Foul Play - Yuri Visual Novel

Quite enjoyed this VN. The CGs by Ge-B are fantastic. Even if all the lines don't hit 100%, Winter is a really interesting and fun character. Love the vibe of "will she kill me or kiss me." I'm so glad [spoiler]she gets a happy ending.[/spoiler] It does have some big things holding it back though: -The choice system and affection points aren't for me. It ends up requiring min maxing to get the true endings which kills the mood and momentum for me. I much prefer when choosing routes is simple and most choices are for flavor. -The social commentary on police and the government is really weak and doesn't go hard enough. -The line "the dna results confirm the culprit is female" is gender essentialism, which is made even worse since this is supposed to be an LGBTQ+ friendly game.

Small and beautiful game. Its doing a good job at Being an LGBTQIA+ positive and overall progressive. Writing is the best thing here , even tho everything else is not bad either . Story is well structured and logical . Jokes are funny to. Unfortunately game is very short but i still recommend to give it a try.

I enjoyed this way more than other visual novels I have played. There is a definite realness to it, which I appreciate a lot. I laughed, cried a bit, got my heart broken, and consumed many adult beverages. The choices have meaning, this isn't fan-service BS (though... cute ladies are cute). Multiple play-thrus required.

Great game. The romance between the characters is cute. Their banter whether it was Cynthia or Winter is pretty funny. I like the crime investigations and the choices that make you think about what the correct answer would be. The CG's were also beautiful (including the NSFW ones) and the story overall was well written. I will say though, I definitely preferred Cynthia's route more then Winter's route. Winter's route just felt like a well written fanfiction. It was enjoyable don't get me wrong but I just felt silly as the criminals tried to justify their actions and the story seemed to also justify their actions. I understand criminals try to justify their actions all the time but the story does things that make me feel like the criminals are actually justified when they are far from it. Also Winter is very irresponsible but who cares! She has money and can get away with it TEHE. Now Daddy Cynthia (Yes I'm calling her that), she's a realistic woman that'll take care of you. Yes she has anger problems (as someone with anger problems I can relate) but she's there for the MC and gives some ACTUAL ADVICE when dealing with a major trauma in her life. She's trying to change the inefficiencies with the bureau the lawful way and when she doesn't want to deal with their ♥♥♥♥ anymore she leaves and does something fun. Also the ending with Cynthia feels better then either ending with Winter. Overall both routes are definitely worth a playthrough. I would personally save Cynthia's for last because I enjoyed her story more then I enjoyed winter. Regardless of that however you will enjoy both stories due to the reasons in the very first paragraph.

yuri

Contrary to the subtitle, this isn't a yuri game, it's an LGBTQIA+ game, more precisely, feel-good lit catering to an L target audience. There are only three main characters (protagonist included). The former is a bland wet blanket of a self-insert character. The latters' roles are defined with comic-like clarity and "finesse", which precludes any surprises in the story. No, there was one surprise: Apparently, she wasn't supposed to have realised she was gay, despite the fact that the first person (!) narration couldn't have been clearer. While the art is decent, the writing (and music) are forgettable at best. Amateurish, without the charm that passion and flamboyance can bring to good fan fiction. Japanese (visual novel) tropes and US (cop show) tropes are mixed willy-nilly. Still, it's not offensively bad. I just can't think of a single reason why anyone would want to play this over literally anything else. (As always, my full take can be found on Reddit.)

So you're a cop. Kind of. You're working for some undefined, non-federal law enforcement agency, and you're investigating a string of assassinations. But on the plus side, you're also discovering you're a lesbian. And your boss is a lesbian. The drop-dead gorgeous assassin who tracks you down to flirt with you (while your character remains blissfully ignorant of who she is) is of course also a lesbian. So between romantically fraternizing with your cop boss or an assassin, you've got a couple of nice and highly problematic options, and I kinda love the absurdity of the situation. The story did a great job pulling at my heartstrings, especially when I tried out one of the other routes after finishing my first. While there were a few times I wished I could say or do something very different from the options available (mostly because there was basically no room for sympathy for Winter unless I was on her route), the developers none the less did a great job with a very limited Kickstarter budget. It took me nearly two years to finally sit down and play the game, and I'm glad I finally got there this past week. :) (I have games in my backlog dating back to the early days of the Steam store, so don't for a moment that my inability to give Foul Play a timely playthrough had anything to do with this game in particular. That's just how I am.)

good game for practice English

Un juego con una buena narrativa, romances muy bonitos y finales interesantes. Lo recomiendo totalmente, merece la pena.

