Heileen 2: The Hands Of Fate

This second part of the Heileen series feature a female protagonist Heileen who is shipwrecked on an island with two of her ship's passengers Ebele and Robert which her uncle and aunt brought along on the trip to the New World. While on the island, Heileen will interact with Ebele and Robert, a mysterious set of cards that feature seven different virtues and sins and reveal more on Heileen's past as well as with the characters featured in the first part of the series and possibly with Morgan and Juliet after leaving the island. Achievements involve reaching a different ending in the island or out of the island with a band of pirates. The game has plenty of save slots to enable quicker replays to reach a different ending and the option to skip and fast-forward already read sections. Soundtracks and overall game presentation are decent. Also recommended when game is at discount or in a bundle offer as all endings can be reached and game can be completed in less than 10 hours.

Come on Heileen...2 Electric Boogaloo Ok, I won't reference that song. What I will say is that this is a bad game. That make you question why I recommended this game and I did for the simple fact that it was fun. The storyline is poop, the game play is dull and there is no romance endings at all save for one. It's a completely different game from the first installment in the series. However, I had fun and took quite a bit of screen shots because some of the dialogue was just so out there. It made me laugh. If you've played Heileen 1: Sail Away then you'll know what there was a ship wreck at the end. This game makes all the endings in that game null and void as you are left alone with Robert, Ebele and Black. You're with them, alone for 75% of the game. All you do is wander the island, it's insanely dull. I went for the Kindness ending first since it took a bit of work to get it right, after that I gone through about half of the text so the next play through I could skip a lot, which made things better. There are fifteen endings in the game; seven are virtues, seven are sins and one is where you just do nothing at all. There is no need for so many endings, most of them are barely different at all. The story at its core is about you and your friends traveling across the island to find help and then trying to get the pirates to aid you, that's it. Everything else is fluff and it drags out the game insanely. Part of the fluff involves dreaming. Using the tarot cards Heileen has found she can dream and her actions in the dreams effect the real world. It's also the only place where Heileen can understand Black the cat talking, who by the way is the smartest character in the game. However, most of the dreams don't matter. There a few that drastically direct the flow of the game but most just affect your interactions with Robert and Ebele, which don't matter unless you want the Kindness ending. Aside from your friends and the pirates you only ever interact with people in your dreams. Some are actual memories, some not so much. As such the characters in the dreams barely matter. Lora still acts like Lora, a kind but flirty seductress. Otto is still your gruff uncle, Marie is still your poor but lively best friend and John is still a jerk. You also meet Marcus, a childhood friend and Magdalena another friend, as well learn about what happened to your parents via the dreams. The dreams are helpful for completing quests, which also have no bearing on what ending you get aside from Kindness and two that deal with the pirates. I have to spend a special moment to discuss the voice acting. When I played the first Heileen game I mused to myself how it would be nice if there was voice acting in this. This game has since made me retract that idea. The voice acting in this game is horrible, utterly horrible. Only three of the voice actors seemed to have any skills though one couldn't really make her voice different for the three characters she played. John/Jonathon's voice is horrible, which I hate to say because I know the person. Marie can't figure out if she has an Irish accent or not, Adam/Elias/Marco are voice by someone with a bad microphone and Ebele and Robert have a stereotypical "savage" accent. For any good that a couple of VAs did, everyone else dragged the game down. I recommend you play with this feature off. Overall, bad game. But if you played the first one and are invested in the series then grab this on sale. Especially if you're in the mood for a good laugh. [code]For more recommendations and reviews on amazing otome games follow [url=http://steamcommunity.com/groups/otrak]Otome Rakuen[/url] group curations [url=http://steamcommunity.com/groups/otrak#curation]here[/url]![/code]

