Missing Time

I am writing this brief review, not as a full on recommendation, but a bit of a mixed bag. Art In my opinion, the art is top tier, for the most part. A good chunk of CGs and variations of sprites. A surprising amount of backgrounds as well deserves a noticeable mention. There are a few CGs that are different style enough that it becomes somewhat distracting when you notice it, but that is a minor detail. Music The music is pretty good. Nothing groundbreaking, but nothing terrible either. User Interface The User Interface (UI), is bland and does not work very well. It does the job for the most part, but barely that. For example, the settings menu doesn't really work and is unresponsive, I could not even change the volume, but had to do it through the volume mixer on Windows. The saving/loading mechanic was unresponsive and a bit of a pain to use because of it. The reading log doesn't activate like most reading logs would in a VN, and the only other button that has it is unresponsive, and is hard to use, opens weirdly, and starts the reading at the wrong place. Characters I generally like the characters for what they are, though I do find Ember a bit annoying, but I would say that is kind of the point. Story This is my main gripe with the game, honestly. And for a VN that can be pretty terrible. And if I am honest from the start, what I got is not what I expected after the original demo on Kickstarter that I pledged for. - That is not necessarily a bad thing either, though. There is a certain order you are 'expected' to play, as can be seen even with their guide. That may be unintentional from their part, but most people do not play VNs without a guide anymore, I'd say. Because of this the general play is Chiharu > Ember > Emiri > Shizuyo > [spoiler] Secret Route [/spoiler]. While you can play the former in any order, I believe, after reading them all, I do feel like this is the intention. I generally want to avoid spoilers (impossible here) , and while all the routes are pretty decent, for what it is, it even becomes somewhat rewarding if you are paying attention and see what happens in the other routes as you go through them. The main issue with the general routes is that they are 'samey' in the sense that they are similar enough to fit in the flow, but different enough that it becomes very difficult to understand what is happening at the end, or the motivation of the characters, which is a shame. I will put the rest in spoilers. [spoiler] I am especially annoyed with Shizuyo's route. She is my favourite girl for sure, with the options available. But her motivations in each route is lackluster and confusing, in a sort of... Why? (Ember is similar, but it annoys me less) So what happens to Shizuyo in the end of her route, which is the final common route most people will play, is.. like. She questions her own motivations, the curse, gets the big sad, and die 2 years early because of it, like she was Padme from Star Wars. And I'm like... what? While the MC (you) may not forgive her for her crimes (despite forgiving Ember.. in other routes..) why did she have to die so abruptly and for no real reason? Like, they had done a lot of experiments, etc. You could have basically made her call MC, talk to the sister if she now had done the things and regret it, and try, with Emiri's help, to permanently remove the curse etc, and perhaps even give her back lifespan, at the cost of something else... for example her ability to move, beauty etc. Which, in my opinion, would all have been better options, more worthy of being the 'good end'. So okay, I assume it is done in 'secret route', the final options. But no, it's basically ending 1 with Chiharu on steroids and more CGs (that again were very nice). And here all characters motivations make even less sense than before. Generally a secret route, or the final route, the 'true' route, has a happy ending. I applaud you for not going that route, but if you do, it has to be more bittersweet (like my suggestion for Shizuyo above), not nonsensical randomness that the final route provided. [/spoiler] This made me go from pretty good, to Why? And the [spoiler] secret route [/spoiler] gave everything else a bad after taste, and were cause for great disappointment. Because of this, I can't really say this visual novel is ground breaking or anything. I would still recommend it, as the art is simply that good for the most part, and the story is good for the most part, but god forbid, do not play [spoiler] secret route [/spoiler]. Play it in order for the four other routes, and then stop. Don't go further. Look up secret route CGs if you are really curious. But because of skipping that chunk of the game, I can't really justify the price. I'd recommend grabbing it on 20-25% sale as well. I am looking forward to what you are creating next, and the DLC :)

