Beyond R: Rule Ripper

Hadn't planned on writing a review but after finishing the game, the more I think about it the less I liked it and I was pretty mixed on it to begin with. The visual presentation and music are strong, and some of the characters are enjoyable. That's about all the praise I can give it. The biggest sin, for me, is that the game gives you an interesting premise (figure out how to survive the death game without any deaths, or at least minimal deaths) and then [spoiler]abandons it immediately. There's only one actual route with everything else being a bad end, and it's one where everyone ends up playing the kind of uninteresting death game until the exact outcome you were told would happen... happens.[/spoiler] The protagonist (among several other characters) accomplishes nothing for like three-fourths of the game and doesn't really pull anything off by the end. Most of the more solid characters are killed off first and you're left with one, maybe two passable characters when the finale rolls around. Speaking of the finale, reaching it is an exercise in frustration due to a level of hostile game design that hasn't been acceptable since Sierra adventure games stopped being made. What? You didn't pick up a piece of evidence four chapters ago because we arbitrarily let you only check three places? Tough luck, the final sequence is unwinnable. Oh, but it's fine, there's a time rewinder... hidden in a stupid spot no one would ever check. And that doesn't really help, since you have to fast forward back to several other choices you made or else you lock yourself out of the finale again. And which is also annoying because all the jump points are at the beginning of sections which open off with this game's very purple narration and dialogue, which takes about a minute of skipping to get through before you can go back to the choice you missed. The finale itself also has problems- most notably, [spoiler]you get no answers. This is because, surprise! This is only one third of a story, and presumably the other two games in this series will have actual story reveals in them at some point, but all this game has is a character who's supposed to be dead show up alive. And then. Rather than giving you an explanation for even that. This game has the audacity to just go "and then the characters learned what happened and it explained everything" and just not tell you.[/spoiler] tl;dr: game does not tell a good or even complete story; do not waste your time and money.

It's twisty, it's fun, it's philosophical, and not without its fair share of bugs. Pros: Fantastic UI, everything is themed and very stylish Incredible soundtrack, complete with a toggle to switch between different songs Tightly written mystery with compelling characters Secrets to find Cons: A handful of bugs, but most are still being squashed by the dev (who is very helpful and easy to get ahold of via the game's official discord!) May not run well on a low-end pc. The game engine appears to occasionally take up a lot of CPU usage which might make the game struggle from time to time. Hopefully this will be fully fixed in the future! Recommended for: Fans of Zero Escape, KID's Infinity Series, Zodiac Trial and its sequels, Exit/Corners, Game of Fourtune, Root Double BCAD If you enjoyed any of these titles, give this game a chance!

So, I've only just finished the Prologue, however there's a lot going for Beyond R: Rule Ripper. A jazzy OST, well written dialogue, and an interesting twist to the death game formula that's enough to make it feel unique. The art's great and there's a lot of neat touches to the UI that suggest a passionate developer. I'll update with a full review once I finish the game! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C1DT1buxE4k

Absolutely recommended. After 32 hours I have seen the true ending and quite a few others, and I'm willing to see the 100% of the game and get every achievement over time. The demo was very good although quite slow-paced, but that's not a bad thing. Just don't expect an always-tense death game à la 9 Hours 9 Persons 9 Doors, because this game is quite different although the audience may be the same. If you are unsure, just try it: it contains three entire chapters of the game. I played in spanish (loved to play a game of this kind in my native language), and the game was very well written, specially considering this is the devs's first videogame. I felt many things playing this game, but I was just in awe that I felt the need to take notes of everything, just like the characters in the story, and trying to piece together all the info and data that I got so I could reach a conclusion before it happened in-game, feeling like a true detective. It's been so long since it happened and I just felt really happy about that. I love Ace Attorney, but playing them I used to feel like I reached a very obvious conclusion yet the game refused to hear me until that happened. This didn't happen in Beyond R: Rule Ripper. The game is not perfect and, I'd say, the biggest flaw is needing a guide (which the dev kindly provided on Steam, by the way) to get the true ending. However, this happens on many mystery novels, and the "bad endings" are usually interesting and/or give clues about what's actually happening, which isn't usual in the genre at all, so I'm pleasantly surprised. I received this game for free from the dev. I didn't ask for it, but he sent it anyways and I couldn't be happier that he did; otherwise maybe I wouldn't have heard from the game. Really looking forward for Tohriv's and GJ Staff's next projects: I'll buy them on day one, because these devs can pull anything.

