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!

One of the best visual novels I have ever read! (Also: the soundtrack is awesome!)

[b]Colton, Colton, Colton...[/b] The Specter's Desire, the latest visual novel from indie dev Themisian, follows protagonist Colton Hall through the celebrity tournament known as the Desire Hierarchy. Colton is an aspiring film director—currently Viewscope (YouTube) video editor—who moved to the Hollywood-esque city of Aurea to pursue his dreams. After he learns that his friend Carolyn signed him up to be a Rising Star—a non-celebrity participant—in the Desire Hierarchy, he quickly discovers that the mysterious entity Spectra has kidnapped his parents and will not release them unless he wins the entire Desire Hierarchy and uses his wish—the winner's prize—to obtain the art piece known as the Specter's Desire. From there, the game kicks off, alternating between 1.) Ace Attorny-like investigation segments in which Colton in Aurea and his best friend Skinner in his hometown of Juncfork look into who kidnapped his parents and 2.) the five distinct stages of the Desire Hierarchy tournament in which Colton must repeatedly claw victory back from the hands of seemingly inevitable defeat. The primary praise I can give The Specter's Desire is that, if nothing else, it is [i]supremely[/i] fun. Of course, there is a full story here, so it's not like Colton can actually ever lose, but I an incredibly easy time engaging my suspension of disbelief during the Desire Hierarchy games. I felt anxious along with Colton when it seemed like he was sure to lose, and I felt triumphant along with him, too, when he figured out some edge case or creative interpretation of the rules that allowed for a chance at victory. The characters are a highlight of this VN as well. The main cast of characters who received sprites are ostensibly somewhat cliched—Elliot is the goofy sidekick, Granville is the kooky old guy trying to be "hip," Willa is the eccentric artist—but almost all of them reveal some aspect of their personalities that define their characters just as much as their archetypes and add real depth that is reflected in the way the play in the Desire Hierarchy. Above all, the cast is best when they are interacting with each other, differing personalities clashing with each other in humorous ways that contribute a nice sprinkle of comedy to the otherwise tense situations Colton finds himself in throughout the story. Despite comedy not being a focus of The Specter's Desire, it may be most I've ever audibly laughed at a VN (although that is also a function of its runtime, to a certain extent). The Specter's Desire has a quite eclectic mix of different gameplay segments, too. Each game within the Desire Hierarchy is represented by an "Encounter," each with an optional bonus objective, that contains some gameplay that represents the games Colton is playing (but some longer games are split into multiple encounters), to varying levels of abstraction. These include various puzzles, card battles, escape rooms, reaction tests, Ace Attorney-style present-the-correct-evidence-on-the-correct-statement sections, and any combination of the above. The variety of gameplay in this VN is both a strength and a fault. Given the wide variety of gameplay, there were some segments that I really clicked with and honestly engaged with (anything to do with math, numbers, logic, and so on did well with me), and others that I gave only a few tries at before save-scumming and/or brute-forcing. I also found a bit of flaw in the final act of the game. Leading up to that final act, I also found the investigation segments to be more of a nice break rather than the true selling point of the story, which was instead the Desire Hierarchy segments. However, the final act blended the two sides of the game in a way that was somewhat unsatisfying, with the Desire Hierarchy taking a backseat to Colton giving his final detective speech about the true nature of Spectra and her motivation for enlisting his help and kidnapping his parents. Additionally, I found the final encounter that more or less just mashed every type of gameplay into one escape puzzle to be a bit messy and clunky. I actually enjoyed the aftermath of Colton's confrontation with Spectra's mastermind to be more interesting, despite the latter being the climax of the story. Overall though, despite some issues with the ending and mixed-quality gameplay, I really cannot recommend The Specter's Desire enough, especially given how relatively unknown it is. I find it important to reiterate that, above all else, if I could say only one thing about this visual novel, it would be that "it is [i]supremely[/i] fun." 8/10

I'm honestly just here to play Dimensional Sniper. Some of the puzzles towards the end are bloody hard, but this is one of the best VNs you'll ever play. Such a massive improvement from Themisian's earlier works, which were also fairly good.

this is liar game on crack but visual novel. this is an amazing experience, few hiccups but holy ♥♥♥♥ its so good

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.

this fictional work really felt like it was written by a genius. a must read for those who like fictional works with mind games such as death note and liar 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.

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'm still pretty early on, but I'm enjoying myself. I'm pretty impressed with how well thought-out the games, puzzles, and story setup are. If you can handle something not developed on a premium budget and enjoy this genre, I think it's well worth your time.