Circus Reviews - Blank Dream

I have a little fondness for RPG horror games like Ib, and I find that vgperson does an exceptional job with translations. So in my new Twitter-following adventures, I found that vgperson had translated another RPG horror game, as seems to be their comfortable niche, and so I decided to give it a quick go-through.

Blank Dream follows sixteen-year-old Mishiro Usui, who has committed suicide and ended up in a world called the Mirror World that seems to be a gateway between the real world and the afterlife. She is told to stare into the mirrors she finds and then break them, in order to fulfill the dying wish that she can't remember. On her way, she meets two other people, Yuzu and Ryotaro, who have forgotten their pasts and are trapped in the Mirror World, similarly to her. What will Mishiro find on her journey? Will she manage to discover and fulfill her wish?

To be honest, my first thought when playing this game was, "Somebody has played The Witch's House." There are a lot of instant death traps, just like that game, and several puzzles seem to be copy-pasted; anyone who has played The Witch's House should notice them pretty quickly. It's uncomfortably noticeable, not just because they're pretty much lifted from another game, but because this game didn't really need instant death traps. In The Witch's House, it felt necessary because the whole point of the game was that the house seemed to be trying to kill you. In this game, it's a bit out of place. At its core, it has a whole bunch of strongly dark themes like suicide, bullying, and adultery; it explored them all really well and could have done fine with just those, but it felt the need to add not just puzzles but puzzles that it doesn't seem to have invented.

The other characters aside from you aren't very well developed. Yuzu and Ryotaro just kind of hang around until the very end of the game, at which point you have to interact with them to get the full story and the best endings. Ending 1, the best ending, involves fulfilling both of their dying wishes, but the game doesn't ever make you care about them enough to actually want to do so. It's a shame, because they're appealing characters, but they're just not given enough time to come into their own.

Mishiro herself is very well developed, and I think I would have liked the game more if it had just been about her. Her story is both intriguing and sad, and once you learn why she did the things she did, you'll probably end up sympathizing with her.

As mentioned above, the game has some very dark themes to it; suicide is probably the most prominently explored. You're basically required to commit suicide repeatedly to break yourself out of memories and progress in the game, so it's probably not a game for the faint of heart, but it builds a dark mood that is good at drawing the player in. The story is interesting and well-paced, and the soundtrack that accompanies it is appropriately haunting.

All in all, despite what it does well, the game is dragged down by its unnecessary additions. Yuzu and Ryotaro do end up appearing in Mishiro's memories in an unexpected way, but at the same time, they're not really needed outside of the endings and aren't given enough attention to warrant the player caring enough to save them. Most of the puzzles don't add to the game that much. It's sad that I'm forced to just barely recommend this game, because I can't help feeling like it could have been a lot better.

On the plus side, there are wonderful, out-of-context screenshots like this one to enjoy.

Blank Dream is available in English from vgperson's website, and in Japanese from the developer's website.

Final verdict: Despite a compelling main character and an interesting story surrounding her, Blank Dream is bogged down by characters that feel useless, and by puzzles that feel like they've been lifted from certain other RPG horror games.

Blank Dream is developed by Kanawo (of Teriyaki Tomato) and translated to English by vgperson. The opinions expressed in this review are my own. I was not compensated in any way for this review.

Circus Reviews - The Dark Side of Red Riding Hood

Being a person who likes deconstructions of commonly used stories, I'm a big fan of what one might call "fractured fairy tales". Straight fairy tales are kind of plain and dull. Mixing up those tales and applying dark twists, or even just reality, to them...That makes them a lot more interesting.

As you can probably figure out from the title and the screenshot, this game starts out with the story of Little Red Riding Hood. You are given a basket by your mother and told to go through the forest to Grandmother's house, and not to stray from the path. Of course, that can't be all there is to it...

Looking at this game, I'm immediately reminded of The Path by Tale of Tales. Both feature the same basic plot, both are rather deceptive at first glance, and both will give you a so-called bad ending for following directions and staying on the path. But while I may have some issues with The Path and with its developers, I can say that it accomplished what it set out to do, and it handles the story of Red Riding Hood a lot better than this game does.

