friends. My previous review was negative in protest of that decision, but to my knowledge, they seem to have given up on that for the most part, if not completely. And if that is indeed the case, it's probably way overdue for me to actually change my review to reflect that change.

Sucks that Sony almost decided to limit the game to a surprisingly small portion of people in the world, but good on them for not going through with it. It's a good game, always has been, and I hope it stays that way.

"I don't care what it says on your stupid family register. You're Haru Suzuki and you're an absolutely amazing woman. So just - don't forget that, OK?" - Erika

A story of honesty and acceptance, a story of love, and a story of self-discovery. I thought I was in for a really cute visual novel about three girls maybe discovering love for one another. What I was not prepared for was the amount of real-talk and variety of different emotions that I ended up feeling. I'm not gonna lie, I cried a couple times.

I don't really know how much I can talk about this visual novel without giving spoilers, but the starting point of all of it is that one of the main characters, specifically Haru, is a trans woman who is constantly burdened by society to conform to gender norms that the world has put upon her. From there, the story blossoms into many directions. Haru doesn't want to burden any of her friends due to her being trans, Manami trying to reassure her that she's no less the person she is even if she is being pressured by society, and Erika, who only recently met Haru for the first time and admits to not knowing a lot about these things, trying to understand what Haru has to go through and to support Haru as time goes on. That's mostly a summary of the first chapter, but there's a bunch more in the following chapters.

This is one of the most mature takes on LGBTQ+ topics I've seen in a visual novel yet. It shows how people identify themselves as LGBTQ+ in some way have to deal with discrimination, how it makes them feel and how it kind of gaslights them into thinking that they're the ones being problematic, all the while showing that if you identify yourself as LGBTQ+ in some way, you deserve to be loved just like anyone else.

I have to apologize if I'm sounding insensitive about this, I've never really been good at talking about these things. I was assigned as male at birth and have always identified myself as male, so I can't straight up say that I understand what transgender people have to go through. I've always been open to learning and understanding since I don't want to stay ignorant, and while I still can't say that I'm all that knowledgeable about it even now, A Year of Springs really helped me at least get some sort of an idea about all of it.

Honestly, I can't recommend this enough. It's also cheap, only 5€, and not too long either. Maybe less than 5 hours or so. It treats the subject matter with the respect it deserves, and I think we need more visual novels like this. If you want an idea of what to expect, you can read the first chapter, "One Night, Hot Springs" for free on Steam.

Finally, I want to say: If you are someone that identifies themselves as LGBTQ+ in some way, please know that your sexuality and gender identity should be respected just like everyone else. You are your own person, and these things should not get in the way of people respecting or loving you. Be proud of who you are.

Selene ~Apoptosis~ is a horror visual novel about... *sigh* Ok, I have something to confess. I spent about 4 and a half hours on this visual novel, reading a little bit every time I had the chance, and I could not tell you anything interesting that happened. There's a lot of the main character going crazy, there's a humanoid cat that I have no idea if she was real or not, and for some reason there are a ton of these weird disturbing commercials that don't really seem connected to anything happening.

Now, full disclaimer here: I may have not gone through this visual novel 100%. I tried to see as much as I could, even following a guide, but I still somehow missed out on two achievements, which probably means that I must have missed something. That said, the guide itself said that the visual novel is buggy, and there apparently is a glitch that can prevent you from reading it 100%. And if that's the case, I dunno what to say. I either missed something or I got screwed. Hard to tell at this point.

The problem I have with this visual novel is that... I just don't get it? Whenever I'm reading it, I feel like it's trying to throw scares and creepy situations at me at random in hopes of scaring me. Beyond that, I don't get the story, I don't get what it's about, I don't see the whole thing as that scary to begin with... Maybe it's the few things here and there that I missed that ties it all together, but I went through most of it and still had no idea what was going on. Maybe the true story is cryptically hidden in those commercials and logs that the game gives you every once in a while, and if that's the case, then no wonder. I hate figuring stuff like that out when I just want something casual to read.

Do I recommend it though? ... Well, like I said, I don't really get it, but if you're the kind of person that looks deeper into these things, maybe you'll be able to figure something out. It's free, so I guess it wouldn't hurt to try it out if you're not squeamish. Me? I'm not that person. So I'm unfortunately gonna have to give it a "no."

There is a paid adult DLC, which I did get. The H-scenes aren't anything special. They feel like they're tacked on more than anything else. I don't think you really need the DLC.

