Heart of the Woods

I want to point out early on in my review that this game does not have many choices. There are I think three choices in the entire game. You do not see your first choice until [spoiler]Chapter 3[/spoiler]. So, be sure to know going in that there are not many actual gameplay elements in the game. It is mostly the story. However, the story is not well written. There are many contrivances. Much of the story is predictable, except for the wild escalations that come out of nowhere. The writing feels amateurish. The writer does not understand how to properly describe scenes. There's a fine line between over describing and proper scene setting and it's a tough balance, I know, but they often miss it. I also suspect that the art and the writing was done separately, as it sometimes feels incongruent. In general, I think the art is pretty well done, although I would've liked more sprites and backgrounds. Small complaint. I also do not think the romances were well done. It feels like the writer is quite young or inexperienced with relationships, or likely both. [spoiler]I cannot take characters seriously when they talk about how in love they are after like a week or two of dating. Maddie and Abigail felt like a relationship of convenience. I never really felt any real chemistry between the two. Maybe because they did not spend much time setting it up. Tara and Morgan felt like trauma bonding. Although I do feel like they had more chemistry. Again, perhaps the longer setup.[/spoiler] I did not care much for the characters at first, but they did grow on me by the end. The voice acting is decent. Many of the issues early in the game are caused by the characters being dumb and refusing to communicate properly. I think the characters are supposed to be in their mid 20s, so I feel like they are acting a bit juvenile compared to their age. It again leads me to think that the writers are quite young. Again, I would give this game a neutral rating if I could. I finished the game. It was not bad. But this is a visual novel, so I have to judge the game off the quality of its story and it just does not hit the mark. There are enjoyable parts to the game. The visuals and music are nice. The voice acting is pretty good. I was rooting for the characters by the end. I just wish the story was better.

ghost yuri with trans rep!! the story was rather grim, but still sweet <3

优点 很不错的本子，好像很少有测评里提到的，个人非常非常喜欢女主的塑造 麦荻，你真的太好了。 在为了救塔菈“死去”的时候你在想什么呢？你是这场纠葛中最无辜的人，你明明可以责怪带你来这片古怪之地却冷落你的塔菈，也可以埋怨引你们而来却有所隐瞒的摩根，却在灵魂状态看到好友的情绪时，不焦虑和怨恨自己的离去，而是想——“万幸她身边还有人陪伴”；明明初来时无神论的你是最具警惕心的，却愿意为了艾比和她所爱的森林，毫不犹豫地答应未知的赋予 女主完全hot nerd来着，非常刻板印象欧美高智女同（褒义hhh 几个角色视角转换、双线进行节奏很不错，一对纯爱小情侣一对偏病态（？都超级可爱 缺点 好烂的系统，前几章经常黑屏忽闪忽闪我快瞎了 序章节奏慢，后期剧情重心体感完全不在女主，结局选择点、关键剧情都在摩根身上，比如支线结局女主和艾比被迫留在森林，塔菈摩根回到城市生活结婚，就很…… 一些避雷点说塔菈是跨，这个我完全能接受，只是塔菈确实很多时刻男味挺重（比如口癖shit，当然塔菈除此之外塑造很可爱

Heart of the Woods was incredible. Interesting, well-written, funny, with pretty art and thoughtful ghost logic (they really parsed how it worked out), good fantasy/modern times integrations, and a passionate, romantic story about women my age finding love in this world. It was a bit cheesy at times, but sometimes, I think we need that. I know I needed that, and I know this resonated with me. The voice acting was great, the visual direction of scenes was really good, and the UI was pretty. There is one thing that shocked me about this game, however. I have NEVER seen a trans woman as a lead in any work, and never fully VAed. She was just... normal. Her transness was only mentioned once, and she was of course voiced by a trans woman, but other than that it wasn't even a plot point. In fact, she was equal to the other women in every other capacity (not going to explain why, but there was an important point towards the end where she was ENTIRELY equal and I was very heartened by that) and it was just an extremely refreshing and heartening thing to experience. My only regret is I only experienced this game now, when it came out six years ago. I really do feel like I've been missing out. Also, please have some tissues ready when you play this if you are sentimental like me because I cried a LOT. Absolutely worth the time and the money, and if you think the demo spoils the plot? It doesn't. EDIT: Just listened to the music gallery and the CG gallery and started crying again. 10/10 game. Wonderful.

Yuri heals the soul so deeply that I can't even explain it. In all seriousness, it's a pretty decent story. I felt like things moved kind of quickly—mostly the relationships—but the story did explain things that made it make sense, such as time passing (which was usually one text box saying how it's been a couple of weeks, days, whatever). Other things, such as the voice acting, and the art, were both pretty good as well. With the voice acting, it was clear they put a lot of effort into putting emotion into their lines. All in all, it's a good VN, it's very pretty, and well drawn. If you're thinking of buying it, go ahead. It's a solid 8.5/10.

I don't want to be dead I want to be alive

变性设定在steam和自家官网是一个字不提，居然还有脸说卖的是百合小说？我对跨性别没什么看法，反正人生没意义，想怎么活就怎么活，但是默认玩家都能将跨性别女性当成女性看待是不是太贱了？以为自己活在哪年啊？95%好评率也是挺搞笑的 配音更是重量级，除了艾比盖尔剩下的只能说勉强能听，找不到合适音色的就别找了行吗，还有更逆天的，跨性别女二居然找了个男的来配，不是你们他妈以为自己在这拍纪录片呢？无法想象买之前没看评价的人听见他第一句语音后什么心情 喜欢写跨性别没问题啊别贴百合标签，但是说真的反正把玩家当傻子耍也有人舔，以后干脆全员变性设定吧，生理性别未知心理性别全是女，也当百合卖，还打什么擦边球啊费那劲

剧情太中二，偏童话。流程也不长，看的快1小时就结局，慢的话3小时也肯定能看完了。 场景CG算不上好看，人物立绘仁者见仁。 有百合成分，但不算多，友情线描写更多。 LGBTQ鉴丁为真，不只百合，还有男跨女。 最后的变身很美，但不能改变游戏总体质量的拉胯。 总而言之，相比同类作品，原价是偏高的，这个价格完全可以买到更多更好的作品。

I just didn't like this VN. Even after four hours I simply could not get into the story, it was just too slow and never clicked. And normally I absolutely can enjoy things that are slower paced. Everything that is here should appeal to me, so it makes me sad that it didn't connect with me. Honestly, some of the themes maybe felt a little bit too close to some of the emotional struggles that, at the time when I played, were causing me distress. And so the game triggered some bad emotional states and spirals that took a few days to pull myself out of. I think that eventually, if I end up in a better emotional place overall, then I should probably come back and re-try to play this one. The trans rep is also okay, I guess that it's just nice to have that sort of representation generally but I dunno, it was fine. EDIT: After thinking about it for a while I've decided to change my review from a no to a yes. Overall, my issues with this VN still stand, but I think that it is a good VN and that in most cases I would recommend playing it for anyone who is interested. What I've come to realize now is that I actually just don't like Tara as a character, and the way that the character is written falls totally flat. The le ebin redditer awesomesauce upicpwn way of speaking that she's written to have just sucks. I might not be coming from the most level headed place either but I think that Tara is just not really a good friend to Maddie, which drags down the entire vibe. The voice acting is so excellent, I wish that every VN had voice acting this good.

但是，百合作品的主角，一定要是女性