There are six unique endings to The Dark Side of Red Riding Hood: the aforementioned bad ending where you go straight to Grandmother's house, and five endings that you get by taking five respective side paths in the forest. For a game with multiple endings, the experience feels quite linear. The path you take is the only thing that affects your ending, and there isn't anything to do outside of getting each ending. Also, while I mostly like the endings themselves, most of them have no connection to what you did to get them. Two ending paths in particular, the first and fourth, start out identical, the only difference between them being the path you took before getting to Grandmother's house...but then they end up going completely different ways. And the bad ending you get for not straying from the path kind of just cuts off early, with what happens afterwards left up in the air.

The artwork is nice enough; I like the style of the cutscenes in particular. The soundtrack is only a few tracks, but I like all that I heard, and the game is kind enough to fade out tracks at certain points so it doesn't get too terribly repetitive. And there are good ideas here; if the game had fleshed out its story more, I feel like it would have been quite enjoyable.

On the whole, though, the biggest issue is that there's just not very much to this game. There are six different endings, but the way to each one is very short, and there's nothing else to do besides just go and get them. That, and the endings themselves don't fit well with what little you do in game, and tend to be rather inconsistent. You find out a rather important backstory detail for Red in one of the endings, but it doesn't factor into the other endings much, and it really should. One ending has another previously unmentioned character show up, but there's no word on why he showed up in only that ending and not the others. It feels like a bunch of pieces for a game instead of a game.

So in the end, I didn't really find the game to be worth it. It won't take up very much of your time if you want to give it a try; you could probably have all the endings within fifteen minutes. Maybe you'll just leave it open for the music like I'm doing right now. But the gameplay is disappointingly absent, and there just isn't enough content to keep me interested.

In fact, I think the most interesting thing is this shot here...

The Dark Side of Red Riding Hood is available for free download in English from the translator's blog, or in the original Japanese from Charon's website.

Final verdict: Despite good visuals and a lovely if small soundtrack, The Dark Side of Red Riding Hood has almost no gameplay or storyline, and is simply too little to sustain itself.

The Dark Side of Red Riding Hood is developed by Charon and was translated into English by Terriball. The opinions expressed in this review are my own. I was not compensated in any way for this review.

Circus Reviews - The Mirror Lied

I may or may not have mentioned before, but I have a liking for dark and depressing stories. I think I find them more realistic, or maybe I just have a harder time relating to happiness. Whatever the case, today I bring you a dark and depressing story...probably. Maybe. It's hard to say.

You play as a little girl named Leah, who seems to have been born without a face. She wakes up alone in a large, relatively fancy house with no exit. And that's...about all you're told. Your objective, if you could call it that, is to wander around the house going through everything and trying to figure out what on Earth you're supposed to be doing, why you're alone, why you can't leave, what is going on...

I can't exactly call this a puzzle game, although there are some small puzzles to solve in order to progress the storyline. There are little colorful arrows that pop up telling you where to go, and extremely cryptic and creepy phone calls will give you hints every so often. Even if you go in with no idea of what to do, a playthrough will probably take around twenty to thirty minutes. The simplicity of the gameplay extends to the soundtrack, which is made up of a couple variations of one track. It's a very nice track and I like it a lot, but I can see it getting repetitive quickly.

Where this game excels is the mystery of its atmosphere. The literal blankness of your face and the pages of the books on the shelves...the plant in the main room that constantly needs watering...the world map on which continents disappear...It all meshes together very well. There isn't much in the way of story, at least not that you're told, but you get the impression that there's a huge one hiding behind the scenes.

If you're not a fan of abstract, experimental games, then this game is not for you. If you're not a fan of games that don't explain everything, then this game is not for you. I admit that The Mirror Lied isn't going to be everyone's cup of tea. It's an introspective game, one that gives you a lot to think about and doesn't answer questions very easily, or even at all. I feel bad being so light on story details, but the truth is that you're not really provided with many. It instead chooses to leave things up to the player's interpretation.

(Without wishing to spoil...I personally think apocalypse. Or something like that.)

So if you think you can handle thirty minutes of interesting if confusing gameplay, followed by you scratching your head in bewilderment, then give this a quick run. Come up with your own ideas as to why things are the way they are in this game. In a story where all interpretation is left up to you, there are no wrong answers.

