I REALLY wish there was some kind of "neutral review" option on Steam, and I really hate to not recommend Little Misfortune, but the cons outweigh the pros.
[b]Pros[/b]
- Very story-rich for a gameplay-lacking game
- Morgo's acting was amazing. His voice sounds about as satisfying as The Narrator from The Stanley Parable (and that's a compliment btw)
- The music was amazing and felt right for the environment. I would save to a playlist.
- Misfortune was adorable. She's a little lady, you know?
- Misfortune's home life hit my heart hard, especially as someone who came from a similar home life as her.
- The "Knock Knock" scene scared me actually.
[b]Cons[/b]
- Severely lacking in gameplay. Even with the minigames, it really felt more like a visual novel than an actual game. Hell, even visual novels have more gameplay. The rhythm game in the strip club was a pain in the ass to do since every correct note shook your screen, and the Whack-a-Fox game felt repetitive.
- Story hyped itself up and for what. Parts of it confused me so badly that I had to go to Google to understand what I was even looking at. And even though I basically knew everything afterwards, the story barely carried itself. It has to be backed up by fan theories online and subtext.
- Very crude humor. For a game with an eight-year-old protagonist, it sure did contain a lot of sexually-hinting jokes. What was even the point of those? And the delivery was always terrible too. I'm pretty sure the only one I laughed at was the one where George drew a ♥♥♥♥ on his canvas before killing himself.
- The cutscenes where Morgo talks to Misfortune and interviews her are long and boring. I think the developers were trying to create a "your choices don't matter! oooo!" scenario, but it doesn't really work out if your audience doesn't know that.
- The sparkles were surprisingly hard to get. The prompt only showed up 1-2 seconds after a cutscene and by then, I had already gone to the next area.
- Replays are awful. I've seen this already, please give me an option to skip dialogue faster.
- They didn't handle Misfortune's home life as tenderly as I hoped they would. They barely acknowledged it in the game at all. To sum it up, every time Misfortune's dad is mentioned, it goes something like this: "my dad hits me!" "oh dear" *game goes on as per usual*.
- The literal animal-human love subplot? HELLO??? And I would've just brushed it off as a silly childhood crush if the devs didn't fully lean into it hardcore style.
Overall, I give this game a 4/10. If it were advertised as a walking point-and-clicker, I would've enjoyed this more.