For the record, I've played this game before it was available on Steam, given a good 2-3 days worth of time playing this visual novel to learn about each of the characters in the game, uploaded a 12 part series on my YT channel about my overall experience of the game while commentating. And through playing a variety of different visual novels, this particular tale has really stuck to me like no other visual novel has. Missing Time is a visual novel, horror game, dating sim, intertwined with a deep mystery of Komachi's past (the fictional premise of the game), an adventure with whomever you choose pursue out of the 4 girls, a choose your own adventure with the many multiple choices laid out to you. A nice balance of romance, horror, suspense, mystery & comedy mixed in to make it a multi-tier story rich experience that's really worth exploring through. Each of the characters in their own right provides their own individuality to Missing Time that I really love, no two characters are exactly the same, similarities are always found amongst characters, but when it comes to a particular action or thought process, only one character can think in one unique pattern and another character thinks in another unique pattern and so on. The horror aspects in this game are quite powerful, whether if they are to do with a character's current emotions, or a CG in the game that displays a gruesome amount of horror, there are multiple ways in which Missing Time has set the stages to be a horror game. Even in the stillest of moments in the game, where there's no music, no one but yourself as the MC, there's something around the corner that will catch you off-guard. The mysteries of Missing Time I find most fascinating with the entire story of Missing Time, to keep the story short [spoiler]A thousand years ago, a demon from another world entered this world, a god sealed the demon, the demon's curse seeped through the local population wrecking havoc, a priest nearby sparred those under the curse of anymore pain through death and built a shrine where the demon was imprisoned to ensure it cannot curse anymore people.[/spoiler] This story that pre-dated the in-game events allows a deep story to be established as soon as you learn about it in the game, there isn't just a present and a future, but a past as well, something we all in one way or another can reflect upon. The romance and dating in Missing Time is predictable like with many other visual novels, but predictable does not mean bad or boring. I believe in Missing Time the choices available for the player & the dialogue with each of those choices are utilised very well, there's benefits & consequences with each choice made. [spoiler]You select choices that you believe will benefit a particular character in the game if that's the person you are choosing to pursue, but not all of the choices in Missing Time are choices that will lead to the Good End for example.[/spoiler] A lot of the choices in Missing Time are very meaningful for both learning about the main characters & how the game sways, one choice in the past for example may lead to a different line appearing much later on in the game. If you are with one character in a place, you get to discuss with that character on a personal level, or with multiple characters a variety of different conversations & topics discussed. Dialogue & story presented throughout the game is both enriching & captivating, with a few of the endings in particular shedding tears through the sheer emotional rollercoasters that they present to the player. Through actions or with words, Missing Time delivers an experience that tugs at your heart strings which slowly builds up, not something that blows up all at once like a full screen jumpscare, but something that strikes a powerful blow overtime, feeling the weight on the words spoken by both the main character and the girls in the game. There are multiple aspects about each of the four characters that really defines them as people, not just script & images on the screen, but people you can understand, relate too, sympathise with, empathise with. Following the game's development from it's demo all the way to the full game, along with playing the entirety of the full game, the experience that Missing Time gives to the player is not something that you will be Wasting Time on at all. If you love visual novels with a rich story, this is a game for you. If you love visual novels with romance and dating that presents wonderful, meaningful choices with consequences, this is a game for you. If you love visual novels with a wide variety of horrors from visual, vocal to suspenseful story, this is a game for you. If you love visual novels with adventure, comedy, charisma and mystery, this is a game for you. If you love visual novels with a wide array of personalities, backstory & surprise, this is a visual novel for you. If you love a game that puts you into tears through the actions & dialogue given, this is definitely a game for you. I urge all visual novel fans to purchase this game and give it a whirl, I promise you you won't be disappointed, thank you and have a lovely day! <3

What can I say other than wow. This game is truly amazing; it is both beautiful and horrific all at the same time. The story is absolutely perfect in all ways for all of the routes in the game. With most of the Visual Novels I have played, even other games within the Psychological Horror genre, I could usual pass a good guess on the correct choice to get the best outcome. In this VN that could be further from the truth. The simplest choice most innocent choice could produce a butterfly effect that could decide weather or not [spoiler]you find your childhood best friend brutally murdered in the storage room[/spoiler], or [spoiler]said childhood best friend decides that you belong to her and if she can't have no one can[/spoiler]. I strongly recommend this to anyone who considers themselves a fan of Visual Novels.

