Dysfunctional Systems: Orientation

Dsyfuntional Systems: A game series with a troubled past, but one that I believe still shows its potential... Once upon a time Orientation was never going to exist nor any other future episodes. Money was gained, money was mispent, refunded, and that was the end. Then seemlying out of nowhere, Dysfunctional Systems: Orientation was released. This visual novel is enjoyable, though most likely only if your interest in the series already exists. By itself, Orientation, gives a gimplse into a world and a even smaller glimpse into a possible story, but with the knowledge of the first episode (Which is very much worth playing) Orientation offers background into future characters and builds upon the series' world and thus will allow possible future episodes to purely continue with the story by not having to worry about establishing certain fundamentals to the background. All of this is of course a repeat of the description offered on the store page. That's a good thing as that means the description is truthful and explicit. So assuming you're interested in the Dysfuntional System series, what does Orientation offer as a visual novel in my opinion? PROS: - Setup (Setting up characters and the background is useful, but only alongside past and future episodes) - Music (The music is of equal quality to the soundtrack in the 1st Episode, a great quality that Dischan continually produces) - UI (Does the User Interface help make a game good? Not really, but a bad UI can ruin a game. I find this UI to be elegant) CONS: - Art (The Art in Orientation isn't bad per se, but it is rough and unfinished in certain places. Also when compared to Episode 1, the art is inferior) - Diagolue (The dialogue for the teacher characters is in some places unrealistically unprofesstional. Do some teachers swear? Sure, but using slang like "nerdgasm" just detracts from their believability. Of course, there is the possibility that was what the writers wanted.) Dysfunctional Systems: Orientation is an enjoyable game only if Dysfunctional Systems: Learning to Manage Chaos had managed to secure your interest or you're currently interested in playing Learning to Manage Chaos at some point in the future. Otherwise Orientation only offers its readers a very small glimpse into a supposedly utopian world and not much else.

pretty good. very interesting content, but it didn't strike me as as introspective and insightful as ep 1. either way, do recommend, as a followup to episode 1 (as in, to be read after it, even though this comes first chronologically). Do not read as a standalone work, as it is nothing but world-building

More chaos for gods of chaos \o/

A short kinetic visual novel. For the current price (75% discount), totally worth it, for the full price, maybe not so much. So, this is an out-of-the-blue prequel to the previous Dysfunctional Systems VN (Dysfunctional Systems: Learning to manage chaos). Most of what it does is world-building. Since it is a kinetic VN, there is no branching, hence the replay value is nonexistent. Art is serviceable, but not great. Music is not annoying but not particularly memorable either. Writing is a little stilted compared to the first installment, but it's fine for what it is (i.e. exposition dump). The philosophy it kind of tries to push is slightly annoying, but probably that's the point [spoiler]since it gets subverted by the end.[/spoiler] Overall, this is at the same time encouraging and disappointing for the fans of the first installment. It's a mediocre kinetic VN set in an interesting multiverse, but here we mostly get to see the boring parts. Overall, if you're interested in anything I described, it's a fine 1.5-2 hour read. But it's not something you'd really want to read unless you're somewhat invested in the first game in the series. This does make me hope that other (hopefully more interesting) installments will happen eventually, so I'll give this a slightly begrudging thumbs up.

I recommend this game for the €1.30 I spent on it. It took me exactly 90 minutes to play through this game (no choices so little replayability), so if you want you can just refund it afterward. The game is fairly enjoyable, however, and introduces some new characters. The art is different, but after five minutes you're used to it. Quality OST and dialogue as always. If you've enjoyed Juniper's Knot and especially Dysfunctional Systems 1, and this game is on sale, then go for it.

The story is quite an interesting premise. Really short, 2 hours for me and I take my time with games, so a $5.00 price point is kind of up to you if it's worth. The interface looks quite pretty.

A good story!get ep2 out quickily plz:)(and chinese ver)

TL;DR - Short, but good to be back! I ended up playing about 2.5 hours, reading aloud. Dysfunctional Systems finally returns with an episode detailing Winter's arrival at the Mediator's school. This mostly serves to detail the setting of the story, introduce a few new characters, and create conjecture about some of the larger things going on in the setting. I really enjoyed it. As short as it is, trying to both see the perspective of this setting's people and reconcile it with what is going on in the context of the world's given history is a very interesting experience. If I had any complaint about this episode, is that I somewhat miss the original style for characters and scenes. It was more subdued stylistically. I don't think this can be helped, but would appreciate a return to style for future episodes, which I very much hope will happen. I encourage people to get this one. Looking forward to more.

A very pleasing surprise. As one of the backers on Kickstarter I am really happy that we can finally play the story of Orientation. Too bad we were not given that opportunity initially. + Expanding on the base material; + A rather thought-through narrative, mostly descriptive but does have its’ thrilling moments to the end; (Subjective) +change in art style that is surprisingly easy to grow accustomed to; + Not always stereotypical reactions of characters, some eerily reminding me of actual people I know; - LENGTH. And I cannot stress this point more. I am not sure if this was not trimmed from already prepared episode and if so, it did not turn out well in the long run. Overall, my rating is 7/10, included on VNDB. Dear Dischan and Dani, please have more faith in yourself and give us ep 2 already^^

In context, this prequel is something I, as a reader/player of Episode 1, absolutely needed to satisfy much of the craving Episode 1 left behind. From the beginning, Dysfunctional Systems engrossed me with intriguing world-concepts and memorable third-dimensional characters. Orientation builds off Ep1 in a way that satisfies much of my curiosity about Winter's home-world/plane. To keep it short, if you enjoyed Ep1, then you should buy Orientation. Although it is short, I am ecstatic to see this story get a proper expansion. My enthusiasm will spike-higher if more episodes are created in the future. For the time being, I am finally happy with what we-readers have been given, and I would love more. PS: If you are wondering how long Orientation takes to read, I would say about 2 hours on average. Unfortunately, I am slow with reading-and-comprehension, so I took a little over 3 hours to complete it.