Birth ME Code

This game does not deliver the experience of being a mastermind of a killing game. To compensate this, this game allows you can experience being a moron. I call this a case of borderline false advertisement.

"Mom can I have zero escape" "We have zero escape at home" Zero escape at home:

If this game were a book, I would 100% recommend it to everyone. The story is absolutely amazing, but other than that it's just a pretty interesting visual novel-type game. Unfortunately most of the puzzles in this game *really* let it down, it's usually a matter of either you get it or you straight up do not in this game, and there's not a lot you can do about it other than look up the answers unfortunately.

I really wanted to like Birth ME Code after how much I enjoyed its prequel, Head AS Code. But I can literally never recommend this game or any of the other games in this series to anyone because of the violently transphobic trope which is an unskippable part of the story. Spoilers below: [spoiler]The character Luxuria, the embodiment of the deadly sin Lust, is presumed to be a girl at first. However, later in the story, Lux is revealed to actually be a boy, and then proceeds to attempt to sexually assault the protagonist with a POV CG. The developer doesn't seem to understand that, even though this character is not transgender, he still embodies a transphobic stereotype. Trans women are often presumed to be men tricking people into believing that they're women with the intention of sexually assaulting them, and this utterly false stereotype is not only the root cause of a lot of discriminatory legislation, but quite literally gets trans women killed. I find it really hard to believe that the developer didn't think about how Luxuria might be interpreted, given the current political climate surrounding trans people.[/spoiler] Besides that, I have a lot of other gripes with this game. I was really intrigued by the premise, in which you play as the mastermind of the game - a female character, no less. However, Ancora is extremely bland. She feels oddly uninterested and clueless about the game that she's supposedly masterminding. She has the highest stakes here! Why doesn't she seem to care that much? I found Simon from HAC to be a somewhat enjoyable protagonist, so why did I find Ancora uninteresting? Honestly, I believe it's because Miracle Moon is somewhat inept at writing women. When Ancora isn't making pointless jokes about how big her boobs are, she has very little personality to speak of. The writing in this game in general is bad. BMC tries very hard to be Zero Escape, and it fails to come even close to the heights of the ZE franchise while carrying over all of its most frustrating flaws and amplifying them. You'll find plenty of poorly explained pseudoscience topics here, seemingly chosen at random, with no real significance or integration into the larger plot. On top of that, the characters are unlikable. This is somewhat intentional, as they're all designed to embody the Seven Deadly Sins, but just because a character is a bad person doesn't mean they can't be enjoyable. All of the characters are shallow, and even those who deal with topics that are intended to be "deep", such as sexual assault, are handled with a total lack of care and serve no purpose other than to shock the player. This game says nothing meaningful about sexual assault or any other kind of crime, even though it really should, given its plot. Did I enjoy anything about Birth ME Code? Well, sort of. I enjoyed a few of the puzzles, although most of them left me scratching my head - the solutions often felt arbitrary, and it left me wondering how I was supposed to figure that out. The art was... okay, even if I found the character designs kind of ugly. The best thing I have to say is that BMC has an awesome soundtrack. It's disappointing that the OST isn't for sale. In conclusion, don't play this game. It's not worth your time. I was extremely disappointed with it, and its flaws are so egregious that I can't recommend any games in this series to anyone. Miracle Moon has potential to improve as a writer and developer, but the Abime series is a hard pass after playing this game.

If you would describe yourself as a Zero Escape fan, this game is a must-play. Can't recommend this enough.

I recommend this VN! This is a murder mystery with some psychological horror sprinkled in via the mood and story. It draws a lot of inspiration from the Zero Escape series, so if you liked that, this game won't disappoint. That being said, you will probably need a guide for some of the puzzles required to open routes. Also, the route system is a little annoying and also requires a guide, so just be aware of that. You'll also have to use a weird "save file" format for each playthrough rather than just saving and loading at different parts of the game, which can be jarring at first. Normally I would not be happy about the heavy requirement of a guide for this VN, but the story/characters and music kept me interested enough to keep going. The music is really good (imo) and kept me immersed in the story, so yeah. PS: This game is technically a spiritual sequel to "Head AS Code," though I recommend playing this one first before that. It's not required for understanding anything in either of the games, but I personally enjoyed noticing some references and foreshadows/call backs (if you can call them that) to this game when I played the first game, Head AS Code. PSS: I'm not really happy about the ending of this one, it kinda ruined what I felt for the characters. I suppose the theme is supposed to be "sometimes you don't get a happy ending," but it really felt like my appreciation for the characters was just siphoned away. It's not even a "everyone died, the end" ending, but it still feels so lifeless.

I would say that if you like zero escape and other death game visual novels and are desperate for something new to play, this is a good one to buy. It really reminded me of the Zodiac trial, including the animal themed characters. But it definitely feels pretty amateurish (in terms of writing, the clunky flow chart, etc.)

Improves on its predecessor tenfold, the issues I had with escape rooms being non-existent and others things lacking from what made the Zero Escape series great, now are very much present in the game. Far more enjoyable both in story and puzzles than Head AS Code, but meshes into the greater narrative well. Highly recommended (for the fans of Zero Escape). For others, try out Head AS Code first maybe, if the narrative is enjoyable for you, keep on going, it only gets better.

(Post 100% completion, no spoilers review) This is one of the best death games I've played. It has great atmosphere, characters, themes, story, music, mechanics. I also love the masked character designs, and ME's design Once I started reading, I pretty much was only thinking about completing it. I felt really immersed I have only a few grievances: - The ending feels somewhat disconnected from the story leading up to it (though I still found it very interesting) - The flowchart can be difficult to navigate (but satisfying once you figure it out) I really love this game. You may as well

Did you like the Zero Escape Series? Danganronpa? Do you enjoy Escape Rooms? Puzzles? Visual Novels? If you said yes to any of the above, you should try Birth ME Code. Head AS Code is the first game in the series, I would start there if you can. The story in this game is rich and deep. The puzzles were challenging. The escape the room pieces were fun. The music was paced very well. I look forward to the next game from this developer. This is the type of game I enjoy playing.