Let me start this review by stating, that Heileen 2 is definitely better game than Haileen 1, which is a good (yet no hard to achieve) thing. Sadly, pretty much every aspect of this game has a downside. I really enjoyed [b]graphic[/b], both in first game and here, but lack of character expressions, body poses and CGs give this game very stagnant, non-dynamic feeling. Although I can imagine this being suitable for some games, here we have adventure, characters are constantly moving and art should reflect that at least a little bit. Also, child version of Heileen looks like she was made in paint. [b]Music[/b] is barely worth mentioning. Often there is no music at all and when there is, you barely see the difference. [b]Voice acting[/b] is balancing between acceptable and terrible. Tartot [b]game mechanic[/b] is really interesting. It feels original (along with dreams) and I thought it could lead to something new and refreshing, but, sadly, it's disappointing and not well executed. [b]Story[/b] lacks realism, but still has some sense and it's better presented than in the first game. It has very bad pacing, it's either terribly slow or some stuff just happen suddenly without any preparation. [b]Writing[/b] also improved a lot, especially in terms of dialogues, which seem more natural than before. It tries to be [b]something more[/b], just like the first game and I can appreciate the effort. I get the feeling that creators wanted it to be more of interactive adventure story than just visual novel, hence the score counter, quests and map. Winter Wolves is a company known for "Planet Stronghold" and "Loren: The Amazon Princess" - in both of those games mixing up genres worked great, but here, sadly, it's just unpolished and out of place. I felt like map didn't serve any purpose at all. I didn't care about the score even for a second (didn't know how I get points and why is it important, since it doesn't impact story on any level). I'm not sure if there were any quests I failed at, since it never felt like I had any impact on them (it's not like in Loren, where you get to go into certain place or do certain tasks - you get something vague like "find food for Ebele", but it's not like you can just go around island and look for it, you need to wait for the opportunity within game, that just happens on its own). [b]Characters[/b]. Sadly, Haileen isn't game with the best cast of characters. Second part isn't any different, but if you got attached to Mary, John or Lora, you will interact with them only within the dreams and won't have any impact on your relationship. For the most part, you form relations only with Ebele and Robert - none of them is really interesting and although game lead you to believe that you form more intimate, romantic bond with one of them, it gets resolved in very disappointing way. If my choices lead to this, then I don't know how it happened, because although I spend the game being close with Ebele I ended up [spoiler] kissing Morgan, even though I never chosen anything that would suggest that my character is interested in him. Also, Morgan shows out of nowhere and his feelings for main character are completely out of blue.[/spoiler]. I was wondering whether I should give this game thumbs up or thumbs down. It's surely an improvement, but the price is what pushed me to the negative side. 10€ is not huge amount of money, but it's definitely not worth the quality that this game has to offer. Still, if you enjoy Winter Wolves games, it may be worth to try this one.

[h2]I really tried to play this after completing the first one...[/h2] I didn't like the first game in the series at all. I gave up because I couldn't put myself through the boring torture any longer. This one is more boring than the first game in the series. This one is basically the same as the first. Make choices and end up with X person. Rewind make different choices to end up with different person. Rince and repeat for achievements. It's really not worth it... seriously. There are better visual novels out there such as Cinders. [h2]3/10[/h2] [h3][url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/45905648-Gork%2527s-Game-Grind/]Check out my curated list of games[/url][/h3]

a very good Visual Novel. can recommend it. a couple of sweet girls. lots of answer options to choose. the price of this game is to high but in offer for like -50% alright.

This game is definitely better than the first one, which I found atrocious. However, the whole “magical tarot cards” makes no sense, and it can be really annoying to get all the endings (it was a frustrating experience to me, not fun at all after 3 playthroughs). Heileen is one hell of an annoying Mary Sue, and I still want to beat her head with Marco’s pan until she stops making dumb expressions for no reason. She is probably the most annoying MC I’ve ever seen on a VN. Except on the Wrath ending tho, [spoiler]where I laughed but yet liked the fact that she became a pirate and tried to act all mighty and powerful[/spoiler]. The art style was okay, nothing amazing and nothing terrible. The VA was pretty bad in my opinion, I only liked Ebele and Robert VAs. BGM gets boring after a while too. Still, this is a “good” improvement since the first game. But I don’t like or recommend this VN. You can give it a try, but only get this game on a good sale if you're curious about this sequel; definitely not worth the full price. 3/10.

