Celestial Return

As a lover of CRPG's and story driven games, I cannot recommend this game enough to anyone who likes visual novels, cyberpunk aesthetics, Bukowski / Palahniuk like writing, and some tight decision making. I've finished Book 1 so far, and it's going great. I'm constantly checking every nook and cranny to see what it has to offer. The music, the world, the gameplay systems, everything felt justified and connected. Even a simple gamified system like the dies have meaning attached to it. The characters are lovable (or hateable, depending on your preferences), the dialogue options feel like they have weight and consequences. I can't wait to jump back in after writing this review and see how this grim story unfolds.

Celestial Return is a short CRPG game that set in cyberpunk world that follow a detective on a mysteries cases. The Dice mechanic is one of my favorite mechanic that really include luck and strategic as once the dice is throw, its gone forever, there are some situation / scene that will let you earn dice (Its limited). It give weight to every small decision in this game whether to use dice. Story wise its a bit confusing at best with new word (explain in achieve tab), abit metaphor at best. There only 3 chapters finish it around 4-6 hours in first run, but there multiples endings for you to explore. First Book YouTube Video: https://youtu.be/-VfjD-21q2U Gameplay: Good Graphics: Very Good (look the visual comic art style) Music: Good Story: Fair PC Requirements: Normal Game Time:5 Hours on main story, more on exploring multiple endings

the product of an [i]auteur[/i]. draped in a professional-looking style, but very much indie, very much janky in its execution. some times interesting, some times tropey, some times annoying (especially in soundtrack department - it's not matching the mood of the moment and all that), some times just plain weird, and some times too artsy-f4rtsy for its own good. on release, a fair amount of bugs, from minor to those that lock you out of certain exploration branches. die economy is somewhat whack and requires save-scumming, always aggressively saving in multiple slots, as to not lock yourself out from progression (at one point i needed to start a new game and repeat two chapters out of three bc i ran out of dice; didn't get a random [spoiler]dogs[/spoiler] encounter the second time round). and the "true" ending, for which i need to wait 'till the guides start arriving, because i seem to miss a crucial item ([spoiler]the Golden Feather[/spoiler]) and have no idea where do i get it, so the only options left feel like a placeholder, a branch you suppose to reload a save from, upon the credits rolling. ultimately, an interesting, but not well-rounded and not polished experience. it scratches the itch, it shows promise, and the price is good, so i definitely can recommend it. it's not an experience you will remember for a long time and hold dear, buzzing the ear of every aquaintance with "oh man, you should defo try THAT game", but you'll enjoy it in the process, and even think about it for some time afterwards. and that's more than i can say about most of the games out there.

Great story game, played the beta and also was a supporter on their Kickstarter. Gambling + story intensive is my type of game.

This product was received through kickstarter. To put it simply, this game is amazing. The art is akin to being straight out of a cyberpunk comic. If you like the life that the inner voices bring to Disco Elysium you will love it. The ambience and soundtrack is astounding with it variety of metal and cyberpunk ambience. For it's price point, it is a wildly worth it and I cannot recommend it enough.

Most reviews are clearly written before their authors reached the endings. I just did. First the mechanics. I played after the balance patches so I maybe that’s why I felt like the game was easy. Most items except for the one that give you a passives bonuses don’t really matter. Why would I need rerolls if I have saves? And I never was short on dices. The world feels like a draft, relying heavily on just being just "a cyberpunk" with some additional elements like Abstracts (local ghost/monsters). We know almost nothing about the world outside of the city and very little about the city itself. Our MC’s story also never reviled to us fully, we only get the gist of it. Characters generally leave a lot to be desired. It’s like we constantly don’t get the information that is known to the characters. We didn’t speak with our ex for three years? One event when we save her girlfriend (that we never hear of again) and suddenly we are the best friends, almost family and kissing at the end. No discussion about what happened, how we separated and why we were together at all. Nothing. And she doesn’t even mention her father until the very end, despite it being supposed big part of her motivation. Like what should I care about our ex’s sister when we know almost nothing about her and what relationship we should had? What happened to “the” Bartender and our former colleague after we last see them? Our main character doesn’t even ask. Our “cop friend” also almost entirely disappears after first five minutes of the game. The rest of the characters are no better, including our supposed best friend Rose, we almost always discuss politics with her (nothing interesting there, just typical "cyberpunk government bad" stuff, no “why”, no “I disagree”, don't even hope for Disco Elysium’s level of politics), we almost never discuss something personal. Including how we became friends after we save her. Unironically the old salesman at the lower town is the character that fleshed out better than the main characters. But I still didn’t get to ask him about the key for the cabin (despite Rose telling MC about this), probably another “secret” option that you don’t get because the developer didn’t like your choices (I don't know because the game never actually tells you what you did "wrong" and why you can't pick some options). And this part is the worst of all in my opinion. "True" endings aren’t tied to you being thorough (I cleared everything on the maps) or having a lot of dices (I had lots of it because I was saving for the ending), no. It is tied to you being nice to one specific entity that's not even the part of the main story. I’m not joking. I guess I should have suspected something when one of your skills was unironically being called “morally correct”. There is no warning, nothing. If you didn’t play how the developers wants you to then you won’t see any actual conclusion. Bye-bye, go back to the main menu. And you don’t even have another chance because that decision is half a game before the ending and the saves slots are very limited. Game warns about railroads at the beginning but this is not just a railroad, it’s punishing the player that made ONE decision that the developer doesn't like. Your other choices don’t matter, your skills don’t matter, your dices don’t matter. I hate this. Even meta games like Pathologic give you another chance or at least warn you. The gift from the entity should be “I win” button without rolling the dices, not the only solution. I thought I actually liked the game despite its many shortcomings before I reached the ending. But I can’t excuse this. If you still want to play this then google how to get an actual ending. Or you will very likely be disappointed. Just like I was.

As someone who has read a few cyberpunk novels before, I can say that the game's narrative and art style capture the cyberpunk theme excellently. I never expected there to be a 3D first person cutscene in this game. From the posters to the storytelling, narrative contains main cultural debates like ''what is art & who is an artist''. Once you figure out how to use the dices in the (Action), the game just flows. Plus, I didn't run into any bugs while playing.

Had been waiting on this game for a while, but finding it very frustrating. I don't have enough dice to make it out of the doctor's office no matter how many options I try. Since I was stuck there I went to load an older save, but it glitches and doesn't offer the "continue" button so that save is unplayable. There was never enough dice to get good outcomes, so I will just hope this gets fixed in an update before giving it another go.

Celestial Return has restored my faith in great indie games. I have been riffling through games for the past month looking for something, ANYTHING to pique my interest for over an hour that wasn't an $80 AAA game. Celestial Return has the soundtrack and vibes of Cyberpunk 2077, The mechanics like Citizen Sleeper and the internal dialogue like Disco Elysium wrapped up in art styles reminiscent of Mike Mignola (Hellboy). The video graphics and loading screens give me vibes of an awesome visual album mixed with the horror of films like "Is God Is". F*cking fantastic playthroughs so far. I have so many other small paths to travel with Howard. I would happily play any game this dev makes in the future. If you like CRPGs, RPGs, Visual Novels, Noir, and a bleak look into the future while roleplaying a gritty detective - Celestial Return is going to give us TTRPG nerds a game to rival pen and paper.

Good narrative, immersive gameplay, cool art style. It provides everything that i expect from a game.