Black Closet

This is more of a neutral review than a negative one. The game does have its charms: it is well-written, and with a mostly satisfying gameplay loop. However it becomes much too repetitive too quickly. Cases repeat all too often, and it definitely begins to break the immersion. In Long Live the Queen, the story moved along constantly and always kept you on your toes, but with Black Closet you begin to feel like a hamster on a wheel after a certain point. The UI has also taken a hit- lots of annoying misclicks my first few hours in. I liked socializing with my stooges, but once you are forced to choose one, you can no longer talk to the others. Unfortunately, the character I chose was removed from the game shortly after, which meant the visual novel portion of the game was all but gone. Of course, I could reload an earlier save, but then again, if my characters are leveled less than optimally, should I even bother? Seeing as how I can no longer refund this, I'll probably give it another go at some point. I didn't hate Black Closet by any means, but some iffy design decisions and bad pacing make it seem like a lot of potential was sadly wasted. Hopefully the dev revisits this style of game in the future. EDIT: OK, I couldn't help myself: I reloaded an earlier save and chose to ignore the red masks altogether. I can't help but think that I've just locked myself out of story content, but at least I can progress with my lesbian love story. Tentatively recommending this game, but it does have some serious issues.