Hilda Bewildered

The “Hilda” in this novel turns out to be two unrelated characters. One, a young princess tasked with hosting a formal party and giving her first ever public speech; the other an unknown down-and-out thief who happens to resemble the princess. This is exactly what it says: a short story. There are no player choices to be made. We follow the tale of the princess' dread as her debut public appointment looms, and switch to that of the lookalike thief who breaks into the palace, [spoiler]steals her ring,[/spoiler] and subsequently goes on the run. I had been looking forward to playing this for several weeks before getting to it, as it is promoted as being for “deep thinking .. readers”. Certainly all of the points noted on the store page are touched upon, but the depth and mental challenge I had been anticipating after reading this claim, did not materialise. The sole reason for this being, that the story is just so, so short. There are a series of hand drawn and painted backdrops, several of them animated; each of which can be accessed directly from the front menu screen. This serves as an alternative to a save function (not present), should you start the game and have to run after only 5 minutes, this will prove useful. Each screen has three visible buttons, one to take you back to the previous, one to skip to the next, and one in the centre which takes you to the menu. Bear in mind that there is not a direct “return” button so if you choose to go to menu, you will have to select the screen that you left from manually. What is [b]not made clear[/b] anywhere within the game is that these are not the only progression options. From within each screen, you must also click on the main picture in order to reveal further story details that it is very easy to completely bypass. I did exactly that on first play through, reading the screen text presented to me, and then clicking the “next” arrow. In doing so, I unwittingly skipped much of the story detail, finished within 20 minutes and came away thoroughly underwhelmed with the apparent flimsiness of the story. Neglecting to include such a basic gameplay instruction is a horribly careless omission. I discovered what had been missed courtesy of watching the store page promotional video. So I started again and read through thoroughly. The story became much more explanatory, and offered a degree of satisfaction for both threads by the end. So, recommendation or not? I am so conflicted here: the story is nicely constructed and some of the animations are fun to watch; whilst the absence of any basic user instruction hampers user-friendliness and the ending is so quick and unexpected upon first play through – which will also be the only play through for most players. If this game was free, I would recommend without hesitation as it is a pleasantly diverting 20-30 minutes; but when compared to some other games which are free or similarly priced, then I'm afraid that even at this relatively low price point, it is still expensive, and therefore I am going to have to say no. Wait and see if it becomes free or available at half price in a sale. There is simply not enough here to provide sufficient value when compared with its obvious competitors. [quote] Please follow our curator page, [url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/4680120/]Otome Lovers[/url], if you'd like to see more reviews like this one! [/quote]

就一条评测？这次真的够小众了我要玩了。玩了会才发现点ppt会有新情节。剧情因为英文所以没细看，不过通过机翻官方手册中的介绍了解了，居然还有隐喻解析。 整体是有些设计的普通短篇故事，但我其实还挺喜欢它的手绘美术风格的，既迷幻写意又丑陋写实。半价的话感觉加一还是不亏的。