Illusion Carnival

Залишився у великому захваті від гри як фанат психологічних жахів. Перше проходження незабутнє, є дуже харизматичні персонажі, з захопленням очікую на повноцінну версію гри!

无论是画风还是美术风格这游戏真是让我大开眼目虽然只有第一张非常的短真是不错希望能赶快玩儿到第二章节

Hoo booy... this is gonna be a difficult review for me to make. I just wish Steam had a third option where you can be mid with the game recommendation, because this game is one of them. I'll start with the good ones. First off : Good art. I like it. It has some unique style and execution to it. One of the main reasons why I picked up this game when I found it by chance on Steam. The music's nice, the character designs are interesting, the kind you see where it is enough to make a cult fandom of its own and have tons of fanart of it (but also content farming if it gets popular enough, unfortunately), and the premise of the story is so far has its creative originality to it (though my idea of 'originality' does not mean that it never existed somewhere before, it's just an existing concept that is taken on its own spin that you don't see it done like that that frequently) and it almost made me want to stay for the rest of the chapters. Almost. And then came the downside of this game. BUGS. Lots and lots of bugs. I got one right off the bat. The malfunctioning interaction buttons on the menu and the dialogue options. For some reason I cannot click on anything once I Shift + Tab through the game that it locked me into the game that I had to force close it with a force exit. It got worse when I reached to the end of the game when I DID NOT GET ALL MY ACHIEVEMENTS THAT I'M SUPPOSED TO GET after I got the final page for Wuwu's novel, AND the moth plague in the train, AND the 6 questions by the end of the game because ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥, THERE'S NO QUESTION TO ANSWER WHEN THEY JUST SKIPPED THROUGH THE DIALOGUE WITHOUT THE DIALOGUE OPTIONS. Of all places where I don't want to skip the dialogue, they pulled off ♥♥♥♥ like this by the end of the game, and I was already suffering through the unskippable scenes and dialogues that I DON'T WANT TO GO THROUGH IT AGAIN. It was pure ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥. I was crying from the inside. Which goes to my second pet peeve with this game. There is NO SKIP BUTTON. Please, for the sake of everything chaotic, put a skip button if you're gonna put A LOT OF LONG DIALOGUES or LONG CINEMATIC OR ANIMATION SEQUENCES throughout the game. The cinematics, conversation and the dialogues in this game are ENDLESS. It's like over 60% of it was wasted on the unskippable cinematics and all the talking, and a lot of them are unnecessary dialogues! Usually there's a good balance of showing and telling and those in between; but so far, I see a lot of telling, with repetitive showing. The game already has a nice visual art and environment, if they let those do the heavy lifting on the storytelling, probably most of the info dumping dialogues would've been cut off. Honestly the long winding dialogues and the unnecessary repetitive cinematics lost me before the game even started. It was a dealbreaker right on my first playthrough when they kept handholding me in the introduction right until the tutorial. The Illusia scene is unnecessarily long that it prolonged the game introduction. If you want to introduce the mechanics of the Orikerd, you could have just put that during Deliriini instead of making it a baseless chase sequence. I thought that the introduction was done after the chase, but then I was bombarded with more dialogue, the REAL tutorial, and a new character that I was already confused with (because I haven't even get to process with the other characters that I just met before) before finding out that Illusia is a completely different character and not a jammed Dementria who somehow got corrupted. It was overwhelming at best after with all the chaotic interaction with the previous characters. My next point : the progression of the game is all over the place like the visuals, and not the good kind. I can get that the visuals for the game fits the carnival theme even though it's a bit overwhelming (but that's fine, they already put the warnings, and I find that the visuals are appealing and fitting for the whole concept of the game.), but that doesn't mean that the plot and game progression has to be too. The only game puzzle I find entertaining is the Block Maze, where we had to go through the wandering dolls in the dark. I find that scary and fun. The rest however, felt too lackluster and too meh for my liking, and the minigames is doing all the hard work instead of the story puzzles. It's almost like a walking simulator, because there's not much you can do except just follow the path and get the next Gingerbread Man. I feel like the environment of the carnival would feel more immersive and fun if we can interact with them more, but ironically, it felt so empty with the lack of objects to interact to or more puzzles to be embedded in it. If you ask me, they could have used the plot progression throughout the game using the Illusia and made a puzzle out of it. That way the pacing feels more smooth and interconnected with the story more instead of clueless wandering with simple detached puzzles from Room A to Room B. Plus, it could've allowed more attachment room for the players with the characters that they've introduced, but all of them fell flat throughout the game. When I got to the end of chapter 1, I was literally like, 'Whu? That's it?' and left more confused than ever rather than curious. I don't feel curious enough to be brought back to find out what happens next, because 1) the bugs at the end of the run ruined the experience for me, 2) I wasn't enjoying the progression, and 3) I wasn't curious enough because I wasn't enjoying as much as I thought I would. The only thing that would make me come back if those problems still persist would be the concept of the story, and the visual art of the game; because by far, that's what makes the game appealing in the first place. If this was a comic, I think it would have been a good one and I would read it without question. This game has a lot of potential and promise, you got the art, the story, and the catch for it, but right now the execution wasn't enough to make it interesting enough to let me stay. Though I wouldn't find the game to have any issues when it comes to audiences and fans, because this seems like something that quirky teenagers or (I'm sorry to say this, but) cringey kids to love it enough to stay and gush about it for years to come, unless your targeted audience would be adults, then I find that very possible, but harrowingly niche (but not actually quirky or cringey, and that applies to some genuine younger audiences as well), depending on what kind of people you're trying to attract using your media. Overall, it's not a lost cause, probably far from it. Despite my lackluster experience with the game, and my harsh critique on it, I would still recommend it since in a standard overall experience, it's not bad for a game. It has potential and its charms, and it's FREE. Good story concept and beautiful art, though I just wish that the execution could be better other than the bugs. My hopes for the devs that the next chapter would be more polished and improved from the first chapter for other future and potential fans out there. I might stop it here unless there's any improvement or changes. But I would still recommend to anyone who is interested. It's free for God's sake. Edit : I replayed it for the sake of the achievements (though it was painful to go through the dialogues and cinematics again) and surprisingly it wasn't as bad as I thought it would, my point still stands that it's still a game with potential and a lot of work and love was put into this game, I give you that. But that doesn't change my mind that the little peeves still prevented me from liking this game wholeheartedly. I may be a harsh critic, but credit is given when credit is due, in the end it's all just my opinion on my experience on the game.

画面制作的很精良，可玩性也还不错

loved the playthrough overall, i hope to see the next chapters

2.3月份玩的，现在想起来撰写评测。事实上这款游戏的画风很吸引人，总体纸片风格也很美味。可玩性方面应该说还不错，上手了好打，我最开始打的挺懵逼，后面刷成就的时候好点了。没记错的话流程不算长，但是依旧刷成就耗费比较多时间，乌乌的一个成就打起来不太方便，好像要在同一个存档收集，二三刷图方便废了不少时间，不知道现在修改了没有。当时的我应该还希望基础移速再快点来着。彩蛋的画风也特别米特别有美商，当作一个偏观赏的游戏就会很好