The Specter's Desire

A consistently fun blend of an assortment of niche sub-genres. Rather than list all of them, if you enjoy games where the protagonist is thrust into hopeless situations and must mount a comeback against all odds, this one's for you. There's an incredible diversity of gameplay on display for a visual novel, the over-arching narrative is gripping, and the protagonist is well-written and fun to root for. Can't wait for the next game in the series.

I'd characterize this game as a mystery/thriller, but the mystery and thriller parts are pretty much separated all throughout the game. The parts where the game is at its best are hands-down the numerous encounters that happen regularly in Colton's journey. And it's one hell of a journey. Card games, social deduction games, escape rooms, life-or-death scenarios, this game has it all. Everything is sprinkled with great ideas, both the gameplay and characters. The execution might be a bit hit-or-miss, one might like some encounters way more than others, myself included, but I'm certain there's something here for anyone. I'm also somewhat grateful I was forced to participate in certain games that I wasn't confident of my skills in, made me get out of my comfort zone in a way. That said, I should say that this isn't a casual experience, and if you're planning to get the most out of the game you should be prepared to at least try to engage with most of what the game throws at you. And things can get really, really difficult. Characters are definitely a strong part of the game, they're what makes it especially fun, seeing all of the interactions between so many different people. Thanks to the game's size, there's a lot of room for character development of all types, especially for the main character, but you also get to see all the nitty-gritty of everyone's philosophies, which can be very interesting to some. While the things I talked about above might have a few flaws here and there, I think the place where the game falters the most is with its plot. The investigation segments between the acts of the Hierarchy, where Colton gathers information about the various mysteries that come up during the game, can get pretty boring at times, and the game personally didn't make me that invested in them. Still, you get to talk to all of the eccentric personalities of Aurea while not under the pressure of some high-stakes game, so that is fun in its own right. The ending reveals also didn't impress me as much as I thought they would, and it's probably what I consider the weakest part of the game. It really is a case of "the journey is more important (and, in this case, interesting) than the destination." But again, there are some good ideas there. Overall, I definitely recommend this game to any fan of mysteries, high-stakes/death game scenarios, and thrillers in general. I would also recommend it to people who aren't usually into this stuff, but just know it is a very long game, and it might be better experienced in small doses. Also consider checking out the other games by this developer, they aren't quite as polished as this one, but they're still cool in their own way.

If you enjoy detective/mystery visual novels then I could not recommend this game enough. Some games in this genre rely on finding out the solution to the final mystery as the "hook" that keeps you playing, but with The Specter's Desire I was hooked on finding out what happens at the end of each chapter, each game, even each conversation. Which made it all too easy to blast through 100+ hours of the game, even though I normally prefer short games because they usually keep my attention better. I am a massive mystery visual novel fan and I love trying out indie games, and I can confidently say no one is making visual novels quite like this. It is very rare to get this quality of character writing along with a strong mystery, mixing jokes and action with cerebral moments. And I am hooked, I honestly can't wait to see what Themis does next because I will be buying it day one.

The Specter's Desire is an incredibly well-written gem of a game. The cast is large, well-defined, and diverse in function and personality. It truly runs the gamut from characters who primarily serve as comic relief to horrid villains, but of course most are somewhere in the middle, with very thoughtful characterization and progression throughout the story. Whatever role they play, all are written with impressive specificity, with the characters' backgrounds in mind. I don't think I've seen this degree of breadth or depth of characters in any other video game. And they'll surprise you. I appreciated how much this game made me think about the characters' philosophical worldviews, which are revealed through the characters' behavior--again, very thoughtfully--and often through fascinating discursions on the part of the characters themselves as well. The sheer variety of puzzles is astonishing as well. They range from card games to number puzzles to arguments deconstructed as mathematical proofs to uncover their logical flaws to strategic combat to map-based puzzles, and many of them involve creative, outside-the-box thinking. If I were to make an absolute statement about who this game is and isn't for: if you aren't a puzzle person, this game isn't for you. If you enjoy the challenge, or are willing to try your hand at it for truly exceptional storytelling, you need this game. And, not for nothing, the game is long. I underestimated the length of every chapter virtually every time I started a new one, which ultimately was perfectly fine with me. Every chapter had its highlights one way or another thanks to the expert storytelling, whether it was through the humor, the mystery and suspense, the character interactions, or the games (within the game).  The game absolutely rewards close attention, to every element, which is the best compliment I can pay any work.