The Mirror Lied is available for free download directly from the developer.

Final verdict: A short and entirely baffling game that sets up a great atmosphere and inspires a lot of thinking about its world, The Mirror Lied is an interesting experiment that is worth the small amount of time it takes to complete.

The Mirror Lied is developed by Freebird Games. The opinions expressed in this review are my own. I was not compensated in any way for this review.

Circus Reviews - Ib

I don't only play visual novels, after all; I also really enjoy free games in general! This one is a horror RPG made in RPG Maker, originally created by kouri in Japanese and translated to English by vgperson, who translates quite a few RPG Maker games (some more of which will probably be reviewed at some point).

Ib is about the titular girl, a girl whose parents probably should have hired someone else to give her a name. On her ninth birthday, she and her parents visit an art gallery to see an exhibition on the works of the artist Weiss Guertena. While Ib is exploring the gallery, the lights suddenly go out and all the people disappear. Ib suddenly finds herself in a strange world similar to the gallery but much more dangerous, where paintings and sculptures are out to hurt her. As she wanders through the unknown trying to find a way out, she meets a man named Garry and a girl named Mary, and the three resolve to stick together. Will they find a way out, or will they be trapped in the gallery forever?

Gameplay involves exploration and puzzle solving. The puzzles do require some thought, but they aren't anything horribly tricky. The gallery itself is an entity that will get very mad at you if you break other artworks or try to harm it, and it definitely doesn't want you to leave. Paintings and sculptures will chase you and take from your life if they hit you. The rose in the corner of some pictures up there is your life meter; at full capacity, it has five points, and if you lose them all then you're dead. Luckily there are health-restoring vases and journal save points scattered around the place; you would do well to make use of them.

I think the best thing about the game is just the way it builds itself up. The atmosphere, the soundtrack, the characters...They all fit together so well, and build a dark and frightening little world. You're a nine-year-old girl wandering around a land of death traps, and the game reminds you of this fact quite often. Even your older companion Garry (his actual age is unknown, but he's hypothesized to be between 19 and 24) is terrified by what he sees. There are some jump scares, but they're not the core of what makes the game so chilling. The graphics, admittedly, are a bit limited, but it's what they do with them that counts. For example, what happens when Ib innocently takes the key you need to open the first locked door?

But I'm not a thief; I'm just a role player!

Garry and Mary, your sworn compatriots on this quest, are both very interesting in their own way. Garry quickly takes on a protective role towards Ib, while Mary latches on to her as a friend. Ib herself is nearly a literal silent protagonist; you don't ever see her talk, and she's noted by her mother to be very quiet in general. But the game itself actually changes in a few ways to reflect that despite trying to be strong, the gallery is getting to her in a bad way. At one point, you and Garry come across a painting of Ib's parents...But why would a painting of Ib's parents be in the gallery? It could be the gallery trying to mess with you...or, from the way Garry reacts, Ib might just be seeing things. It's hard to tell. Both are kind of freaky.

There are multiple endings; the one you get varies depending on how you bond with Garry and Mary, whether you make the gallery angry with you, and whether you make it out alive. They vary from a golden ending to a couple where everything just goes to hell. Most of them are pretty damn heartwrenching. There's also a bonus dungeon if you make it to the end of the gallery and a special exhibition where you can see all the artworks you've witnessed; you also get a new game plus feature that allows you to go through another playthrough to find the artworks you missed. Those together give the game good replayability; one ending will take you maybe a couple of hours, but you'll definitely want to come back for more.

I have to be honest...I love this game. It's one of my all-time favorites, even including console games and big fancy high-budget visual novels. It proves to me that high quality game doesn't automatically mean giant monster game. This game's quiet scares, its subtlety, its characters, and its strong emotional pull make it a must play.

Ib is available for free download in English from vgperson's website, or in the original Japanese from kouri's website.

Final verdict: A horror RPG that gets the scary part down; throws in memorable characters and touching moments to make an unforgettable experience.

Ib was written, illustrated, and developed by kouri, and translated into English by vgperson with the developer's permission. The opinions expressed in this review are my own. I was not compensated in any way for this review.