It's a short, sappy story about girls falling in love. If you're not into that, there probably isn't a whole lot for you here then. I really like it though.

Originally released in 2016, it used to be free, but with the release of the Steam version, it now costs money (both on Steam and itch.io). And while I would normally have a bone to pick with developers and publishers who do that, I'm giving this one a pass since the price tag is very low and the content itself is, in my opinion, worth it.

I probably shouldn't be saying much about "Her tears were my light," since the visual novel is super short to begin with and talking extensively about it could give the whole story away. But to go a little more into detail, as the description suggests, this is a love story about the physical manifestations of time and space. The main gimmick of the visual novel is that, since you follow Time's perspective, you can rewind time to change the future. That's cleverly done through actually rewinding the text and restarting the story from the beginning. That's about all I can say about that before I start getting into spoiler territory, so I'll just finish it off by saying it gets pretty sappy.

That's about it honestly. I think it's a very cute story worth the asking price, even if the length is 30 minutes or less. Also, just to add, I'm super glad and super excited that Nami is bringing some of her games over to Steam. I hope they get more attention, because she makes some really cute and heartwarming games. I wish her all the best in her endeavors.

*sigh* I've had this game in my library for more than half a year by now, and having just finished it 100%, I'm beating myself up for not playing it earlier.

I've played a bunch of NomnomNami's games on Itch.io prior to this one, and I always found them very entertaining. If there were any games that made me feel all soft and fluffy with happiness inside, Nami's games would definitely be up there as some of my favourites that fit that category. So when I saw that this one managing to make it onto Steam, it was a very pleasant surprise and I couldn't be happier. But that's just me rambling, let's talk about the game itself.

Bad End Theater is an interactive visual novel where you get to play a story out the way you want to. You have four characters to choose from, and from there you make your choices and see how everything turns out. The only problem is that every path leads to a bad ending. The more endings you explore with a character, the more branches open up for different characters, and the more bad endings you can unlock. But maybe, somehow, somewhere in the game there could be some sort of good end waiting for you?

The game plays like a visual novel with quite a lot of choices which dictate what path you're put on. Unlocking certain paths will require you to make the specific choices for the character you picked, but also you need to have unlocked character traits for the other characters from doing more runs with them. It seems a little restrictive at first, but the more paths you try to do with more characters, the more choices you'll have later on. All of it culminates into a puzzle game of making the correct choices and picking the right traits to get that specific ending you want.

The game is really short. In just about 2 hours, I managed to 100% the game, excluding the full reset achievement (I don't think I'm mentally prepared to do that just yet as of writing this). For a game that's about 8€, it feels right around the "is it really worth that much" threshold. On one hand, it's a very short game, which can easily be done in one sitting. That alone seems like it might not be worth the price. On the other hand, I would consider this to be one of Nami's best works. Having played Bad End Theater made me remember why I like their games so much to begin with. There's always this feeling of happiness and satisfaction at the end that just makes me love these games more every time I play them.

So if you're having trouble deciding whether to get this game or not, I encourage you to get it! If you're discouraged about the price, then wait for a sale. I would still argue that this is well worth the money for the experience alone, despite it being a bit short. Or if you want a taste of what this game could be like, I recommend checking out NomnomNami's games on Itch.io. Most of them are free, so you don't have much to lose by trying them out.

... Man, I'm feeling a bit nostalgic now. It's been a few years, maybe I should go back and play some of Nami's older games again.

The store page description states:
"You wake up, alone, on a strangely familiar island full of puzzles that will frustrate and annoy you."

And... That's the gist of the game. It's a lot of maze puzzles that are either laughably easy or so incredibly vague, think-outside-of-the-box, cryptic bull that you'll either look up a walkthrough (like I did on several occasions) and then go "that's so stupid," or just quit the game then and there.

There is no options menu, so don't go expecting you can change even basic options, like mouse sensitivity (it was too low for me), screen resolution, and so and so forth. Also, for the sake of clarity, EVERYTHING is a maze puzzle, including the menu for continuing or exiting the game. Connect everything from START to END, that's about all you need to know about the mechanics of the game.

It probably takes like an hour or so to clear the game, it took me an hour and a half because I got stuck several times and had to look up a walkthrough. So an hour's worth of game... All of that is a lead-up to a punchline that was so unfunny and so not worth it to the point where it actually looped around to being funny and actually kinda worth it. That's pretty amazing in and of itself.

