Connected Fates

Played it in a single sitting and have a lot of conflicting thoughts and emotions about this one. It's a great experience, yes. But all its neat original ideas are overshadowed by the fact that it copied homework from Undertale, Deltarune, Oneshot and Yume Nikki. It's not subtle and impossible to ignore. Some areas, minor characters, jokes felt wrong because I've seen or heard them before elsewhere. But there is a lot to like here and it does have something to say. And obviously a lot of love was poured into this. If you like any of the aforementioned titles and you're up for a mashup of them, you'll definitely enjoy it.

So I haven't beaten the game just yet. Currently on chapter 2. From what I can tell this is the creators first game, and for a first game it's really good. music is nice (hope they upload the soundtrack) art style is neat, simple but not dull. story is alright, got a few chuckles out of me, and does have some pretty good emotional moments (especially the more scary moments) spoiler warning [spoiler] there's this section in chapter 2 with the radar, and when I read that note shortly after and realized what it was far, instant fear right there, then after theres a moment you have to collect some like blue crystals or something, while a big big creature is wondering around, trying to get you, I let out a loud and genuine scream of terror when It popped up right in front of me, made worse by the fact I have no idea what happends if I get caught [/spoiler] Where the game truly shines is the meta forth wall breaking mechanics, which I won't spoil here, but they are cool. I've seen this kinda thing before in other games, though I never played any of them since usually they are horror games, Imscared, DDLC, catto boi series, etc. Which (if I may go on a tangent here) is a shame cause I'd love to see this kinda stuff in more non-horror type games, I mean like imagine like a detective game where you find clues by looking through game code, or like a game thats totally unfair and you actually have to mess around with the files to be able to beat it, like for example, removing a wall you literally can;t get pass, or using your courser mouse to scare someone whos afraid of mice (get it). Or something like that. (just wanted to get that out their) lastly, I can totally see the passion that went into it, and the inspirations (partucarly oneshot and undertale) some are a bit on the nose, like there are these blue mushrooms that work like the echoflowers from undertale, I can see why it could be a distracting and be seen as a negative, but I don't really mind it much. In the end, totally recommend it, and if the creator makes another game in the future, I'll totally be keeping an eye on it

This was a great game. I really liked the story. You play as Alex, a kid who wakes up in the forest and doesn't remember much. His goal in the game is to stop this black goop that is consuming the planet. You meet a bunch of characters in this game who all come along with you to help out. My favorite characters are Max and Sam, and I got really sad about what happened to them. The game has a pretty good soundtrack—the music goes well with each place and scene. Finally, the game has this really cool feature where it uses your computer to do things. I have no idea what it's called, but it creates files that you have to move to certain folders to progress and there's other you need to do as well. I’ve never seen this in a game before, so I thought it was pretty awesome. I highly recommend giving the game shot you won't regret it.

I haven't finished this game yet, but I'm enjoying it so far! It has a lot of its own personality and charm, the characters are mostly fun, the worldbuilding is neat, and the soundtrack is really great. I do have a few issues with it, though, so it'll sort of be a soft recommendation from me. The puzzle diversity is a bit lacking - there's a specific puzzle involving lasers that's cool at first, but there are over a dozen individual instances of this laser puzzles with different layouts, and while they iterate on each other slightly, it still feels a little tedious. Unfortunately, Connected Fates is also very derivative. Several ideas, from characters to locations to gameplay segments feel ripped straight from other games, most notably ONESHOT and Undertale. This gets a bit egregious in a few parts - for example, there's an area of the game that feels very similar to Undertale's Waterfall area, with "wish mushrooms" instead of echo flowers and even a Monster Kid-adjacent character that tags along for this area. There's also a short cutscene that completely mimics the "My name is..." scene from Undertale, and there are more examples peppered throughout the game. I don't mean to say that this game is a complete ripoff, but it certainly wears its inspirations on its sleeve, and maybe a little too apparently. Overall, Connected Fates is fun and has some interesting ideas! But in my opinion, its flaws bring it down from being a truly great experience into just being a good one.