All I say on this review can be applied as much to Heileen 2 as to 3, so I'm reviewing them together. Once more a visual novel that disappoints. I was really excited about playing Heileen 3 (I got Heileen 2 afterwards from... somewhere, I forget, but it was free so I was like, whatever, cards!, and tried it for a while anyway in case it was good), even though I knew little about it. And then I played it and cried. :'( No, I kid. XD I played it and rolled my eyes a lot, though. It's a romance/dating sim/VN/princess maker type of game all mashed up into one, so basically the whole point of it is to end the game with one of the boy/girl options (or none, I guess, as I got none lol) plus with one major profession... On the upside, you playing a girl who can actually date a girl is kinda cool, so there's that. The general idea of it being based with tarot cards and such is good, basically the underlying idea of the whole game is pretty decent, but the actual way it's been carried on is not. There's a sort of story there in the back, something about ships, and shipwrecks, and making your way into the world, that in the end amounts to nothing because Heileen has ice cubes for brains and they melt in the heat. The main character, Heileen, is one annoying, bratty little Mary Sue. For some reason she keeps thinking even the guy I have a 0 points "relationship" with is hot. Like, if I'm cultivating x and y relationships and not at all, z, why would you think z is hot? Ugh. I understand scripting a game is hard, but seriously, since you don't know what relationships people will cultivate, why would you hardcode that you think that really annoying guy is hot even at 0 points? Heileen isn't the only one who suffers from being annoying. Almost every single character in this thing is. I only liked one of them, and he was still annoying to an extent. The game contradicts itself constantly. Heileen 2 particularly seems to suffer from odd inverted choices. By which I mean logic will tell you answer x is virtuous and y is greedy, and yet when you choose answer x was greed and y virtue, and totally illogical. Which, on a side rant, totally reminds me of that point in Shaolin school over in Age of Wushu, when I was given the choice between poisoning a betrayer to find out something or "being kind", whereas being "kind" turned out to be to beat him up to a pulp. lol? Okay... if you call that kinder... moving along... The options we're given on Heileen 3 are ridiculous (not that it wasn't to be expected from a group of pirates that not only save these random people and not lock them up, but are actually nice to them, give them things for free, help them, and deliberately avoid going after ships as is their livelyhood because gasp, Heileen might be offended/surprised/think badly of a bunch of pirates). Seriously. Did I mention these guys are supposed to be pirates? How are they supposed to make their living? ::) Someone over at steam reviewed Heileen 3 and said 3 of 4 of the guys on it are jerks: I totally agree. And the 4th one seems to be completely undecided on whether he wants to be a jerk or normal, because at times he's one, at times the other. Even tho I usually don't go for girl on girl, I tried to cultivate one girl and one guy relationship because all other guys were creeeeepyyyyyyy. Out of the girl characters the one that annoyed me the most (after Heileen herself, that is) was the 'dancer', because she was also very pushy and got super disappointed whenever she didn't get her way. If you want to find anything good to the game is that they have ridiculously skimpy outfits every now and again, but they aren't even that exciting. Sorry guys. :P The professions are ridiculous. How come lust + dancing = dancer? Why do I have to be lusty to be a dancer? Just because the dancer girl is? No thanks. The attributes modify nothing in my relationship attempts and only give boosts if I actually try to do something with the person.... but only gives boost to the attribute if I choose the right person, and unless there's an event, I get no boost to the relationship. You'd think spending time together would +1 the relationship, or +0.5 it at least. Not to mention you don't have that much time to do things with others since you keep needing to level up basic skills too much. Basically I finished only Heileen 3, abandoned 2 after I realized it was somehow worse than 3, and I only played to one ending of 3 because I just couldn't care less for anything or anyone in it... Why yes, I do judge VNs at a completely higher standard than other games, because they're supposed to entertain with their story, not want to make you jump off a bridge.

A considerable improvement over the first entry in the series, with some interesting enhancements to gameplay, Heileen 2 is still...not that great. Oh, it's not [i]unbearable[/i] by any means, but it's got some definite weak points, even though it shows promise. I wish I could give it points for effort but I'm afraid the rating system here on Steam, where one is limited to recommend/don't recommend, isn't the best place for that sort of thing. Like the first game in the series, Heileen 2 mostly suffers in the writing. That isn't a good thing for a VN, but it's not quite as clumsy as the previous Heileen game, so...hoorah! That said, there are some problems. *A lot of the plot depends on you stirring ♥♥♥♥ to make drama happen, and even then the drama that [i]does[/i] occur is wildly out of proportion for the ♥♥♥♥ you stir. It feels very inorganic. Your character's two main companions throughout the storyline have little tiffs either with you or each other on at least a daily basis, regularly getting into snits and storming off, and it's almost always about something utterly ridiculous and irrational. In this respect, the writing would be more at home in a game about middle schoolers, not adults. *Heileen 1 had some less than glowing things to say about sexual promiscuity and sex work, Heileen 2 unfortunately takes that up to eleven and beats it into the ground. *The main character is threatened with sexual assault a few times, in dreams/hallucinations, and once in reality, and in most cases it's just an utterly bizarre event and makes little narrative sense. *The art is extremely repetative, which is forgivable for an indie game company with limited resources, but it still gets visually boring after awhile. Here's Heileen lying in bed; here's Heileen lying in bed in the same position crying; now there's a tray on the bed but she still hasn't moved. *The voiceover isn't the best, but thankfully that can be remedied with a press of the mute button. *Racism. It's latent, not really in-your-face offensive, but it's still cringeworthy if you're sensitive to it. Your companions speak in broken English that noticably deteriorated between the first game and this one, and another character makes several offhanded, racially motivated comments about them that are insensitive to say the least. This [i]is[/i] a historical game, so I guess it gets a little leeway there, and on several occasions the main character thinks about how wrong racism is, and how wrong she was to ever feel negatively toward anyone because of their race, so points for at least acknowledging that, but it's still rather unpleasant and feels a bit unnecessary as it doesn't really affect the plot. (I do find the broken English thing puzzling just from a writing perspective, given that the characters in question were raised from childhood in England by an Englishwoman. That's probably at least a decade of being in an English speaking country, with the benefit of learning the language from an early age, so they should probably be more fluent than they are here.) Overall, Heileen 2 makes a lot of strides in being better than its predecessor in spite of these foibles. The Sins and Virtues system is an interesting game mechanic, the storyline tries for depth and variety even if it misses the mark, and since it's an improvement over the last entry in the series, I have high hopes that the third will be even better. That said, I can't really recommend the game on its own. I'll say for Heileen 2 what I said for Heileen 1: if you get it in a bundle for cheap, it's a good intro to the characters and the universe, it bridges the gap between the game mechanics of the first and third games, and it's worth a playthrough on that basis. Otherwise, you can probably safely skip it.