The bad: Sometimes tedious, sometimes downright esoteric. Occasionally the rules just wholesale do not include information I need to recall, which leads to a slog through the backlog. There's no controls page so if you didn't write down the keyboard shortcuts when they were told to you at the beginning good luck. The good: WOW. If you're one of the very few people in this world who have already played the Infinity series, the Zero Escape series, Sekimeiya, Root Double, Danganronpa, Stein's Gate, Ace Attorney, Umineko, etc and wanted something that scratches that itch, this game is for you. The core structure of the game is linear, with the most agency given during segments called "Encounters". Encounters can be a multitude of things, from poker, to escape rooms, to ace attorney style cross examination. Expect every gameplay segment to be different. The characters and world can be an acquired taste, I recommend playing the first two games in the series prior to this one. The first one in particular I cannot recommend highly enough. I also just want to say that Colton Hall might be the most likeable protagonist I've ever seen in one of these games. He's very down to earth and easy to root for, while also occasionally being a bit dumb. I really like him and I want him to win.

Definitely the best game in the series. Loved the new gameplay features, the encounters and interactable statements were implemented amazingly. Lots of tense and exciting moments, great length and pacing of the story. Will definitely purchase the next game.

Gameplay: In between linear VN story, there are several Encounters that are pretty much gameplay segments. Gameplay segments are nearly all encounters in which you can interrupt a dialogue (or internal thought) with evidence, to interact with it. We have high diversity of scenarios, coming from Liar Game-like social games, Kaiji-like gambling-focused games, classic murder mysteries and even confrontations that focus on extracting information. Most of them are stories on rails in which you have to help MC get some in-the moment decisions that turn game around, figure out what's really going on, or how to cheat your way to survival. There are few actual games as well, in which you actually have to play the whole thing out, but these are few and far between, and none of them are particularly strong compared to on-rails encounters, aside from mysterious Peacekeeping game. Sometimes, game will throw a math or number decoding puzzle as well, so it's unfeasible to brute force through everything. Game features optional objectives that are not always known ahead of time, also tied to ambiguous reward at the end. It also implements a mental health "block puzzle" system that provides some punishment for wrong choices, or sometimes, lack of choice, keeping you on your toes especially as long term consequences of messing up are kept ambiguous. This system's actually pretty brilliant, as it's supposed to simulate main character's stress and messing up and being thrown to some random puzzle, breaking your concentration on actual scenario simulated this same feeling to me as the reader as well. Possibility of messing up, and thus extra care and attention you have to put in is a selling point not many VNs can brag about. Granted, there is enough leeway that you can still end up just having to check out every option like you would when stuck on Ace Attorney-like game. Overall, I'd say it's strong in gameplay, for mystery VN standard especially - as these generally expect you to at most select evidence piece. Technically it's also the case here for majority of puzzles, but multitude of scenarios and hanging consequences kept me interested. Plot/Writing: To avoid recapping story description too much, we're thrown in the role of 20-something upstart that pretty much wins the lottery to get into hardcore multi-stage celebrity game show, just to get his parents kidnapped by someone who wants the prize. Contrast of his desperation and determination against people just trying to further their careers is the leading theme here. Story is brisk and well paced, more so toward latter part of the game, as we get from focusing on games and totally unrelated loose threads to Colton getting better grasp on overall situation and how historical unsolved mysteries tie into situation he is in right now. As in 2 previous games from collection I played, writing is really strong, characters feel alive and intelligent. They can be pretty damn funny in the moment too, all interactions with Andy are fantastic and highlight of the show. It's surprising to think about as generally mystery VNs aren't very funny even if they try. That might be coming from it being written in english natively. I also can't recall any glaringly illogical or unrealistic behaviour or plot holes. It all came together in the end. Although the game (ambigous ending notes) [spoiler]doesn't play nice with telling you too much about parts of the story that it intentively kept in the dark, or limiting you to "3 questions" at the end. I don't have time to replay the game, so I had to mess with game files a bit to see more of script and even then it's quite ambigous. [/spoiler] It's set in same world as previous 2 games, although different location. There isn't much need to play them beforehand for Specter's Desire, but Specter's Desire itself will spoil a bit of these (especially Divine Deception). None of these are definitely runining these games' story, but since games are in my view improving, I'd recommend starting with first if you have time. Graphics: Possibly weakest part of the game. My leading problem is perhaps a very unfair criticism for not-AAA VN characters - game will spoil importance of characters by them not having a sprite. It's only problem for around first 30% of the game . I think at least [spoiler]Sigmund[/spoiler] and [spoiler]The Theurgist[/spoiler] were present for so long they could get sprites, putting aside their lack of influence on overall out-of-game plot. It is an unfair criticism because the game still has A LOT of characters with art, it's just nature of story cycles through so many early on. But it does spoil at least one instance of character pretending to not be the brain behind the group. [spoiler]Willa best girl[/spoiler]. Can't say it's a big deal, but it was messing with my immersion a bit. Sprite art itself is fine, generally, although [spoiler]astoundingly high rates of breast cancer in Aurea[/spoiler] were not part of world building - perhaps in future. Other art was good, unfortunately most repeating screen, crucial to overall plotline, looks just off anatomically - [spoiler]and I think doesn't really align with description of story moment it portrays[/spoiler]. Sound: Music's great, and always pretty appropriate to situation at hand. I think it reuses a bit less of Divine Deception than Divine Deception used of Zodiac Trial, and generally it's an improvement over previous games. I only didn't really mesh with "triumphant" music that often came up after some big win, it seemed out of place quite often. Voice acting is implemented selectively in bigger moments and chapter transitions, and it's quite good there. Technical: I managed to break the game a bit by rewinding few times, even unwittingly, with scroll-up rewinding after getting enough stress to be thrown to puzzle screen, but it didn't happen too often and would happen less if I didn't mess with it. Crashless experience otherwise. There are some typos and I think at least 1 game near the end didn't quite work as it should, but this can be a problem on my side. Game features post-game bonuses and minigames, although you have to earn them. Overall: Pretty great game, solid improvement to already 2 preceding games in the series on I believe all levels. Quite unique on VN landscape too, as it focuses more on "locked in somewhere" scenarios like Zodiac Trial or murder mysteries, and not so much on "Willing participant that's f____d if he loses" ones. This one quite succesfully meshes genres and makes you pay attention. Looking forward to next game. =====================end of review===================== Note to author: Can you please look into action [url=https://polishourprices.pl/index.php?page=developers&lang=en]#polishourprices[/url] and adjust pricing for polish market to same as in Euro, outside of Steam's faulty recommendation? It's a selfish ask, I just don't want to wait for discount on principle for the next game. Thank you.

