The Specter's Desire

A really well put together game. The mystery was great, the puzzles/encounters were great, and the characters were really fun!

To begin with, before I get into the nitty gritty of the good and the bad, it is vile that this game is sitting at 38 reviews. This game is vastly better than that, and for $20, if you want a fun Kaiji-like experience, this might honestly be the best game to encapsulate that that I’ve ever played. It is also a clear and massive step up from The Zodiac Trial in almost every way, and I’m really not sure what went wrong for it to be so unknown. It is far from perfect, but it is pretty phenomenal in its own little niche. So yes, this is a glowing recommendation. Many of the games are fun, things tend to be logically workable more often than not, the writing is overall a fun time, the art is a massive step up from their previous stuff, and the sheer length is pretty staggering for a game that you would expect to be fairly small in scope. Despite not all of the games really resonating with me, the variety is pretty incredible, and I have a ton of respect for how much love and care clearly went into thinking them up and designing them. With that being said, I do have a lot of problems with the game. I think it’s also generally easier here to talk about my issues without spoiling anything that it is to talk about what I like, so don’t get the wrong impression. My overall thoughts about the game are overwhelmingly positive. For one, it’s… surprisingly buggy. I’m not sure the exact count, but I would guess it outright crashed maybe 8-10 times through my playthrough. That’s… pretty bad, for a visual novel. There are also a plethora of random UI-related bugs, but they’re mostly all fairly easy to fix. The second thing is that, wow, most of these characters are just totally and remarkable unlikable lol. I can count on one hand the amount I actually liked, out of a cast of roughly, 20-25? I vaguely remember TZT also having a supremely unlikable cast, but they’re mostly turned it up a notch here. There were multiple characters who had dialogue I legitimately had to FFW through and scan for important bits because I just couldn’t stand to read what wretched nonsense they had to say. The worst offender by far is the main character’s “best friend,” Carolyn, who the game kinda treats as a “tough, gives it to ya straight” kinda person. She’s not. Damn near every line of dialogue is just her taking a colossal dump on the MC, calling him inbred idiot in more flowery language, all the while the MC is just kinda like “:3 so tru.” The difficulty is going to be really hit-or-miss for most people, I think. Some of the mandatory solutions are… quite hard, I think. Overall the difficulty isn’t too bad, but the hardest stuff is multiple leagues harder than anything you might find in Ace Attorney or Danganronpa. What makes this kind of worse is that it feels fairly arbitrary. I would go 10 hours without struggling with almost anything, and then there would be like 3 (IMO) extremely difficult puzzles in a row, and ones that seemingly weren’t meant to be that tricky. This is no fault of the game, but documentation and guides are completely nonexistent, so if you get stuck, you should join the discord. In my limited experience, people there are very friendly and extremely quick to help. I do think the game could have done with some editing down. The dialogue can get VERY wordy, and about nothing in particular. Your mileage may vary on how much you like the wordiness. For myself, even as someone that absolutely enjoys overly verbose media, I still found my eyes glazing over at a lot of points. All in all, a very unpolished game, but one that is very, very unique, and has a truly impressive breadth of content. I love Steam dumpster diving, I camp hidden gem threads constantly, and I gotta say, this might be my #1 choice ever for “game that deserves way more love than it’s gotten.” Despite all the flaws, this is something special.

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.

Another banger from Themisian. A massive improvement over The Zodiac Trial (I haven't read The Divine Deception, but I imagine it's improved over that one as well!). It has a very large scope, perhaps too large for a VN of this nature, but says to hell with your expectations and absolutely sticks the landing. I truly cannot wait for The Wonderland Killings! As a side note, [spoiler]we stan Sigmund in this house.[/spoiler] Got it?

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!

This might be one of the best games of all time. If you dig visual novels, get this. Kaiji and Danganronpa vibes undersell this beast, the Shuffled Deck games are really starting to flesh out a whole world and a vibe that is entirely unique. What a rollercoaster ride. 192.1 hours in, and I've completed the story... but I missed some things. And there are still more puzzles and mysteries that I'm going to have a hard time not jumping back in to try figure out. Some parts of the game are WILDLY DIFFICULT. I am surprised I was able to complete the game. I think the quality of the story was a strong enough motivator to get me through the more difficult spots. I am now going to go back and replay the rest of the series, while waiting for the release of The Wonderland Killings.

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.

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.)

this was a very enjoyable vn!