Analogue: A Hate Story

A lot of sci-fi imagines future tech, but this game imagines what the future remembers. It asks a sharper question: Do records preserve truth, or do they preserve power?

I went into this game not knowing what to expect, but after finishing it and achieving 100%, I can confidently say it's a must-have experience. Analogue: A Hate Story presents a unique approach to storytelling, unraveling its lore and plot through in-game archives filled with logs and messages. This method alone kept me hooked, pushing me to dig deeper into it's narrative and characters. It’s a refreshing take on the visual novel genre, giving the narrative a distinctive charm that makes it an easy recommendation in my opinion. The visuals are really charming, having that old anime feeling that I found quite endearing, complemented by a well-crafted soundtrack and sound design that enhances the immersion. While the game is relatively short—around two hours for a first playthrough—revisiting it for achievements and other hidden story elements made for an incredibly rewarding experience. The multiple endings are absolutely worth the effort. If you're looking for an engaging, self-contained story about dystopian AIs and a lost spaceship, I highly recommend giving this game a shot. It surprised me in the best way possible.

Analogue: A Hate Story holds a very unique place in my heart for video games. It's done something that few have done before. It's a game about pain, loss, connections, and how reaching out can bring sorrow because sometimes there's nothing you can do. I want to dance around a spoiler because the content is relevant to why it matters to me. I tried extremely hard to accomplish a task and failed what I perceived as an inevitability. That outcome broke me and the game keeps going. The result is that, even though I know there was a way to not fail, I can't bring myself to replay it again to fix my mistake. The act of failure has far greater impact on me and my experience with the game than it would to get a perfect game. So for 10 years I've carried the weight of those choices and I still recall them to this day because nothing has captured that feeling like this game.

overall a good Visual Novel. can recommend it. the price is in my opinion a bit to high but in offer for like -50% alright.

I feel like I am doing history homework for fun

The game is basically reading various diaries, letters and conversations from former residents of an abandoned "generation ship" and gradually finding out more and more about how life looked there and what happened to the ship. The logs were interesting and I was genuinely curious about those people's lives. The society created by the author is apparently based on certain real historical period and was very interesting as well (it's also the only game I've seen with "further reading" section). The game has some very serious themes and I liked that, but I feel like the "fanservice" endings don't really fit the theme? I mean, I guess I can understand why the devs would put this kind of thing in the game but it creates dissonance with the stuff you discover in the logs, especially the *Hyun-ae path. That aside, it's a great VN and definitely worth to buy on sale. Some people said the logs are hard to understand at first but the only thing that was hard for me was remembering the names for more than 3 seconds and that's a skill issue on my side. If you play the game also make sure to save every once in a while, because there's a branching event where you choose a branch [i]before[/i] you realize it's happening.

Reading games are worth it if the story is good.

Aunque pareciera muy complejo el utilizar la parte de los comandos, la historia se disfruta mucho y ambas IAs me gustan demasiado. si valio la pena el haberlo comprado y haberme sacado todos los finales.

VN with cool mechanics (codex dumps, reactor, console, etc.) and an interesting world. Recommended.

Spent a few hours staring at logs and messages on a spaceship. Most of the game is reading, clicking through text, and piecing together a mystery about the ship’s crew. There’s an AI that talks to you, but the writing didn’t really pull me in. No real action or challenge, more like sifting through archives. Atmosphere is sparse and lonely, but I barely remember any of it after five hours.