I have 18hours played combined with the time played on itch io. Not sure how so many people are finishing the game so quickly as I still haven't finished exploring everything yet. Overall: 8/10 Story: 8/10 Pacing: 7/10 Characters: 9/10 Art: 10/10 To start off there are 4 distinct routes each having a "good" and "bad" ending, one for each girl, along with some early ends sprinkled along the way. All start off about the same in chapter 1 with no real distinction between them apart from who you choose to explore the cases with. It introduces you to the characters allowing you to quickly decide who is second best girl. (The best is Pancakes.) Each girl has their own view on the cases which is reflected by their personality. The story feels like a light hearted mystery with the club working together to solve the story. Chapter 2 begins with the cases becoming much more real to the girls. The mystery negatively impacts them at school, peeling away their artificial versions of themselves you have come to know so far. From here is where each of the routes diverge from one another. You are forced to pick a girl to believe in to either learn more about the different sides of the events happening in town or you can ignore it all and try to move on. The true nature of the club members start to become apparent. With your new knowledge in chapter 3, you must act on the cases. You have already chosen your path and must try to survive at all cost as the darkness within everyone rises to the surface. You no longer have control over what will happen as you are fooled into believing your choices might still matter. Overall the story is great. The writing does a good job of helping you create false perceptions about the characters giving back story on each of the girls and showing pieces of the truth behind the events in town. Some scenes are shared between the routes in the second and third chapter that hurt the importance of each characters' views on the cases. The pacing can also feel slow on the later playthroughs making the earlier parts feel more like chores than entertaining. There is a secret 5th route once you have finished all the good endings that reveals everything that has been going on behind the scenes. It adds another level of horror to the story that is unexpected. The characters each feel unique in their own ways and are the best part of the VN. Chiharu is the the innocent girl you feel a duty to protect while still having enough back story to not feel like a shoe-in character to fill a stereotype role. Ember is the no nonsense tough girl that has a genuine soft side to herself that becomes more apparent as the MC grows on her. Emiri is the duty first, everything else second girl who is stiff and empty at first. Shizuyo is the Crepe Queen and a mischievous girl that is just trying to maintain control over her life the only way she knows how. The art is purely amazing and each CG looks absolutely fantastic. The sprites grow with the characters seeming rigid at first making their subtle expressions later on that more impactful.

[h1] 游戏介绍[/h1] 《Missing Time》是一款由Fluttering Abyss制作并发行的多结局恐怖冒险类视觉小说。游戏讲述了主人公回到了他童年的小镇，但是这个小镇却隐藏着不为人知的秘密，于是我们可以选择去忽视它或去探索它，不同的选择将会有不同的结局导向。 [h1] 游戏的画面 [/h1] 游戏的画面部分其实还不错，人物的绘制还是比较精致的，并有着不同神态的差分，看起来表现力不错，CG部分相对比较惊艳，将一些场景很好的表现了出来，但有一些坏结局的CG则会有一些血腥的场面，可能会引起不适，需要注意。 [h1] 游戏的音乐 [/h1] 游戏的音乐部分整体表现还行，属于略欠一些火候，加点柴也许更好的类型，但总体的规划还是可以的，比如想要表现神秘的感觉，有时会特意让游戏没有声音，然后用效果音来衬托这种感觉。但是人物方面是没有CV配音的，只有一些效果音在进行渲染，所以玩起来感觉代入感不是很强烈，对人物的展现也因此大打折扣。 [h1] 游戏的剧情的体验 [/h1] 游戏的剧情方面体验还是很刺激的，为什么说刺激？因为它的分支选项真的很多(有的还有倒计时)，而且感觉间隔都不是很远，你需要不停的选择来进行剧情的导向，而且游戏中也是有很多坏结局的，若是一不小心选错了就会直接进入坏结局，所以还是建议多存一下档，除此之外，有的选项有剧情锁，需要完成一定的条件才可以选择，所以在前面选的时候还是注意一下。剧情的对白方面我个人觉得有时还是会比较无聊，再加上之前说的CV的问题，气氛上我觉得还是差点，若是能优化一下就好了。 [h1] 游戏的总结 [/h1] 总的来说，这款视觉小说属于中等水平，喜欢的话可以尝试一下。 评分：6/10 [quote]欢迎加入[url=https://steamcommunity.com/groups/HY_Master]黄油大师[/url]，一同挖掘好玩的游戏吧~ 欢迎关注[url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/33741419/]黄油大师鉴赏家[/url]，查看趣味性评测 各种类型应有尽有。加入我们，搜寻更多精品游戏吧！[/quote]

I don't mind the visual novel being low budget and I was genuinely enjoying the visual novel, only dropped it because one of the heroines I was fond of keeps getting bad endings which made me lose motivation to carry on, well you can tell which heroine I mean by my profile pic.

