Combine an adult Visual Novel (VN) with a full 3D environment and you get Libertine: King of Hearts. Before diving into the core of Libertine I need to talk about the elephant in the room, the voice acting. According to the credits, AI was used to alter voices so that a few people could voice all of the characters and it shows. The voices sound like pure AI one moment then have human feeling the next. Overall, it’s inconsistent. None of the voices are so bad it will make your ears bleed. Really, the worst of it is during adult interactions and bedroom talk. I give them credit for trying to spice things up, but with mechanical sounding AI voices it just does not work. However, the pillow talk can be turned off if you wish.
Outside of the typical Visual Novel romance bubble is the 3D world. Libertine’s base game play relies on three core game mechanics, a First Person Shooter (FPS), followers, and stealth. I can already feel your eyes rolling at the last two, but please don’t turn away. It’s not as bad as you might think.
[h2]Bang Bang:[/h2]
The FPS game play is serviceable. It’s not bad and it’s not going to knock your socks off either. The only difference from the usual FPS is that the damage is equal and unforgiving. It only takes a couple of hits to kill an NPC or you. There is a regenerative shield called luck. I know, pretty clever. So when your luck runs out, so do you. There are also a plethora of guns to collect and play around with. A convenient gun store allows for the purchasing of addons. Thankfully, one addon works for all weapons, if the weapon supports it. Along with the firearms you also have access to lethal and non lethal melee weapons. That’s pretty much it. If you played one shooter then you also played this one…minus the bedroom scenes.
[h2]Stealth:[/h2]
The stealth in Libertine is not scripted. So there is not some magical single solution you have to spend hours trying to figure out. The stealth is open ended due to how NPCs respond to your actions. Basically, if they did not see you do it, it did not happen. However, every NPC will respond to a body so you can’t leave them laying around or have witnesses. This allows for a dominos, the game not the pizza, type of play. Knock them out one by one in the right order and it’s like nothing happened.
Although the NPCs strictly hunt by vision, they can be distracted with thrown objects. Sometimes this will increase their awareness, but for the most part they will just go and take a look allowing you to slip by or bonk them in the head. Speaking of knocking out an NPC, you have to be quick if they see you trying to attack them. There is about a one second time out before they will alert everyone else and the whole area will go crazy.
Even though all the NPCs will go “!” on you does not mean they all will know where you are. So, if you can take out the lead NPCs it will break the visual chain to your location and eventually all the other NPCs will calm down and go about their business. Also, being spotted is very lenient. The NPC will say something letting you know they are suspicious. Most of the time you can just duck into a shadow or stop moving to break contact.
If you do choose to go all stealth, prepare to break out your best Sam Fisher imitation. Lighting plays a large role when it comes to being spotted. Every light can be shot out to help mask your movement and the NPCs don’t seem to notice the lack of illumination. Well, I hope this lengthy explanation eased your concerns about the stealth in the game.
[h2]Followers:[/h2]
That eye twitch you get from dealing with follower AI is not going to be an issue. Thankfully the developer chose to rely on immersion breaking mechanics to keep you from hating your follower so you can stay focused on nurturing your relationship rather than pushing them out of a moving car.
The first thing you will notice is that the AI is competent. Shocking, I know. They can hold their own and will most likely out perform you. Which given how squishy the main character is, it’s a blessing. Also, the followers not sucking in a fight helps with the no-kill game play.
Your premature balding from pulling your hair out over pathing is over. The AI followers have no issue keeping up with you, or getting out of your way. Also, they don’t have problems moving around to engage the bad guys. If there is a problem like a follower is missing from a transition to a new area, a simple reload should fix it.
Too many smashed monitors from getting angry at AI giving away your position or breaking your stealth? Well, that is now a thing of the past. Your followers are completely ignored by enemy NPCs unless you are in a fight. Once, I snuck half way through a facility before I realised my follower was missing. Later, she came running through the place to catch up to me completely unseen. Even bumped into other NPCs along the way.
I can’t believe I have to reload this fight because my follower died! Relax, no worries. You can tell your follower to hide to keep her from taking damage. How is this possible you ask? Well, telling a follower to hide removes them from the field. They will completely vanish for the ultimate protection.
Each follower also has a benefit, other than looking good. For example, Kara has a bonus to fighting robots and refills your ammo. Did I forget to mention there are robots? Yes, this game even has sexy killer robots.
The only part of Libertine: King of Hearts that, is a tiny issue, is a missed opportunity. Libertine has a mechanic called Snatch that lets you strip a person or pick their pocket. Even though it can be used in creative ways, it’s a missed opportunity to use it as a way to acquire clothing for your character and companions. Would be cool for missions as well. Need to sneak past the police? Just snatch a uniform, if you can get away with it. There is nothing wrong with a wishful feature missing, but it would have been something fun to do on the side.
[h2]Caution:[/h2]
You are playing the Steam release of Libertine: King of Hearts. It is not the same as other builds or previous iterations of the game. This is important if you try to Google help with the game. There will be a lot of confusing information that does not pertain to the Steam release. For example, in the game you will be told to wait for a follower to contact you to continue a quest line. Time flows based on the missions you complete. However, Google will return a lot of posts about sleeping to advance time. So, if you find yourself needing help, it’s best to ask the community to save yourself some frustration.
Overall, Libertine: King of Hearts has engaging game mechanics, good story telling, and compelling characters. Don’t turn it away because of its adult content. If you are tired of the flat boring nature of Visual Novels, Libertine will be a breath of fresh air. I purposefully kept away from the companions and plot so as to not spoil anything. However, of Nissa I will say this, the picture is coming from inside the house.