Do I recommend it? Well, it's free, so wouldn't hurt to give it a shot. Just be prepared to go "really?" or "oh come on!" a whole lot, and keep a walkthrough handy just in case. But like I said, I think the ending is kinda worth it, although don't expect it to be a life-changing revelation, and don't expect any form of catharsis from it.

With Lightkravte being released, I was in the mood to give this a re-read. It made me realize that I'm way overdue on writing a review for this.
(I should also disclose that I got this for donating to Alice in Dissonance's Patreon page back in 2018)

Mhakna Gramura and Fairy Bell is a children's tale written by well-known author Alissyn Rievegh, but the story was completely unknown to the rest of the world. That is, of course, until Alice in Dissonance took it upon themselves to localize it for the rest of us, so that we could enjoy classic children's stories.

... Or at least, that's the front of it. In reality, Alissyn Rievegh is an author from the fictional Fault universe, and Mhakna Gramura and Fairy Bell is a children's story well known in Rughzenhaide, also from that same universe. To make it abundantly clear, this is a spin-off of the Fault series developed by Alice in Dissonance, which doesn't really have much to do with the story of the main series it's based off of, with the obvious Rughzenhaide parallels being the exception, so you should be able to enjoy this without having read a single Fault visual novel. The reason I point this out is because that was kinda how I remember this visual novel being presented when I first saw it, and it did kinda give it a meta element to it. It's kinda neat. But what of the story itself?

Mhakna and Sebia live in a rather rundown orphanage run by the rather nasty Tigrah Anne, who shows no respect to the children by constantly abusing them, enforcing child labor, and turning the kids into animals and selling them off to other people if they don't get adopted before turning 10 years old. Needless to say, Mhakna and Sebia hate this current state of life that they have, and they pray to Fairy Bell to save them and bring them to eternal happiness. Fairy Bell hears their requests and take them to Enles Land, a land created by Fairy Bell to bring suffering and sad children to, so that they never have too feel so again. Fairy Bell allows Mhakna and Sebia to live in Enles Land forever, exploring new things to make them happy and meeting new friends along the way, so long as they promise one thing: to never grow up.

This is a kinetic novel, which means there aren't any choices to be made. It's also a short read, you'll probably read it through in less than two hours or so. But for those two hours, I gotta say: I felt a lot of different emotions. I felt sadness, joy, fear, relief, all sorts of emotions. If a visual novel can bring tears to my eyes or choke me up a bit, then I know it's doing something right, and this one did do that on a few occasions. I also do love how Mhakna Gramura and Fairy Bell sort of poses the question of what true happiness is, and what happiness means to different people. Considering that this is written in a children's book style, I think it fits pretty well in there. Although, as is on par with a lot of Alice in Dissonance visual novels, it does have it's dark moments here and there. I'm not gonna spoil much here, but all I will say is that Rughzenhaide children are probably a bit more emotionally hardened than the children of our world.

Beyond the main story, there's also an encyclopedia. This has entries from explanations of certain terms to character profiles. For those not familiar with the Fault universe, or just otherwise doesn't have a strong grasp of a lot of the concepts from Fault, it has some helpful terms to get you started on a couple things. However, regardless of whether you have knowledge from Fault or not, I still highly recommend checking it out for the character profiles, most of which you unlock after you've finished reading. These profiles add so much more depth to the characters, and it shows sides to them that you wouldn't otherwise see in the story as it unfolds. So once you've finished reading the story, go give the encyclopedia a read. You won't regret it one bit.

The art style is fantastic. This is one of the few visual novels I've read where pretty much every single piece of art is something akin to a full CG, rather than having character art on a background that talks to each other. Combined with the more stylized visuals and small motions that have been added to them, Mhakna Gramura and Fairy Bell just looks beautiful. And the soundtrack is just amazing. The main theme still brings a tear to my eye every once in a while, the orphanage theme is so melancholic and beautiful at the same time, the character themes for each character go perfectly with their personalities, and the creepy themes still give me chills. There aren't that many different tracks in the game, but with what it has, it knocks it out of the park. If you're considering getting the soundtrack as well, I cannot recommend it enough.

In conclusion, I feel like this is a must-buy for anyone who's into visual novels. For the asking price, I think the story itself is already enough to be worth it. And while I love the soundtrack to this, you could make the argument that the price for that is a little too high, considering it's twice the price of the actual visual novel. Still, if you get the chance, I recommend getting that soundtrack as well. If you don't think it's worth it for that price, wait for a sale. The music is too beautiful to go unnoticed.

Anyway, Mhakna Gramura and Fairy Bell gets huge recommendations from me. I don't think you'll regret reading it.