Don't Forget Our Esports Dream

As someone who had been following Starcraft since 2007 all the way until proleague got axed (rip), This vn really felt like a trip down memory lane. The guys at Team Eleven got everything right, the references, the dumb names, the gameplay. I don't know how accessible this vn is to people who weren't around to experience the old days, but as an OG, it really hits close to home. I'm very happy with my impulse purchase.

First thing's first - this is a prequel to SC2VN, which is short, free, and comes highly recommended if you ever took Starcraft the least bit seriously, or if you have a basic understanding of Starcraft and have ever competed in any esport. Don't Forget Our Esports Dream provides major insight into the backstory and motivations of some of its predecessor's characters, as well as some insight into a time when esports, as an industry, was still in its fledgling years outside of Korea. Bottom line up front: If you like SC2VN, you'll probably like this game. If you don't like SC2VN for reasons other than "Brood War was better," you probably won't like this game. As visual novels go, this one's also on the shorter end (though longer and broader in scope than its predecessor), but I mostly enjoyed the way it told its story, and there are only a few things that I felt would benefit from elaboration anyway. (Edit: my high playtime is from misinterpreting the "Asleep at the Wheel" achievement and leaving the game on for like 8 hours lol.) Pros: -The dev team took great pains to include some actual gameplay in this one, in the form of simulated production cycles, reaver micro, and 1-a-click-2-a-click-3-a-click-style army engagements. (With psionic storm hotkeys here and there, because you're playing as Bolt, the Protoss.) It's not the same as playing an RTS, but it does a great job of breaking up the monotony of a several-hour read. -The writing, for what it's worth, feels somehow authentic. I've lived in Korea before, and either someone on the writing team has too, or they have Korean contacts. The allusions to Korean daily life and history don't feel forced. The social pressure to get into a good school, for example - it's far heavier there than it is in the US. It goes without saying that the oldschool Brood War days are represented accurately, as well. -The story drops some Real Talk about esports here and there. It also managed to actually surprise me a few times. And the comic relief is mostly solid. (Didn't expect FGC memes about Smashers to pop up in a Brood War story.) -You don't actually NEED to understand Starcraft to understand this story. First and foremost, it's a story about what goes through the minds of people pursuing their passion at all costs. Cons: -If you played the original game, you kinda know how this prequel "ends" for its protagonist. And that makes it harder to stay attached to him at times. (Speaking of which, Mach is canonically a girl now? But, muh self-insert!) Minor complaint. -A few things felt like they could have been expanded upon. Again, this complaint is mostly minor, but some of the stuff I'd have liked to read more about is left to the player's imagination. -For the average person reading a VN about Starcraft, this is probably irrelevant. But I remember hearing about the codex feature being expanded on, and the initial idea for the battle system, and thinking that this game might address one of SC2VN's flaws - it might take the chance to indoctrinate newcomers into the complicated battlefield that serves as its backdrop early on, then allow them to apply that knowledge through the minigame sequences, so that they'd feel more invested and less out of place during match sequences. Using a few beginner/outsider perspectives, some of the surface level concepts and classic strategies do get covered, but there was potential for more.