This is an interesting visual novel. The midpoint in the Heileen story, this one adds a new mechanic, a bit of an experiment at least to my eyes. The tarot card mechanic influences the ending you might receive (though one ending happens before the cards even come into play). As for what ending of the prior one this feeds off of... well, none of them. You are stranded on this desert island with the two would-be slaves. Lora, Marie, and John only appear in the wierd dreams that are related to the tarot deck. (And considering you have a cat that talks to you... the entire thing might be a hallucination). And it really isn't a tarot deck at all (well, not one I've heard of), as it consists of the seven deadly sins on one side and the seven godly virtues on the other. There are fifteen endings, one for each of the sins and virtues, plus one if you are... indifferent. This game is mainly good for both the interesting mechanic (it is... [i]different[/i]), and because it introduces you to more characters in the Heileen saga. All of which (and some from the first volume) are potential love interests in the end of the trilogy. Now, while I cannot be certain... I think the Chastity ending in this game is the most likely lead in to the final one (at the very least one of the pirate endings is).

[h1]只堪平庸[/h1] 总评： 不作全价购买推荐，不作单独购买推荐。 第一部评测（瞎扯）链接： http://steamcommunity.com/id/lenkimo/recommended/302950/ 【TL;DR】 * 第一部主要角色全部神隐到回忆里的第二部。 - 靠超自然强制推进的跳跃剧情。 * 以回忆杀来铺展剧情、引出第一部的主要角色。 * 不算出彩的配音。 * 配乐神游。 《Heileen》系列是由 Winter Wolves 于 2008 至 2012 年先后推出的视觉小说三部曲，分别是《Sail Away》《The Hands Of Fate》《New Horizons》。本作即为系列第二部。 在第一部的海难结局后，在本作中海琳漂流到了某个不知名的海岛上，与她同样在海岛上的还有在第一部结尾才出现的艾柏丽（Ebele，一译埃伯勒，不过考虑到这是个女角色所以取前者）和罗伯特（Robert），剧情则围绕三人如何在岛上寻求生机并离开而展开。 尽管是荒岛求生，但是故事并不着力于此，而是引出了七张美德塔罗牌与七张罪恶塔罗牌以及一张魔法地图。地图指引着海琳一行穿越海岛，并最终为人所救，逃出生天。在探索过程中，海伦借着带有魔力的塔罗牌，穿梭于过去与其它梦境间，在不同的时空和年龄阶段里与第一部的主要角色会面，揭开回忆，获得道具，为现实的探索铺路。 这是一种很狡猾的剧情推进方式。借助海琳手里的塔罗牌在梦境里穿行，只要作出了正确的选择就能获得对应的道具，从而破除现实中荒岛探险里无法逾越的迷局。而不正确的选择就会导向大量的 BE，这也成为了本作几乎唯一的趣味所在。因为主线剧情本身定然是了无风波了。只能搞一些错误选择和 BE 来丰富玩家的体验。 突如其来地，本作为除了海琳以外的所有角色都添加了配音，包括在海琳的梦境中第一作主要角色和其它边边角角的角色都有配音，唯读主角海琳没有配音。这可能是制作方出于玩家的代入感的考虑，不过海琳的角色已经是这番独立了也确实没有什么代入感可言…… 至于配音的水平，并不能说优秀，还是能隐隐地感觉到一种刻意感。说得委婉一些就是诚意已至但实力不足。 与此相较，本作的配乐基本等于神游。没有语音的间隙基本靠效果音来支撑，还有海琳每次吹海风来一个大特写时来的一小段。 至于那个不知怎么就哭一场的特色依旧从第一作沿袭至今，到现在还是让人觉得特别莫名。虽都是说到动情时潸然泪下，但是“至于吗”的疑问依旧久飘不散。 比起第一作，本作最终呈现出的效果不算太差。但是这种无限依靠超自然力量来推进剧情的方式并不能说值得提倡。 依旧，游戏发售过集合包与慈善包。以同价位的其它视觉小说或是 Gal 来看，无论是单款作品的价位还是三部曲加起来总价，与相近价位的其他作品相比，说不上优秀，只堪平庸。