I don't leave reviews often, but I seriously hope this game gets more traction because it deserves it. This game has many similar aspects to many other well known visual novels such as Danganronpa, Your Turn To Die and Ace Attorney. In fact, I only found this game looking up games that are similar to them. And this REALLY scratches that brain scrambling itch. Any fan of the series I mentioned, puzzle games, or thriller stories in general should give this a chance. TLDR at the bottom. *GAMEPLAY* Aside from being a visual novel, the primary gameplay comes from using the notes the game gives you to refute/support/question/prove other people's statements. While the game can sometimes get pretty difficult, the dialogue and puzzles are very well designed in that with careful thought it is often clear what you should and should not do. The game also let's you be creative with your information, sometimes opportunities will show up for you to lie about what you know to psych someone out, or even let obvious lies go so that you can use it to trap them later. It makes you feel very clever sometimes, which is exactly the kind of game I love. Of course, there are exceptions to the extent of forgiveness, some puzzles made me pull my hair out because they were so obtuse. However, another thing I really appreciate is how this game doesn't really punish you for making mistakes. When you give wrong answers, you lose health and retry the puzzle; lose too much health and you lose sanity. You can recover health by playing a simple block puzzle, meaning that you can theoretically fail an infinite number of times and end the game with perfect sanity. It's a really cool system that I've personally never seen before. Further into the game you unlock more and more mechanics to play with, like looking for tells when people are lying, using sleight of hand to rig cards, or using evidence to appeal to emotions rather than making logical arguments. The further in you go the more engaging it is, it's kept me hooked. And speaking of engaging... *STORY* I'm only half way through, so I can't speak for the entire game yet, but these 40 hours I've been through are already worth the price for me. You'll probably go faster since I tend to take my time with games like these, but this game has a lot of content for it's price tag so you're cool on that front. Anyways, it's really solid. The gist of it is that Colton, our protagonist, is blackmailed by a curious character, Spectra, into attending this high-profile tournament called the Desire Hierarchy, where the winner gets a wish granted. Through out the story, Colton juggles between trying to not get eliminated from the games while investigating spectra's identity. In doing so, it leads us down a rabbit hole of finding the truth of a celebrity's death, conspiracies to overthrow the current system and interpersonal drama between the characters. There's a lot going on, which means there's a lot to think about. The story comments on many topics, like the connection between skill and talent, human nature and a good chunk of social commentary. Believe me when I say this game occupies my mind while I try to fall asleep each night. Aside from the setting, one of my favourite aspects of reading through this is experiencing all the different games/encounters Colton goes through. Each stage of the tournament has a myriad of challenges the contestants have to face, some are shorter, some are longer, some are played individually, some are played with a big group. Just as it's a lot of fun theorizing about the grand scheme of things, it's also a lot of fun thinking of strategies to get through the game along side Colton. *CHARACTERS* Colton is a fine protagonist. He's not my favourite, but I don't mean I dislike him. He fit's into a lot of common tropes for protagonists of this genre. Feels like an idiot in everyday circumstances, but very clever gameplay wise; He tries very hard when he's the underdog, but gets immediately cocky when he gets an advantage. He feels typical in many ways, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. It makes it really epic when Colton thinks of something crazy that I did not expect. It's genuinely exciting watching how the rest of the cast influences Colton's mentality throughout the tournament, how he learns to be more ruthless, learns to be more committed, and at the same time, learn how to trust his allies. But obviously, the rest of the cast are the highlights. There's so much personality in the many allies and opponents that Colton faces. From the disturbingly calculated, to the overtly friendly; From the cynical realist, to the absolute perfectionist. With how the tournament is structured, your enemies and allies are constantly fluctuating, and as a result, almost every character gets the chance to leave strong impressions on you, which feels amazing. It makes this world that they are in feel very alive, and you start getting invested about these characters before you know it. Whether you're really hoping they join Colton's side, or waiting to watch them crash and burn, they each play their part in leaving you wanting more. Andy, for example, is one of the first characters you will meet in this game. He is one of the few contestants that Colton actually knows outside of the tournament. He's Colton's debt collector, and in many ways, acts as his foil. He's cruel, blunt, and simple-minded, in contrast to Colton's kindness, and observant mindset. And despite their personalities, Andy is excellent at working with others, while Colton often fumbles at every conversation. As fate would have it, Andy and Colton run into each other very often in the first 2 stages of the tournament, both as allies and enemies. It was fascinating to watch them interact, how Colton can convince Andy to work with him despite their history, how Andy would then betray him at the drop of a hat, how they could still work together afterwards to achieve a common goal. Andy serves as one of the biggest role models for Colton in the Desire Hierarchy, both good and bad. And despite being an absolute ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ in so many scenarios, I still can't help but smile when they banter with each other during the games. Each of the characters fill their own role in the story incredibly well as of the time I'm writing this review I genuinely really like most of them, even Colton. (Chapter 14 was really good) Also, they're even partially voice acted, so that's a big plus! *TLDR* Play this if you like working your brain for fun. It comes with a really good story and characters along with it. P.S. You may want to play some of the dev's older games. Particularly the Zodiac trial, first. It's also very good, and the game makes references to it. However, it's not essential.