(¯`·._)♣ ♤ ♥♠ villanueva-9 ♣ ♤ ♥♠(¯`·._) Acciones por minuto, jerga de nicho y un drama de ciberdeportes demasiado exclusivo Si buscas una aventura narrativa independiente en dos dimensiones que te sumerja en la estricta y claustrofóbica rutina de las gaming houses de Corea del Sur a mediados de los 2000, esta obra ofrece una ambientación documental magnífica. Sin embargo, como novela visual interactiva, se queda muy lejos de ser una propuesta accesible o cómoda, levantando una barrera de entrada gigantesca debido a un texto excesivamente denso, una alarmante dependencia de minijuegos repetitivos y una total falta de consideración hacia los jugadores que no conozcan las entrañas de StarCraft. • Atmósfera realista pero escenarios insuperables en monotonía: El planteamiento visual del juego y la recreación de los cibercafés de Seúl (PC Bangs) cumple de forma muy justa a nivel artístico. No obstante, avanzar por sus capítulos ofrece un nivel de inmersión muy bajo para el público general, ya que los fondos de las habitaciones y las oficinas resultan planos, estáticos y abusan de las mismas plantillas, transmitiendo la constante sensación de estar ante un cómic inerte. • Mecánicas repetitivas y juego de teclado plano: El sistema de juego basado en mantener altas tus APM (Acciones Por Minuto) ofrece una propuesta que se vuelve tediosa a los pocos minutos de empezar. Aunque la idea de aporrear los botones del teclado a contrarreloj para simular una partida de alta intensidad es original en la primera ronda, la total ausencia de variantes reales o de efectos visuales satisfactorios al lograrlo hace que estos minijuegos sean planos y sosos. • Jerga técnica indescifrable y progresión artificial: El guion te obliga a avanzar por una sucesión de diálogos y debates profesionales que intentan aumentar el suspenso introduciendo conceptos extremadamente específicos del género de estrategia en tiempo real (RTS). Tener que descifrar términos sobre macrogestión o composiciones de tropas sin un glosario interactivo se siente más como una molestia tosca que como un reto de lógica, estirando la historia de forma muy perezosa. • Barrera lingüística absoluta y duración concentrada (Crítica realista): El principal inconveniente de la propuesta radica en su nula accesibilidad técnica en nuestro idioma. El juego se encuentra exclusivamente disponible en un inglés denso que carece de traducción oficial al español, lo que sumado a su bucle de lectura cerrado provoca que la campaña se complete al 100% en apenas unas 3 o 4 horas de juego, anulando casi por completo la rejugabilidad una vez que descubres los finales. • Puntos a mejorar: La interfaz general de los menús exteriores es demasiado rudimentaria, el motor del juego registra colisiones toscas al guardar tu progreso y el apartado sonoro es plano. Cuenta con una música electrónica de fondo que se reproduce en un bucle tosco y repetitivo que termina por agotar la paciencia del usuario, provocando que desees silenciar los altavoces de tu PC para poder concentrarte en los bloques de texto. Quizás se pueda valorar como una curiosidad aceptable para los fanáticos acérrimos de la escena competitiva de Valve o Blizzard por su honestidad periodística. Sin embargo, a nivel de diseño de niveles, originalidad de dinámicas y fidelidad a la diversión interactiva tradicional, es un producto menor que se olvida fácilmente si no eres parte de su reducidísimo público de nicho. ¡Un par de horas de teclados saturados, textos indescifrables, estrés artificial y un drama interactivo a medio gas aseguradas! _____________8__88_____8 ____________88_8__8_____8 ___________888_____88___88888 __________8888______88_8____88 _________8888_______88______8_8 _________8888_______88______8_8 _________8888_______8_______8 _________8888_____8_______8 __________88888____8______8 ___________8888888______8 __888_________88888_8 8888888________88_____ _8888888_______8_____ __888888_______88_____ ___88_____8_____8_____ ____8______8____8_____8_88 _______8888_8__88_8_88888 _____888888_8_88__8888888 ____8888888__88______88888 ____88888_____8_________888 ____88_________8__________8 _____8_________8_____ _______________8_____ ____________8_8_____ _____________88_8_____ ______________88_____ ______________8_____

