I remember I contemplated a lot if I should play [I] Highschool Possession [/i] as I didn't like the art, plus I'm not a fan of games with male MC romancing girls, buuut 2 my steam friends reviewed the game positively, so I thought I could give it a try. I didn't read the reviews though not to get any possible spoilers.
When I started playing, I honestly wanted to drop, it just looked unreadable completely but actually I am glad I didn't. The story absolutely unexpectedly enthralled me greatly, at one moment I realized I was crying, that's how emotional it made me. I'm always grateful when the writing can stir strong feelings in me. But, honestly, the way the game is now, it's kinda hard to recommend it. I was sure it's gonna be my first negative review in a long while, as the novel needs to be fixed/polished! But... the story is nice, and again I wish I could write a neutral review:(
So, that's my list of flaws and what I liked, decide for yourself xD
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2620473718
–the main complaint is unreadable text. It's in a disastrous state. I just don't get. Were the devs themselves playing the game?! Were they ok with the light text without any text box on a light background?! Btw I always appreciate when there's a setting allowing me to choose the saturation of the text box, here... no text box at all. Usually I read visual novels lying comfortably in my gaming chair, this time I had to sit straight in front of the screen to decipher what was written. There's even a steam guide how to fix the font, I tried it twice but I guess I'm too stupid to apply it:( The game just refused to start after my attempts XD But again, returning to the devs, don't they check the store page at all? Don't they see the complaints and the very guide? Why can't THEY fix it?! They just don't care or what?!
–the size of the window is not nice, it's either too small to play the game or not big enough to fill my screen, I always had to choose some dark bg on the screen, not to be distracted;
–many typos, I wrote down some, but sometimes I was either lazy or sleepy to record them all. The text should be edited anyway;
–art is not pretty at all, tho it kinda grew on me after a while. I guess in a visual novel the story, novel really IS the more important part than visual;
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2620474289
–there's an adult patch, you don't need to even download it just...change smth in the folder. There's a steam discussion/guide explaining how to do it. Even I managed to succeed there xD but dunno, it's still kinda complicated and a thought occurred to me to check if the patch exists somewhere in the middle of my first play-through, I wish this information were somewhere easy to notice, not to replay/skip the game again. Though you may say it was my fault for not checking the discussions, reviews, curator recommendations...
–too often I just read the text on the black background, some visuals would be nice. And it wasn't unimportant transitional parts of the story, no! some things were quite emotional but I was looking at the black spot while reading that, is it a VISUAL novel or what?!
–saves are very inconvenient:( the slots are small and the choices just look identical all the time, just 2 small lines on a black bg, it's just absolutely impossible to see what is saved there, so what's even the point of such saves?!
–there was one NSFW CG absolutely not matching the text description, that's kinda not very nice, tho I found it funny.
+The story! At some point it really became so captivating, I was ready to condone all those flaws mentioned above. Actually the plot was the main reason I decided to play the game. The idea of appearing in other bodies was always appealing but... other serious topics mentioned in the story were also compelling. For example, bullying, suicide attempts, self-harm. The very school setting was a big plus too, as I work as a teacher.
+not a kinetic novel, many choices for not a long story;
+many save slots \o/
+four endings for a rather short story and achievements featured in the profile. Finally, I was playing some VN where achs are counted and one more game was added to my list of perfect games.
+steam guides.
So, I do believe the game may be fixed/polished to a much better state. But...it was released 6! years ago and...nothing:( This summer they made a new VN. It means the devs are still there, creating, so why not fix old games first! I repeat, it's hard to recommend the game as it is now, I hope things will change! Thanks for a fascinating story anyway! <3
[table]
[tr]
[th]More thoughts about the game in a [url=https://steamcommunity.com/groups/readingnook/discussions/0/2962796621669480054/?ctp=1] Reading Nook [/url][/th]
[/tr]
[/table]