I don't usually write reviews, but it would be an actual crime if I didn't! This game was phenomenal. The pacing of the overall mystery actually felt perfect! It was a blend of wit and intrigue that actually made me play this game twice through from start to finish, which for 1 playthrough taking me 50-60 hours, honestly speaks for itself. If you read the Liar Game manga or Kaji, it's very similar in it's concepts but I would say the execution is something only a visual novel can pull off. Every game, encounter, and puzzle felt tailored for you to be able to solve with Colton the protagonist with the actual stakes running in the back of your head. The immersion felt great in those tense moments. I would say this is a masterpiece in storytelling, to see how far Colton would go to save the ones he loves. Facing off against people who all have desires to win, it paints quite a psychological thriller! I can't recommend this enough, if you have the time and will to see it through, you should play this game!

Just finished this last night, and I gotta be honest, probably my favorite game from the dev to date. It was one hell of a rollercoaster ride from start to finish. If you enjoy puzzles, mystery VNs, tournament arcs, and a wild cast of fun and interesting characters, this is a must-pick up. The story revolves around someone that's gotten caught up in this big game tournament of celebrities and those deemed the most important of the city, a city that's more dictated by celebrity culture then the rest of the country, and the mysteries surrounding some of the key players that were once involved with this tourney. With the large focus on the tournament itself, there's plenty of puzzles you gotta solve throughout to help the protagonist progress - a huge variety of 'em as well, ranging from poker puzzles to my favorite twist on social deduction I've seen in quite some time to logic puzzles and ace attorney-esque interrogations and so on and so forth. The game won't hold your hand, so expect plenty of 'em to be pretty tricky, but they mostly land pretty well, so you're sure to find some that you really like. the cast of characters is also probably overall my favorite from Themis's games - they're all very well written and interesting, very entertaining... and honestly, even the ones I personally don't care as much for serve their roles well so I'm still glad they're here. even the characters that are minor enough that they don't really get sprites are full of a lot more personality then you'd expect, incredibly fun to have included in the game (unironically one of 'em is amongst my favorite characters, everyone show some love to my main man Sigmund <3 ) (I am going to politely ask that you do not take my hours sunk into this game as an average for how long this game will take you though. i am just very slow with puzzles + left the game on for hours at a time by accident on multiple occasions.)