Pros: - Cute art (very pretty landscapes!) - The game author supports lesbian relationships - Relaxing music - Font that is readable for dyslexic people (so cool!!) - A nice and kind Japanese male friend character - A back button that allows you to go back and read previous dialogue (very handy, I'm so grateful for this button) - An ending that says it's ok to be single (thank you!!) Cons: - The only Black character is a villain (the woman crime boss) - The only bdsm kink positive character Winter is a villain. Decent people into consensual bdsm actually exist in real life. - Characters who are unhappy with police are portrayed as villains (either as sex traffickers or as assassins). Look, we know there are good and bad people who are police officers. The thing is: there are decent people who are unhappy with police due to having traumatic experiences with police too. The love interest Cynthia's statement that people unhappy with police use assassins when the law doesn't work seems dramatic (maybe that happens in real life, I don't know, but that sounds quite rare). Most people unhappy with police trust the neighbourhood watch, go see a private detective, talk to a journalist or a lawyer instead of hiring an assassin. - the only character dating people to humor them, Winter, is a villain. Dating someone you're not in love to avoid abuse with doesn't necessarily make you a villain. If you're dating someone you don't love to hurt them or use them, that's horrible. But if you're doing it to avoid being stalked, verbally or physically abused, that doesn't make you a bad person. Several women and femmes actually date people to humor them because some men turn violent or aggressive if people refuse them. Oh, and dating someone you're romantically interested in but declining sex or dinner doesn't mean you're humoring them. It doesn't mean you don't love them. - The only Brazilian character Winter is a villain ( I understand people from all races can be good and bad, but when you portray racial minorities as the bad guys where there is a long history of books, films, games portraying racial minorities as bad guys and this affects how people are treated in the real world, that is...bad). - The only adhd coded character Winter (impulsive, a big spender and struggles with paying attention) is the villain - There are only two love interests with romanceable routes. The POC woman is the villain and the white girl is the only morally good character you can romance. - The only character who struggles with formal education, Winter, is portrayed as the villain. Plenty of people struggle with formal education due to learning disabilities. That doesn't mean they're bad people. The game dev probably didn't intend to fall into the age old writing trope of 'person who can't focus on schooling is a villain), but unfortunately that's what they did. - The only person confident in her abilities without a formal university education is portrayed as having a self inflated opinion of herself. Look, in real life, many people without a formal university education are confident in their work skills, are successful at their jobs and earn a decent amount of money. TAFE/technical college qualifications are valid. Practical work experience and tech boot camps count as real work skills. Portraying people who don't go to university as arrogant or stupid is classism and ableism. - The only character with narcissistic personality disorder (the love interest Winter) is a villain and a serial killer. Say it with me people: Having a personality disorder does not make you evil! Yes there are bad people with personality disorders, but good people with personality disorders exist too. A more nuanced portrayal of people with narcissistic personality disorder would involve morally good characters with narcissistic personality disorder who don't kill people and who work on becoming better people. Also, unless you are someone's actual psychologist or psychiatrist, you cannot diagnose someone with a personality disorder. Like iconic Youtuber Lindsay Ellis once said, there's nothing wrong with writing a minority villain - as long as you also have morally good or neutral characters from that minority group in your story as well. (Lindsay doesn't know about this review, I'm just quoting her (quote is from an online video from 2015) because her quote is cool). - The love interest Cynthia's toxic behaviour of yelling at people in public, shaming them for not being physically healthy, making fun of people for not knowing how to cook (when poverty, lack of education, and disability can lead to people not knowing how to cook/being unable to cook) and making a grown 64 year old man cry is...yikes. Now I am not perfect either. I've messed up in writing too! I've written problematic characters and tropes in the past and learnt I needed to stop doing that. I'm just mentioning this stuff in the hope that the game creators will avoid such harmful tropes in the future. I am cautiously saying this game is not for me. If you like the game that's fine! But I couldn't get into it. I really, really wanted to like this game. The art is beautiful. The music is great. The game devs are obviously passionate about lesbian rights (would have been nice if they focused on bi, ace, trans, non binary or intersex people too, but the game just focused on lesbians). But sadly this is a no from me. Edited to add: I'm rereading this review and realised I was totally wrong in most of my criticisms. There's nothing wrong with the game creator just focusing on lesbians in their story. I support trans rights, and I realise it's ok for a writer not to mention all lgbt groups in a story. As for the other things I mentioned: It's ok for the game devs to write unhealthy or toxic characters. Writing such characters doesn't mean they endorse the characters' unhealthy behaviours in real life. There's nothing wrong with the game devs writing unrealistic larger than life characters. They probably wrote the characters like that for escapism, and it's impossible to represent every minority group in one short game. I'd recommend this for people who like morally grey characters, escapism and larger than life characters in games. I'm sorry, but I'm changing my rating back to not recommended because I think this game counts as copaganda.