Jester / King

[quote][b]S U M M A R Y[/b][/quote] [u][b]Jester / King[/b][/u] is a linear visual novel which takes place in a medieval fantasy setting and has a number of love interests to choose from. Overall, I don't recommend it for the following reasons: - Despite having the illusion of choice, the game ends up being deceptively linear as all choices will eventually lead to the good or bad ending; - The story drags on due to a copious amount of inner monologuing by the main character, exposition to explain the backstory, and unnecessary banter between the unlikeable characters that feels artificial; - The writing is mediocre, overly verbose, and unfortunately marred by an excessive amount of swearing that feels out of place; - The game has an inherent predisposition towards the male love interest over the female love interests; - The production value is quite lackluster because there is only one low-quality full-body character portrait and pose per character (with minor variations in their facial expressions) and royalty-free music is used; and - It is exorbidantly overpriced (16.00 USD) for what it delivers despite the fact that it is much longer than many other visual novels. [hr][/hr] [quote][b]A C H I E V E M E N T S[/b][/quote] The game has eight achievements which can all be casually acquired within 8-10 hours; however, the three unique character endings and associated achievements are somewhat time-consuming to get due to the game's dreadfully slow auto-scroll speed. [hr][/hr] [quote][b]R E V I E W[/b][/quote] [h3]Gameplay[/h3] The gameplay is standard for a visual novel except that it may as well be considered a kinetic visual novel because all choices eventually lead to the good or bad ending and the story is completely linear as a result. The romance choices also only affect the immediate scene in which the decision is made and have no further impact until the epilogue of the good ending but only if you have successfully romanced one of the three love interests. The game is also much longer than a standard visual novel, boasting 90,000 words and taking anywhere from 6-8 hours to complete casually, but this makes it feel like it drags on unnecessarily rather than adds to the overall experience. In terms of quality-of-life features, the game has a handy chapter selection chart and a chat log in case you missed a line or wanted to review what was previously said but the auto-scroll speed is horrendously slow. For reference, it takes around 45 minutes to auto-scroll through the entire game once. [h3]Graphics[/h3] The graphics are somewhat low-effort and rudimentary because the full-body character portraits are lacking in detail, look quite flat, and some aspects just aren't drawn well such as hand and fingers, while the backdrops are made up of typical medieval fantasy settings that set the scene and sometimes have visual effects such as fire and smoke lazily overlaid on top of them in an attempt to add more immersion. Moreover, each character only has one full-body character portrait and no other portraits in different poses. The artist attempted to add more emotion to the characters by drawing different facial expressions for them but this merely ranges from varying their eye sizes, having different mouth gestures, and adding pink/red hues or blue hues on their faces to represent blushing and anxiety (respectively) — the shape of the head or face never changes and it feels quite low-effort as a result. [h3]Sound[/h3] The music is composed of fitting but uninspired and forgettable atmospheric royalty-free songs from Kevin MacLeod. I actually found the menu song to be annoying after navigating the main menu and its sub-menus for more than a few minutes since the song loops so quickly. The game does have voice acting but it is only used for important lines, which isn't very often, and doesn't really add much to the game because it's so sporadic and isn't very good — in particular, the king sounds especially strained and speaks far too slowly. If anything, it would've been better if there was no voice acting whatsoever so the players could imagine how the characters sound for themselves. [h3]Story[/h3] The story progresses very slowly and isn't very riveting overall but there are a few suspenseful cliffhanger moments throughout the game which urged me to continue on. The game is also quite long compared to other visual novels that I've read and the sheer amount of text, exposition, and backstory that you have to wade through feels like uninteresting filler for the most part, becomes a tedious chore after a while, and makes the pacing very inconsistent as you switch back and forth between flashbacks, the present time, inner monologues, and banter. The writing is nothing special but there is an excessive amount of swearing which feels extremely out of place given the fantasy setting and makes it sound crass. You are also forced to suffer through the main character's constant inner monologues that drone on and leave you with very little opportunity to figure out the intricacies of the story for yourself which is disappointing and borders on being patronizing towards the reader since all of the theories and answers are given to you. Two of the three love interests are especially unlikeable at the beginning of the game, one of whom is abrasive while the other is irksome, and this causes the banter between the four main characters to feel stilted. There is also barely any meaningful character development throughout the story and this is due to the use of two major plot devices (one of which is severely overused) but, although these are the crux of the progression and gradual reveal of the story and its twists, they do nothing when it comes to developing the characters. As a result, this makes the romance-related choices and endings feel contrived and as if they were added simply to check the box of having love interests in the game. This is especially true with regards to the abrasive one who feels like she was tacked on as a love interest just for the sake of it compared to the other female one. The primary plot device also brings into question some incongruities which clash with the romance aspect as a whole but this is a minor point that is starting to break down the game too much for a review of this magnitude. One particular issue that I had with the romance aspect is that the male love interest seems to be the canon one as motes of a previous relationship with him can be seen throughout the game and dialogue regardless of whether you are pursuing the female love interests (or are actively avoiding all of them) and I find this to be disingenuous in a game where you supposedly have a choice of love interests. Unfortunately, due to the primary plot device, so much of the game is predicated on the past rather than present events and character development and this is a symptom of it. [h3]Conclusion[/h3] Overall, it has a lot of issues between the low production value, illusion of choice and linearity, slow and uninteresting story, weak characters, excessively protracted length and bland writing, and its extremely high base cost for what it's delivering. If you still feel the need to play this game then I highly recommend waiting for it to go on sale for [u][url=https://steamdb.info/app/1424300/]anywhere from 2.40 to 5.00 USD[/url][/u] (the developer keeps adjusting the base price and discounts it by seemingly random amounts) as it most certainly isn't worth 16.00 USD.