This is more of a tentative Not Recommend, since there's a lot of good elements to this VN but they ultimately aren't brought together in a satisfying way. Don't Forget Our Esports Dream is a fun VN that serves as a prequel to SC2VN. The art is pretty, the UI looks snappy, I liked most of the character designs and dialogue, and the music was very good. As an aside, the minigame featured prominently while playing was also pretty fun. Despite this, I wasn't sold on the story. The protagonist, Bolt, is a pro-gamer trying to make it big in the South Korean Esports scene with help from his friend who he has "a latent crush" on, Jett. The premise is interesting, and I enjoyed playing SC2VN, so I figured I should give this game a shot. Unfortunately, the climb to the top story that made SC2VN so compelling did not translate well to the bigger scale of "Don't Forget Our Esports Dream." It seems like this VN tries to bite off more than it can chew. The plot deals with a pro-gamer's struggle to be the best, a hinted at but ultimately never-explored romance (for reasons that aren't really explained), and then tries to comment on issues ranging from the organizational mess that is international esports, female representation in gaming, the bureaucratic nature of esports in South Korea, and even the unhealthy amount of studying and CSAT prep that Korean students face. It's too much. The plot brings up these issues, has the characters discuss them, puts the issues to the side, and then suddenly realizes at the end that they need to resolve everything and just turns it into a massive infodump of dialogue between the two main characters. It felt like the story couldn't keep track of its own subplots, and it was a frustrating experience when things just ultimately weren't resolved beyond a simple 5 line conversation. If you enjoyed SC2VN I recommend playing this. Honestly, I'd probably recommend playing this even if you aren't familiar with SC2VN. But the ending and epilogue is frustratingly shallow and doesn't do the great premise of the VN justice.

Don't Forget Our Esports Dream is not a game, it's an e-book that's been dumped on Steam masquerading as a game. As a visual/interactive novel, this doesn't feature any notable gameplay, it's just a lot of clicking through badly written dialogue that would never have been accepted or published in print, which poses the question, "How did something this badly written end up on Steam?". When someone hoping to become an author is unable to get published in print, they spend $100 and dump their high school fan-fiction onto Steam, under the guise of a game. This is a lame fanfiction about an e-sports team, because, well, if you're not good enough at competitive gaming, what else can you do but write a garbage e-book about it then dump it on Steam Direct for $100? Thanks to Py'Game/Ren'Py there's a couple of clicking "puzzles", but they're a tiny part of the overall nightmare of another fanfiction E-book polluting Steam, and taking up breathing room that should be given to genuine, real video games and not Kindle bookstore rejects. Visual novels/e-books are tedious at best... imagine the best novel you ever read, be that Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy or 2001: A Space Odyssey or Twilight (if you have terrible taste in literature), but then translate that to a format where the words dribble out and you have to click your mouse every time you wanted to read the next sentence, instead of just turning the pages. You'd think it was garbage. Now imagine that experience, but with much worse writing (because if these guys could write professionally, they'd be published authors and this would be on shelves in bookstores, and they wouldn't have to pay Valve $100 to self-publish this on Steam), and you have your average Steam e-book. One of the chief problems with failed authors polluting Steam with non-game E-books is that E-books can easily just be presented in a web browser... there's no justification for charging money on Steam for what might as well be a webpage. We don't spend thousands on buying a gaming rig to spend money on Steam for something Chrome or Firefox could do. While this E-book is "free", you can get better quality, professionally written books and comics for free online (from places like Project Gutenberg) or from public libraries. Steam isn't a comic book store, neither is it Netflix, it's for games. Your gaming rig is not a Kindle. It's impossible for me to recommend things to PC gamers that aren't really games.

This was a pretty decent visual novel about starcraft. There weren't any decisions that you can make except play the annoying click fast and correctly mini game. For some reason the game kinda felt more lacking than the first one but it was still an alright ride anyway.

I know Starcraft progamers lead hard lives, but holy crap this game is depressing. If you want a window into the life of late teens / young adults in the country with the highest suicide rate in the developed world and the lowest birth rate in the world, then this is the visual novel for you. You get to see how depressing and hopeless the future looks and often is for young South Koreans, through a very realistic and well-researched portrayal of the people in and around the Starcraft eSports scene. This story is about competitive Starcraft, but also reads like a cautionary tale of how a society and civilization can die by smothering the hopes, dreams and aspirations of its younger generation. Maybe that's what you're looking for, but I cannot recommend this as a form of entertainment to most people.