A Light in the Dark

Stockholm Syndrome: The Game. [h1] My Experience [/h1] You play as a rich kid, son of a CEO, who got targeted and kidnapped by a strange girl trying to get a ransom out of it. You can try to escape, or cozy up to your kidnappers to try and survive. I found it to be kind of okay, I think I'm just not the intended audience for the story. The art is well done, high quality and stylized nicely. But there isn't a lot of art, and a small selection of CGs and sprites for only two characters. You're gonna be staring at the same few backgrounds but for that I think it helps you to feel the same way the main character feels being stuck in that basement. It's enough for its short playtime though. Writing quality is great and vivid too. A major theme that the story seeks to explore is socio-economic differences, in a neutral way that doesn't pin the blame on anyone, neither the rich nor the poor. With the right choices you can explore that further. I liked it, but I don't think it really reached me given I'm a religious man and I already have my own ideas and perspective on these topics. For a visual novel, it certainly has more to interact with than just dialogue choices. You play over the course of several days, split between narrative sections and action segments where you can choose between chatting, observing or simply resting to get your stamina back up. Your "stamina" bar is pretty much a healthbar, you can get beaten around a bit in the game. It's a nice idea, but it made getting different endings a bit of a bother. I reached my first ending about two and a half hours, Endless Rain. I got another soon after but some things were bothering me to the point that I refused to continue unless I was following a guide. First, the autosave triggers between narrative scenes and action segments. But there's no opportunity to manually save except just before the start of a new day. This way, the game feels more like a chore I have to really sit down for and not something I can easily stop and pick up at any time if I had to or feel like it. This is made worse considering how many sheer options you can pick from day to day, so it makes it difficult to try and find your way to the correct choices for the ending you're looking for. Second were the timed choices. When you get a choice of two dialogue options all of a sudden, you have a few seconds to pick one or else the game will pick at random. Why? I can't see this as a gameplay function that supports the narrative in any way. Just like with the saving scheme, this is just annoying. Finally, the skip text function is incredibly slow compared to most other VNs I have read. It takes a few minutes to get to the next choice. I don't understand this decision at all. [h2] Conclusion [/h2] But honestly? I still recommend it. I think it's interesting and worth checking out, but I feel it's a bit lacking in content for the price it asks. There's also those technical inconveniences that I mentioned, but they're just small hurdles if you have the patience. I felt it was kind of okay, but that's likely because I'm just not really the intended audience. [i]Please remember to check other reviews to make a properly informed decision about purchasing this game. I am but one man speaking from my own experience and with my own preferences.[/i]