RPGM - Love ♪ Comp! [v0.3.2] [Kagami Works]

  1. 5.00 star(s)

    991207z

    Pretty good looking game so far. The intro alone is higher quality than 95% of games on this site. I just wish they got rid of the annoying statics and grainy effect they put over the intro segment. Definitely will be keeping eyes on future updates.
  2. 5.00 star(s)

    cache-coherent

    [Version: v.0.3.2. Haven't finished the game yet, but I'll edit the review later if my opinion changes.]
    Stumbled upon this game by accident, and found it surprisingly great.
    This game immediately surpised me from the technical standpoint (very nice graphics for RPGM, Live2D models, a battle system that I'm still reeling from the fact they included it...) but that's not really the point. What the game shines in is the writing. It attracted me immediately - characters sound interesting and unusually three-dimensional, and there's some genuine chemistry between the protagonist and the girls, all of the time ("How are you still single?" indeed). Also, it seems to me like some parts of the writing were specifically made to be a subversion of japanese VN tropes - for example, one of the first scenes in the game is the protagonist stumbling upon Hana in the bath, an ancient trope - but the outcome of this accident is that she says it's obviously an accident, apologizes for not locking the door, and that's the end of it. This sort of thing repeats throughout the VN, and this sanity is a pleasant balm on my VN-scarred heart.
    Remember when I said protagonist has chemistry with the girls? Well, that's because he actually has a bit of a character rather than being a soulless blank slate like VN protags tend to be. He likes walks, watches anime and is willing to have long conversations about it, is learning music, etc. The writers also chose him to be a university graduate, and Hana/Ayano being only a bit younger, which is an improvement in my eyes on the normal VN tropes where everyone's in highschool for some reason. There are several dozen random dialogues between the characters (not counting the non-repeatable plot events), and they are generally fun to read.
    The H-scenes that are implemented yet share the same quality - Saiya and Hana are basically a pair of young adults experimenting together. Perhaps some people would find this game way too vanilla.

    To mention some cons - it's clear that the job system is kind of barebones; there's only a few items and only the H-SP ones are really useful. This will probably get fixed later. The battle system is surprisingly hard because it has a randomness aspect, and if the enemies happen to focus you, there's not much you can do about it. It doesn't really affect much, though (the battles are mostly a joke anyway).

    The current version of the game is a demo, in the sense that the game isn't finished yet and this is just an early access release. Nevertheless, it has several hours worth of content (3-7, maybe?) and is very good. I hope it gets finished some day.

    P.S. The soundtrack is also surprisingly nice; I'm a fan of several songs like the karaoke theme.