Beyond R: Rule Ripper

Being a fan of death game genre, I really enjoy the ideas and what the game offers here. The setting is something fans of the genre will be familiar with, but it manages to remain fresh with many interesting elements. The cast may look a bit bland at first, but the writing really makes them shine and makes you care about them. It's unfortunate that the game seems to be held back by its engine. There are many graphic hiccups that, while don't interfere with the ability to play and finish the game, make the game looks unpolished as well as revealing many things behind the scene too much like how sprites are separated into parts, or how the council scene are characters with a table sprite on top etc. However, some issues will stop you from proceeding the game. The developer is nice and fast with bug fixing, but when this happens and causes your game to be stuck, it dampens the experiences with the game. It also doesn't help that the game features many dead man walking situations which will force you to backtrack and find the missing pieces that you need. It can feel unfair, since there is no sign telling you that this is what you need to do and it's basically pure luck. The game does features a hint system with the in-game narrative after each bad end or death end, but it can sometimes be too vague or a little much, especially the system that let you backtrack and get back to where you were very quickly. My understanding is that there's a narrative reason to why this is explained as an in-game narrative instead, perhaps because it will be revealed more about the story later, but as a game system, it would have benefited the player and made the game more pleasant if this system were explained like a tutorial. With the engine making the game not as smooth as it should be for a visual novel game, it's already frustrating as it is, and not teaching players how to use this feature just doesn't help. The council and interrupt system, while creative, suffer from the fact that the game wants you to play without a text pause. Although the text pause option is available, since the game tells you outright that that isn't the intended experience, I decided to play the game without the text pause option during the council. While I understand that the game want to build some kind of tension, the council text flow system hurts the game more than it helps, imo. I've already built a habit of pressing the advance button for the text to finish, read the whole thing, then press again to move to the next part. However, if you press advance button to finish the text, the text will fade and move to the next part right away, not giving you enough time to read the whole thing. It's true that the game warns you and let you customize the reading and wait speed, but it's honestly annoying having to do all that (especially when there seems to be a bug that whatever you set before the council is replaced by the council setting). The council, most of the time, feels like there's no clear goal or you don't know what to expect. And when there's a chance for you to interrupt, it doesn't come back like in Danganronpa, so if you miss it you have to start over. It's really disheartening with all the stuff you get and they turn out to be useless since there is only one way to solve the puzzle. And it's so specific it doesn't make you feel smart for solving them. You might want to use the rollback feature, but often you won't get access to the menu that lets you do that, so you can only click start, go back to the menu, then reload from the start of the council. And even when you can rollback, you can only rollback to the start of the council anyway, not at a specific point in time. This makes the council really tedious and half way through I gave up on trying to play the game without knowing anything, and just use the guide for true end instead. It's just too frustrating and really takes me out of the game. It's a shame, since the game features some nice story setups, twists and characters, but half way through the game it became too frustrating for me to care and I just want to go through the game to read the story. However, the ending feels like it's a big setup for the next two games. I don't mind that some questions aren't answered, but this one feels like nothing is even answered. Still, I can feel that this is a game with so much heart poured into it. Even with its flaws, there is something solid here and I'd love to see more from the series. By the time this review is posted, most game-stopping bugs should have been ironed out already, so I'm sure your experience will be smoother than mine. I wish the game featured more CGs and various more arts, as one thing about death games is to see the death scenes, but none of the death scenes are shown here. I understand that the game's budget is limited, so hopefully the next game will do something about that.

Beyond R: Rule Ripper is an excellent visual novel-style game. Beyond R excels in terms of cast, atmosphere, music, and in its unique Rule Ripper game. Many of the characters are quite interesting, and none are dead weight or detract from the game. Without getting into spoilers, there are certain specific ones that are handled superbly. The game transpiring within the Golden Jack and associated environs assigns 10 rules to various participants, each imposing effects and ramifications. Possession of a given rule affords exemption from that rule’s constraints. The death of a participant erases the related player’s rule, a fact which adds a layer of dynamism to this evolving death game. Additional factors include number links between two players, accusals, and councils. Dilemmas and moral quandaries arising from this situation constitute a core theme in Beyond R: Rule Ripper. Such issues are explored in various branches, permutations, and endings. While a true ending/route does exist, playing through most of the other possible endings/routes is necessary to get the full experience, particularly in terms of elucidating and fleshing out key details about many of the characters.