For this review I'll start with the minor problems I have with this game. Beware I may go over some major spoilers. - It's probably already been said by others and is pretty obvious but this game does take HEAVY inspiration from Undertale and Oneshot. Some scenes were just straight up copied from Undertale. You are allowed to take inspiration from media you like, but there is a point where its TOO close to the source material. - The art for this game is somewhat beginner level from what I can tell, but honestly in my opinion it does give the game its own kind of charm and I don't mind it. HOWEVER, some of the designs for characters were kinda iffy to me. The Yoshi OC's really felt out of place to me and I never really grew to like them, even as the story progressed, and Alex's design is too close to Niko's design from Oneshot, it would of benefited his character to give him his own unique look in my opinion. - Some parts of the overall story seem to go underused or at worst, finally expanded upon at the literal last second. I think for the king (forgot his name) there wasn't enough on him to really have a solid opinion or feeling about him so I kinda just did not care at all about him or his family. Same could be said for the world in general, there was some substance and some really strong parts for integral parts of the story but at the end I didn't really care for it as much as I did the world of Oneshot. Really the only thing I cared about was Alex, and whenever a certain character I found annoying or uninteresting enters the scene I kinda just rolled my eyes and went on with it. In the city section there is a noose in the center, which is never really expanded upon even though its in the center and the implications were kind of interesting to me, especially after witnessing Alex's trauma. With what Alex has seen, why wouldn't the sight of a noose trigger something for him? The gunshot in the diner triggers an episode but at the sight of what his father used to end his own life he remains unfazed? Now for the whole "expanded upon last second" thing I mentioned. There is a fox character (forgot his name again lol) who is hinted to have a sort of condition or disease of some kind. This could of been interesting to expand upon given he has a interesting friend group in the city to follow. However it isn't at all from what I remember, but the worst part is that its brought back up again in passing right before the final act of the game, and the player doesn't even get to see the outcome at all, it just moves onto focusing on Alex again and we forget about that guy and never see him again. It felt like the writer just forgot about it and remembered last second to give it a conclusion of some kind, but it just felt rushed and unfulfilling, a total waste of a really interesting plot point really. - Once again I didn't really care for the world machine of this game, I really could care less about him or his family. I was mostly focused on Alex throughout the game and he never really got my attention as much as Oneshots world machine did. Now for the good, which I have to say really makes this game worth it in my opinion, its a great story for the most part and I highly recommend playing it yourself first. - Alex is a really good protagonist in my opinion, some may say he's a Niko clone, but his perspective is done almost expertly and is ALWAYS interesting. His story and struggles kept me engaged throughout the game and I can't praise him enough. - The 4th wall breaking tricks similar to what Oneshot does for its story are really good. Almost all of them were very interesting and even eerie at times. I only wish that they were done more often and expanded on more. There is a distinct heavy lack of meta narrative and 4th wall breaks when it feels there should be more. - The overall story, especially surrounding Alex and trauma in general is probably the reason I loved this game as much as I did. The imagery and the writing was incredible and did not pull any punches. Some people might even say this game is TOO heavy with grotesque and serious imagery and implications, but in my opinion it makes the story more realistic. In a dying world these horrible things probably would be happening. There probably would be a pile of bodies piling up below bridges if people were actively losing hope on mass. The imagery, especially in traumatic sequences focusing on Alex and very nicely done, and left me on the edge of my seat with how much tension was building, and yet, zero jumpscares. I think scares would lessen the impact, I think the atmosphere is at its best when its nearly dead quiet and your left to just look at and read these things. The game does a VERY good job at making you care for Alex, so much so that I honestly was wishing for more time with him because it was that interesting. It did a good job replicating what Oneshot did that I wholehearted think this game is worth your time.