I havent actually gotten that far yet I'm just giving it a good review

Disclaimer I helped playtest for the game outside of Steam, so ignore my playtime. I really enjoyed the premise from the get-go. Each character represents a rule in this killing game, and there are hints throughout of who is which rule. I really enjoyed taking notes on this and testing if my theories were correct. It's a pretty unique premise for a death game and lived up to that concept! Gameplay wise, the game is mostly reading, and the game branches depending on your choices. You do have the councils where you also need to decide when you want to interrupt others, too. The art is beautiful, with a lot of expressions and poses. I do admit at first I had trouble telling apart the three older men (Poker, Cocktail, and Darts) but as the game went on I came to understand what made them distinct from each other. That honestly might just be a me-thing, though. I ended up enjoying all of the characters, everyone was really so charming. The music is absolute fire. I love the jazzy soundtrack, and it meshes perfectly with the bar setting. The UI matches great, too. All of these aspects come together to make a very immersive experience. You can tell a lot of love and care was put into this game. On the negative side, not 100% of your questions are answered by the end. The game does tell a complete story, and I felt satisfied by it. I don't want to get into any spoiler territory here, but it's worth mentioning you won't know the solution to absolutely everything. I enjoyed the game enough that I didn't feel it was a negative, but that's just me. If you don't like good guy protags, you might consider that a negative here? I personally loved Bill, but he's more of a pacifist and a nice person. If you were wishing to play as a cutthroat competitor in a killing game, that isn't the experience here. When I played, there were also a lot of bugs, many because of the engine being used (VN Maker). I can't guarantee that they've all been eliminated even though playtesters found a ton. But I will say the dev is extremely responsive, so if you contact him either via discord or through the discussion posts here, he will work ASAP to fix anything leftover. The plot is definitely worth pushing through any of these issues! I'd strongly recommend this one for any death game and mystery game enjoyers. I'm absolutely looking forward to what the dev releases in the future!!

First off, I have to overall rate this game positively - I think this is my first ever review, so it really is a special game and clearly a crime of passion by the developer, who is a super cool person that seems to be very committed to improving the game in any way they can. However, I can't help but feel that there are some growing pains that this game has, and to me personally it failed to deliver on some of the promises that it had made (implicitly), which makes it hard for me to 100% recommend to everyone, however, if it looks cool to you, I think you should play the demo for sure. Ignore my playtime, I AFK'ed a bit while playing, "true ending" should take around 30ish hours to complete (this is how far I've gotten), with some extra story bits taking a few more hours to see. I got kinda burned out, so I did not see all endings. Absolute positives: + The soundtrack is amazing and fits the vibe of the game perfectly + The dialogue is well-written, next to no grammar mistakes or typos + The characters are all very intriguing and interesting, especially the POV character + Kinda rudimentary but cool gameplay segments Up to taste: * This game is more of a very in-depth character study(/studies?) than a mystery story. I don't want to spoil anything in the game, however, lots of questions are presented and some answers are alluded to, but in the end this game is about the players as people interacting with each other within the confines of the game. There aren't many twists and turns, I was expecting something akin to the Zero Escape series, but got something pretty different. Still very cool and interesting, but different. Not a major spoiler IMO, but beware: [spoiler] really cool that we will be getting more of our questions answered in potential sequels, however, that does make this game feel a bit incomplete in my opinion. [/spoiler] * I felt like the trial and error style gameplay didn't really fit the story, keeping track of what you've seen can become tedious, and even though there does exist a mechanic to alleviate this I still didn't see what purpose it serves that for a given segment you can collect 4 out of 5 tidbits out of which you need 2 to progress five hours later down the line. Again, nothing major, just about the nature of choices in the game: [spoiler] I kinda would have preferred a more linear narrative, or one where your choices always have immediate visible effect. I guess I've just been spoiled by flowcharts. [/spoiler] Maybe this style is just not my cup of tea, I have not played a ton of VNs aside from the big popular ones (Danganronpa, Ace Attorney, Zero Escape). I ended up completing the game with a guide, but I felt like it didn't detract at all from my experience. The negative: – The game is buggy, no two ways about it, however, the dev is super passionate about fixing everything that they can, so it's getting better every day Play the demo, and if you are hooked, buy the game, you won't be disappointed - but be open to a different kind of experience!