《Missing Time》是由Fluttering Abyss制作发行的一款悬疑向多结局校园恋爱视觉小说，游戏中玩家扮演的主人公回到了儿时的Komachi小镇，并在校园典礼上遇见了青梅竹马，在各种机缘巧合下他们加入了一个神秘的自由社团，其中主要活动就是调查周边高维度的空间和生命体（灵异事件）和各种奇怪的超自然现象，随着调查进度的推进，他们发觉一向安宁祥和的小镇竟隐藏着不为人知的恐怖力...... 游戏整体画面质量还是相当不错的，而其中不少血腥暴力画面也并没有黑暗到那种猎奇扭曲的程度，其完全在绝大玩家心理承受能力范围之内，不过在其基础上再搭配着恐怖十足的bgm（阴乐），到是很可能不争气掉下一堆SAN值，即便如此玩家也可以在游戏开始之前就可以决定是否“偷偷看一下里世界”。老实说本作画风看起来有亿点奇怪，大部分角色立绘多偏向于欧美呆画风，而CG则偏向于日呆画风，甚至人物画风上的不同也导致看上去就跟其它作品角色乱入似的。 在未游玩本作之前，我本以为这是一款和《Dokidoki》差不多的metagame，毕竟封面里有一个长得和Sayori长的差不多的妹纸，而且“经典四人组+社团+恐怖TAG”这些设定都太会让人有某种既视感了，不过直到进入剧情的时候才知道自己被打脸，整个社团就相当于一个疯人院，游戏流程就像是一次自我心灵救赎的体验过程，设定如魔如幻。另外选项分支走向也受好感度加成的影响，手滑玩家最好还是看一下攻略，否则一旦进入剧情锁倒带还是比较麻烦的。 总的来说，本作观感割裂严重，但剧情内核吹爆。 [code]双语评测，认准我们： [url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/35263058-Bilingual-Curator/]双语评测[/url] Make Chinese and English speaker feel at home： [url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/35263058-Bilingual-Curator/]Bilingual Curator[/url][/code]

It's times like these where I miss star rating systems. A binary choice of recommendation just doesn't cut it sometimes. If you ask me if I recommend this VN, it's a clear "Eh, maybe." So, let's go into some detail. [h2]Story[/h2] + The mystery is pretty well done, I enjoyed it quite a bit. It's nothing too original, but I enjoy stories like these. + I also like how the VN shows different sides to the same story in the different routes. - While the first half of the routes do a great job at building tension, the second half usually fails to do so. The story is over mere minutes after the plot twist has been revealed. - After reading one or two routes, the rest of them barely contain any more surprises. It's just the same thing happening in different settings. - Even having read all routes, the real nature of the mystery is only revealed on a superficial level, leaving open quite a few questions. This may be intentional, but it leaves a bad aftertaste. [h2]Characters[/h2] + The characters have unique personalities and are quite likable. Of course, you got your typical stereotypes, but they're well executed. - Unfortunately, the VN doesn't take the time to build an actual connection to those characters. The horror part of the story starts very early, leaving the character development behind. Due to this, the impact of the things happening just falls flat. When a character dies, I want to be in despair instead of being like "Oh too bad, they were nice" and moving on. For a self proclaimed Utsuge, the VN does a pretty poor job at making me cry. (For the uninitiated: "Utsuge" means "depressing game", one designed to make you cry). [h2]UI[/h2] It pains me to say that this is the point that tipped the scale towards me not recommending this VN. There are so many technical issues! It really puts a damper on the enjoyment of the story. Here's a few examples: [list] [*]The settings menu only works partially. Aside from the fact that the sliders are hard to handle in general, some of them simply stop being functional after saving once. I had to go into the settings file to achieve my desired settings. [*]The log starts at the beginning of the scene, making it an ordeal to reread later passages [*]QOL: I can't hide the textbox to view a Scene or CG in it's entirety [*]There is one instance where you are unable to skip text, which is being shown with a short message in the middle of the screen. If you happen to save before the message disappeared and reload the save at a later time, the text is still there [b]and will never disappear![/b] It will stay there until the end of the game, unless you reload an earlier save. [*]Apparently there were some erotic scenes that have been removed for Steam. That in itself is not the problem, I don't care much for those anyway. But please, don't just disable the choice to enter those scenes, remove the choice entirely! And way more important, remove those scenes from the Gallery! It's impossible to have a complete gallery now! It just makes the VN feel incomplete, as if it was still in Early Access. [/list] Come on, you're not an AAA publisher, so don't ship buggy games! 🙃 [h2]Conclusion[/h2] It [b]is[/b] a decent VN, but it has quite a few flaws and the technical issues certainly don't make it any better. I wouldn't buy it in it's current state for this price (except I already have lmao), but it's up to your decision if you're interested enough in the story to pay it.

I will really recommend this visual novel. I think is a really fun one to play it have and amazing art style, The story and the endings get you on the screen from beggining to an end. The girls have nice personalitys and you can really get to like them. This game was awesome.

It is one of the best visual novels i have ever played. Be ready for some ups and downs and, be ready for some big surprises.Love the game can't wait for some more games for the devs.