Jake's Love Story

Typical high school romance without any of the filler. Each important decision has a lead in then consequences. Decent amount of choices. No gay option.

Historia miłosna Jake'a prezentuje się nawet dobrze Zalety: + fabuła + postacie ładnie narysowane + wiele zakończeń Wady: - grało się dobrze, ale czuję, że czegoś brakuje końcowa ocena 9/10 niezłe

In a word, the game is amateurish. The writing is bland and has a few grammatical mistakes, with overly simple characters and a rapidfire pace that doesn't properly set the tone or mood of any given scene. Artwork is bland and seems like something you'd find on DeviantArt. One playthrough only took me about half an hour it's so short. There's nine endings, but if they're as rushed as the one I got, I have no interest going after any of the others. If I didn't get this as a free redeem from a friend who just had a spare key he gave me, I wouldn't have bothered. Save your time and money.

[u][b]Jake's Love Story[/b][/u] is a lackluster, poor-quality, and extremely short slice-of-life visual novel which takes place over the course of three years in a high school based on the Polish school system pre-2019. The story follows four characters who, surprisingly, aren't exact copies of the stereotypical tropes that you'd find in most visual novels which is pleasantly refreshing but unfortunately not redeeming enough to save the game by any means. Overall, I don't recommend it because it's a subpar and amateurish game that doesn't do anything well at all, except maybe draw a few chuckles from you with some of the dialogue options, and isn't worth your time compared to any number of other visual novels which are higher in quality, have a meaningful message (or a message altogether), are thought-provoking, or are frankly just more enjoyable. [hr][/hr] [quote][b]S U M M A R Y[/b][/quote] - The gameplay is typical for the genre and there isn't anything noteworthy about it; - The replay value is relatively low because it's hard to care for the game enough to play through it multiple times in order to see the various outcomes and endings; - The graphics are pretty shoddy as the character artwork looks flat as well as inhuman which is quite unnerving; - The soundtrack is unremarkable and fits the game well as background noise but nothing more; and - The story is very simplistic and mundane while doing nothing exciting with the material that it does have. [hr][/hr] [quote][b]A C H I E V E M E N T S[/b][/quote] The game has 12 achievements which should take less than an hour and a half to acquire since a few are freebies while the rest are tied to the nine endings that are simple to achieve. [hr][/hr] [quote][b]R E V I E W[/b][/quote] [h3]Gameplay[/h3] The gameplay is standard for the genre, although it's easy enough to simultaneously swoon both love interests in order to view all nine endings in one save file. Although this is convenient for seeing all of endings very quickly, it makes the game feel too rigid in terms of its structure because the few branching paths that the game has are composed only of the "good" or "bad" choices and there is little nuance between these two choices which results in the game feeling overly-simplistic and very linear. [h3]Graphics[/h3] The graphics are quite crude as the character artwork is lacking 3D depth and shading, the body proportions are off, and the male characters look like inhuman and almost alien-like thanks to their odd-looking features. This is particularly noticeable on the titular main character but that may also be because his portrait is drawn from straight on as if he were directly facing a camera unlike the artwork for everyone else who is slightly askew in comparison. Disappointingly, none of the characters' artwork changes as they age throughout the three-year story, only the girls have different outfits and costumes, and only one of them has different poses and facial expressions. [h3]Sound[/h3] The soundtrack is composed of mediocre royalty-free songs from [u][url=https://www.hooksounds.com/]Hook Sounds[/url][/u] which fit the game well as background noise but are otherwise completely forgettable. The developers have a frequent habit of using a grating record scratch sound whenever a character says something out of place or you make a "bad" decision which comes off as patronizing and interrupts the mood of the scene by breaking your immersion in the story. [h3]Story[/h3] The story is very boring and generic because it doesn't do anything exciting with the everyday events that you play through, it doesn't subvert your expectations in any way, it has no stakes, and it does very little to keep you invested in it. Your reward for persevering and seeing the nine endings will be utter disappointment as they are drab and only vary slightly between one another due to the different relationships that can occur between the characters. The script also has a few typos and grammatical errors here and there, making it obvious that English isn't the developer's first language or localization wasn't done perfectly, but this is a very minor issue. The characters also have a plethora of issues: they aren't particularly likeable and never grow or develop throughout the story, the game constantly skips huge chunks of time which ruins the flow of the game (sometimes giving you only a few sentences between time skips), these time skips artificially extend the timeline of the story when it could have fit better in one school year instead, the main character's introspective monologue constantly questions the "bad" choices you make which feels chiding, and one of the girls constantly breaks the fourth wall which quickly becomes wearisome and just seems like a baseless attempt at cheap humor. Lastly, the game has one very questionable scene which involves the over-sexualization of one of the girls, who is most likely 16 years old at the time of the scene (based on the age stipulations of the Polish school system). Although the scene might be realistic, it simply feels wrong to witness it as an adult due to her age. [h3]Conclusion[/h3] Overall, I don't recommend it because it's quite a bad visual novel, especially when compared to the plethora that are available on Steam. Instead, I recommend trying two of recent my favorite visual novels, [u][url=https://store.steampowered.com/app/310080/Hatoful_Boyfriend/]Hatoful Boyfriend[/url][/u] and [u][url=https://store.steampowered.com/app/698780/Doki_Doki_Literature_Club/]Doki Doki Literature Club[/url][/u], both of which have a far more gripping story, plenty of plot twists, thought-provoking messages, and unique charms of their own. That being said, I did have some fun with this game but only because I intentionally sabotaged everything by constantly picking the "bad" choices and whose outcomes made me chortle a few times; however, I also had a coupon which massively reduced its price. Nevertheless, I still wouldn't recommend it even when it is on sale. In fact, I can't believe that the developers raised the price of this game to 10.00 USD a few years ago...I honestly can't imagine paying that much for such an amateur production.

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Wiele zakończeń sprawia że... marszczą mi się piegi kiedy się złoszczę !!!

no sex.

great game. BUT. you cannot get with mike. which is very sad. trying to get with mike just makes you alone. very sad.