[quote][i]This is the [b]24th[/b] review of the Steam Redlight series, a series where I purposely seek out negatively or controversially rated games on Steam to see if they're as bad as the Internet says they are. It's accompanied by a video review that can be found [b][url=https://youtu.be/yY790IlUWto]here[/url][/b].[/i][/quote]
[b]In summary, I can’t recommend Prison Girl[/b], the game has a large variety of problems, but I’ll keep it brief in this paragraph. The game doesn’t carry (or even reference) the story mentioned in the Steam page and in conjunction with that, the game is missing English translations in some dialogues. In addition, the sound quality is overall lackluster, the graphics are distorted and suffer from clipping - including the removal of characters’ clothes. Lastly, the actual gameplay loop is [b]way[/b] too long, [b]way[/b] too boring, and reoccurs [b]way[/b] too often.
[h2]Introduction[/h2]
In Prison Girl, you’re [i]supposed[/i] to be playing as Mei, someone who’s trying to escape from a prison after being framed for a crime. In this game you’ll experience different parts of the prison, and in them you’ll encounter people who are ‘[i]in charge of[/i]’ those sections who you can talk to very briefly, do business with, offer gifts, or ask them to leave to the next section. The latter of those is your way around the prison as you won’t [i]actually[/i] be walking from place to place, but instead will be ported around. You’ll be visiting places starting with your cell, then into the showers, and then into the administration sector, the cafeteria, the yard, back to the showers, and then back into your cell. Each ‘chore’ in these areas will either provide you money or keep you healthy.
The controls require their own special mentioning - while movement is WASD based, you’ll find that dialog options [b]require the use of a scroll wheel[/b]. In some opportunities, you’ll need your mouse cursor only to find that that’s hidden until you press Escape (or some other keys), in which you can use to open your inventory, your quest list, or the help menu to see the key bindings. Some unusual options present themselves as if you press [b]1[/b] or [b]2[/b] you can self-apply handcuffs or shackles to Mei. The shackles cause Mei to move slower and force her to hop around the prison -- neither of these options seem to provide any gameplay advantage unless you consider potential pleasure to the player.
The gameplay loop in this game can be found in fulfilling quests - the most prominent ones are gathering 100 individual gifts to give to a specific person in the prison. These gifts can be purchased for money gained from chores, as your day will ‘[i]loop[/i]’ once you go to sleep - once you wake up you’ll be doing almost all your previous actions again. Ideally, each quest progresses you to your goal, but only the most persevering may get that far.
Lastly, once you’ve completed your first loop you’ll get your cell key to leave your cell at night. This engages in a stealth-driven objective where if you sneak around guards to rummage through trash, you’ll find materials or resources that will further aid you in the game. If you happen to get caught, you’ll be dropped in this… [i]BDSM chamber[/i] where you can strike various poses with your punisher. No actual animations occur, and you can leave the chamber at any time by pressing the back button in the top-left and you’ll end up back in your cell with 0 health. When your health is less than 75, you’ll be routed to the infirmary to gain 25 health each loop instead of being able to earn money through chores.
That’s about all the foundation we need, so let’s talk about what I liked about Prison Girl.
[h2]The Good[/h2]
This game [i]really[/i] made prison unappealing to me. Not that I really needed to feel that way, but the game accels at making you suffer from mistreatment or unfulfillment. I’m almost confident this game could be used as a replacement to that show [i]Beyond Scared Straight[/i] to keep today’s youth on the path of righteousness.
That’s about all the game has going for it though, so let’s get onto the things I liked a little less.
[h2]The Ungood[/h2]
To start with the smaller inconveniences before hitting up the most dastardly, I’ll lead with the story. The story is just about as visible and demonstrated in the game as a ghost in a church. Aside from the short mention in the Steam page, there’s no named characters that I've encountered in the first 3.5 hours of playing the game. You don’t even know your character’s name in the actual game -- dialog boxes just refer to herself as “[b]I[/b]”.
While there’s very little dialog boxes to consume, the game has plenty of statements or phrases that just aren’t translated at all. I’m not one to pick on games that suffer from translation problems, but having an absent translation is an [i]actual[/i] problem. There’s a specific encounter with the Warden where he offers three money-giving dialog exchanges that aren’t in English. While I could probably [i]read the room[/i] to guess what’s going on, the game doesn’t convey anything since it lacks animations or the text itself.
There isn’t much to listen to when it comes to this game - there’s no background music and after 3.5 hours of playing I’ve only counted 10 unique sound effects in this game. A few of them are okay, but many of them are low quality, unbalanced, or set with a poorly-made loop. I guess since there’s so few it’s hard to be [i]that[/i] bothered, but it almost feels like there was hardly an attempt at all when it comes to sound direction.
As we delve deeper into the dark, we can now cover the graphical complications this game has. The camera can be moved and rotated - but doing so makes it apparent that the graphics do not operate in conjunction with it. When rotating the camera you’ll clip it through objects revealing a lot about the world or just cause graphical distortion that’ll make parts of the environment vanish. In [i]very specific angles[/i], which is actually the reason this is so far down, you can rotate the camera to cause Mei’s clothes to disappear, revealing her (and certain other characters’) genitalia. While [i]I[/i] don’t personally care, that’s not a good thing since this game isn’t tagged as an Adult Only game, and I’m [i]almost[/i] certain that visible genitalia requires an age gate.
Lastly, the thing that actually bothers me the most is the game’s gameplay loop. To keep it brief for the sake of character count, the task of giving someone 100 gifts to earn 100 friendship points takes [i]at least[/i] 40 minutes to execute when performed at the highest efficiency. I encountered this quest [b]three times in a row[/b] before deciding to stop playing the game. The loop of getting $500, buying 5 items, going to sleep, and repeating this 19 more times isn’t fun, exciting, and there isn’t even a slightly-decent reward at the end of the tunnel -- you get $1 (useless, it seems like -- gifts are $100 each) and the permission to do it again but for [i]someone else[/i]. I completed this quest twice because I foolishly thought it would get easier, but it doesn’t. The time investment required is just outright terrible and definitely needs to be redeveloped -- this game could be given to actual prison inmates to deter them from computer use time if the only thing available was to play this game.
[h2]The End[/h2]
That’s about all the character count we have space for -- I’d be interested in watching this game evolve since this is MA Games’ first release. Starting with some low hanging fruit like sound design and tweaking the numbers behind the quest requirements would be a great start.
[quote][i]If you’re into curator groups, [url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/38757311/]we have one of those[/url]. Did you like this written review? Watch the video review which does have some different coverage not talked about here:[/i] https://youtu.be/yY790IlUWto[/quote]