Fun game with some caveats. [b]THE GOOD[/b] - The game and how the characters interact with it is easily the strongest part of this VN. [spoiler] Although there isn't a large focus on actually playing the game, you'll consistently see how it influences the behavior of the cast, some for better, some for worse, and some are just tragic. Theres so many variables that you'd actually want to see what would happen if different characters had different rules, or how an entirely new cast would handle the game, which lucky for yall, they have a trilogy planned already. Genuinely well made death game.[/spoiler] - Bills character and the initial premise of rebelling against the game and figuring out if you can save everyone (or as many as possible) is an intriguing stance to take. They also gave him JUST enough power in the story to make his character believable but also one we desparately root for. He struggles, is in constant stress, and [spoiler] to my knowledge, never succeeds in his goal. [/spoiler] But he still has meaningful impact on the game and the people around him, enough to feel reasonable for a regular guy like him to achieve, [spoiler]to feel bad for him when reality hits like a truck that one guy isn't really enough to break the game, and despite that, still feeling proud of him for doing a good job given the situation.[/spoiler] - Speaking of characters, the rest of the cast is compelling too. Some of the most fun i had with this game was guessing [spoiler]who had what rules? Who was teaming up with one another? Who was taking their precious time murdering the cast? What were the lives of these people like to make them behave the way they do now? [/spoiler] Etc. Etc. You can tell they did a good job when at the end of the day, you'll want none of these characters to die. At least not in the game. - The council system, when SPECIFICALLY completing them for the first time, are quite fun, or at the very least, they'll make you test your intuition and quick thinking skills, as dialogue and opportunties to intervene WILL NOT wait for you as the council cannot be paused (unless you use the pausing function, but they specifcally recommend you not to) which is kind of not very common but a fun thing to do in VNS. Don't worry, there are regular choices mixed in as well that act as breathers and give you time to think things through. The foundation for these councils is good. The execution though... [b]THE BAD[/b] - [b][u]EDIT: A patch was released a day after posting this adding some extra timeouts and disabling skipping when there are intervention opportunities. Should feel much better for players to navigate councils now so you can ignore this criticism on councils for the most part.[/u][/b] Councils, again. Great when you're immersed and trying to complete them for the first time. But there are issues that significantly sour the experience. Namely the inability to rewind and NO SAVES? I can understand the developer not wanting people to save scum their way through councils. Heck, i was up for the challenge. But after a while i was starting to wish i could do that sooooo badly... Because sooner or later, you'll be revisiting previous councils many times and make different choices. And its safe to assume said people will be skipping through much of the fluff they've already read. But what happens when you skip a moment you HAVE to intervene? Intervene at the wrong time? Choose the wrong Option? You gotta start the whole council over again, or at a timeout if you're lucky. You'll be irritated having wasted minutes of time, and be skipping again having lost your patience, meaning you're more likely to slip up and skip over something crucial again and the cycle repeats until you get it right or willingly skip less and slow down the already slow councils so you don't ♥♥♥♥ it up. By the time i got the true end and [spoiler] beyond ending 11[/spoiler] i was fed up with the system and lost the will to attempt completing this game. (I also doubt the pause function would have helped, since like i said before, you'd have to stop skipping early and slowly wait for the right moment, but at that point, would you really need the pausing feature?) - Might just be a personal preference, but i did not like locking endings behind mysteries. Like having to figure out what decisions to specifically make in the intermissions and councils to get whatever bad endings you desired. I certainly wouldn't have gotten the true end on my own without the guide, which the developer was kind enough to give a guide for it and all the bad endings. But still, it's not the fun kind of mystery for me. The mysteries in this game worked best when they helped give you advantages for when the game tests your knowledge later, like figuring out potential suspects for specific rules so you have a head start when the game decides to ask you who belongs to what rule, or what hints belong to certain people and piecing together a general idea of their life before they got into the game. I hope the sequel leans more towards these kinds of mysteries in the future and less towards making the players guess how to unlock content and get all the endings. - Bugs. Not really a big critique as the developer appears to be actively patching them out according to the news and other reviewers. But still encountered a noticeable amount of bugs in the game, mostly visual, but some gameplay related. (Main two being the [spoiler]5th council repeating vodka's data section for some reason and the game falling apart when you're on the data/hints section of the final council when you're fighting against you know who. [/spoiler]) - Lack of answers. For how invested you'll likely get with the game, after getting the true end [spoiler](or at least one of two versions of it, according to the game)[/spoiler]. It felt like literally none of the big questions were answered. [spoiler] What is this game for? Why were the people in the game chosen? Are there any hints or signs that escape or rebellion is possible? Do we know anything about the owner or organization? What happened to darts? (Probably died but nobody finds his corpse, even at the end when the remaining people run around everywhere outside the golden jack, not as important but a question i was very interested in nonetheless) Who are bill and coffee? How the hell did piano survive despite being eliminated? What happened after the three escaped in the true ending? [/spoiler] Obviously, a lot of these can't be answered right away, and some are deliberately being left for later. There's a trilogy planned, after all. But as a standalone game, wowie it makes the ending a lot more disappointing. Though [spoiler] from what I'm hearing of the afterword section in the true end, at least some of the characters in this game will be returning in the sequel, probably noticeably different from their original counterparts, but still the same people, so there's some hope there. Actually, that afterword as a whole saved the ending for me from being a disappointing experience altogether.[/spoiler] Despite all the cons i still recommend trying the game out if it intrigued you at all. It's an indie game and they have a trilogy planned. They deserve all the support they can get. I largely enjoyed my time with this game and I'll be looking forward to its sequel in the future.