I loved Novel games back in the day, and I remember liking DemonHeart, so I picked this up. Pros: Characters feel very different. Very easy to assume good guys/bad guys, which may or may not be incorrect. I liked the feeling of not being aware, and only being able to rely on a handful of memories. Art style was simple, but good! Cons: Game was way too long for what it was. Literally, after the ending is found out, the game just *kept going* without any ability for you to do anything. The 'omg!' reveal was easily spotted in the very start when you are at first trying to find clues and there's a tell-tale similarity between two characters. Game also felt like it had confused itself as it went on. It felt like who remembered what still didn't quite add up; poor Edwina and Lucille seem to be constantly stuck on Day One. All in all, felt more like a fist draft instead of a finished product. I got this on sale, and while the game takes a while to finish, you have very few options that actually change the main story. This was more like a slide-show story than a game. Try another one of their games, this one needs some TLC

This game is nuts, but a lovely kind of nuts... As in... I had to keep reading it for the mystery. If you are here solely for romance... Heh, it wont work... There IS romance, but with everything going on... The romance is minimal. Which makes a lot of sense. There are two females to romance and one male... Yes, everyone (almost) already said "wish Zeno was a LI"... Me too. He seems fun. Mystery is good... I can't say I figured much out due to looping... Apparently I looped too and my head refused to put the pieces together. Good thing I wasn't a character in the game! This game was much easier to stomach than Demonheart (first one), as it didn't have the meat room. What I am saying is... It isn't dark... Like the other game. For a mystery game -> that's all you get. Enjoy! Thank yous!!! :) =) :3

Story is good but the game crashed multiple times without any Crash report

Loved it. Story - play it for the story / mystery, it's worth it! It starts kinda odd but then I couldn't put it down. Art - background art is beautiful; the CGs and sprites not so much, but I did like their facial expressions, especially the main character's Voices - partially voiced, actors did a good job; I liked the main character's voice the most Achis - pretty easy to get them , need about 3 replays from a certain point to get all of them and skip is a bit slow

Я здуріла і пройшла цю гру, не отримавши жодного щасливого кінця, я хз як ви це робите. Дуже люблю концепт з оцими лупами часовими, дуже весело, дуже позитивно і всі дуже живі, і я психічно здорова. А якщо серйозно, мені справді сподобалось, змушує кипіти мізки і не тільки, всім рекомендую. Вбиває що персонажки мені майже не зайшли, але проблема мабуть скоріше в мені? чи то я частіше Янголяткобойчика бачила, та він мені до душі припав.. коротше, якщо любите коли всі вмирають і страждають, то вам сюди, дякую за увагу.

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买之前不知道怎么回事以为主角哥是女的 /捂脸 不过他真的好帅声音也好听，剧本也是一如既往的美味 （害，打完了居然没跟任何人在一起 看了作者的即将推出相当震惊，居然要出这部的otome版了

Definite step up from Ice Demon, love the story

三个攻略对象戏份也差太多了 剧情里Lucille和Edwina感觉经常被抛下 真结局章节里在距离结局还有一半的时候就完全脱离了 情节放在现在不算新颖但也绝对达标了 叙述也很流畅 不会觉得无聊 虽然标签里有暗示这是个黑暗故事但是部分剧情处理却很童话 zeno能加入dlc就好了 两位妹子的剧情也完全可以再来一些 太少了 但感觉故事确实已经落下帷幕很难就再增加了 是值得购买也存在遗憾的作品