Might update with an in depth review after I have some more time to reflect on the story. Solid entry in this super niche genre, but probably only has value after playing the classics and desiring more (999, danganronpa, YTTD) I have a lot more thoughts but they would contain spoilers. Also currently has some bugs and visual glitches but the dev is currently working hard on them, so maybe wait for a month after release if you want a smoother experience. There's a cool and long demo. Go play it and decide yourself.

Great characters, amazing soundtrack. I love you, Coffee.

This game reminds me of Beyond Entropy visual novel, Quantum Leap, Raging Loop, this game "" Stalking, Cooking Companions, Dread Weight, that game that just came out with the trilogy about the something some organization looking for Zachary but not quite, and that game with the alchemist girl who has to die ten times with the guy named I_____ you know but it's otome, just any game with looping which you should know because I'm pretty sure it's obvious, anyway it's pretty good I give it a 10/10 it's just perfect art, characters are stereotypical but I like that familiary, perfect music, perfect extra, multiple narrators, little minigames, it's just a high quality high production game that you never totally forget unless you are me who plays a crap ton of games but I'll probably remember this one and this is an old visual novel called something Queen you can find on some archive of erogedownloads which by the way has really good games back when the internet was the wild wild west and you couldn't buy this stuff even if you wanted to which I did...before steam consumed my life which it has....honestly I'm getting lost in nostalgia but this is a 10 there are many endings many secrets many details even if I don't understand most of this it's still a 10 because it's like Danganonpa but with multiple endings and Cafe Zero in setting and all those otome games like Nicole and Raging Loop with a big mystery. Oh yeah expensive but thanks to the Kickstarter backers this kind of game is definitely expensive to make for sure that much I know.

Peak

Excellent game in the genre of 999 or Danganronpa.

very in depth ! Much more detailed and complex than may seem initially, recommend !

Uno de los mayores problemas del juego es su introducción. No se trata tanto de las conversaciones entre personajes, sino del propio narrador. La parte inicial (con la escena del sol, la casa y los créditos mezclados con narrativa) resulta confusa y te desconecta mentalmente. No queda claro qué aporta realmente a la historia ni qué relación tiene con lo que sucede después, ya que se siente excesivamente poética o abstracta. Además, todo lo que ocurre antes de llegar al pub (junto con las explicaciones de las normas del juego y la tablet) se vuelve excesivamente denso. Son explicaciones largas, enrevesadas y poco dinámicas que hacen que el inicio se sienta lento y, en algunos momentos, aburrido. Sinceramente, el juego funcionaría mejor empezando directamente con todos los personajes en el bar y la situación ya planteada. Los personajes, en cambio, están bien planteados (incluido Bill). Cada uno tiene su personalidad y sus interacciones funcionan correctamente sin hacerse excesivamente pesadas. También es muy positivo que el juego tenga una estética clara y coherente: todo el entorno del pub, los nombres de los personajes, el detalle de las bebidas, los objetos, las mecánicas, los sonidos y la ambientación en general están bien cuidados. Además, se agradece que las ilustraciones no estén hechas con IA, lo cual le da más valor artístico al conjunto. El mayor contraste y principal problema del juego está en su ritmo. Después de una introducción lenta y cargada de texto del narrador, las reuniones (que son una parte muy importante) pasan a ser extremadamente rápidas desde el inicio. Aquí es donde tienes que tomar decisiones clave, pero el tiempo es tan limitado que apenas da margen para pensar. Este cambio tan brusco de ritmo hace que la experiencia se sienta poco equilibrada. En mi caso, en mi primera partida, cuando por fin tuve control sobre las decisiones, la experiencia fue bastante frustrante. Solo tuve oportunidad de tomar dos decisiones y ambas fueron incorrectas, lo que hizo que mi partida terminara al momento. Da la sensación de que el juego no te da suficiente tiempo para adaptarte: pasa de un ritmo excesivamente lento a uno vertiginoso justo en los momentos clave. En cuanto al precio, no lo recomendaría a su coste completo, ya que la experiencia actual no me parece suficientemente equilibrada como para justificarlo. Sin embargo, podría ser una opción a considerar si se encuentra con algo de descuento. Aun así, no es recomendable para quienes nunca hayan jugado una novela visual de este tipo, pero sí puede resultar adecuado para quienes no tengan problema con narrativas más lentas y tengan experiencia en el género.