You know how some people come here and their reviews go like:
"Boring title, annoying characters, unoriginal story", they give it a 2 or 3 stars rating, and they basically tell you nothing, in less than a handful of lines?
Well, I'm not like that. I suffer from a rare condition known as "precious snowflake syndrome", so what I'm gonna tell you is that Mist is unremarkable, when compared to some other things I saw here. "It's not what you said, it's the way you said it". - cries melodramatically -
Congenital need to assert individuality aside, Mist has 2 things going for it:
- The first is ambience, and premise. Basically, the entire atmosphere of Mist (I know what I just typed) draws you in, and the setting is very interesting, it increases, your natural desire to find out what is going on with the mystery (the book and the movie don't really stop that factor, you can create something special by taking inspiration, from existing things). For me, this is the greatest strength of Mist, and more than enough reason to pick up the title, and give it a go.
- The second thing is that the adult content does it's job. I'm gonna hammer this notion every chance I can. If a game or visual novel has sexual content, it needs to push the title forward, and make it more appealing, otherwise there's no point in existing. (Do you just long for sweet release***or do you want more?) So in my opinion, a good mix of gameplay, story, and adult content is a must, in this genre. At any rate, Mist does a semi-competent job in this parameter, the characters look like Muppets, sure, but maybe you like Ms. Piggy? I'm not judging you, and no one really cares, she is probably yummy.
That's the good, now the horrifyingly bland:
- Gameplay cycle - It's boring, annoying and unoriginal TM... How many times must I find some "blockage", then go back, and do 3 tasks and advance the main story? And the combat is not really helping matters either. I might as well grab a calculator, and start the numbers game in there, cause Mist's "Whatever this is, is certainly not engaging combat" is mind-numbingly monotonous. You ever heard of that guy, who had a Ret Paladin in early WoW, and he watched a bit of porn during every battle? Well there's no auto-attack here. GAH!!!! I'm not sure if 2000's me, who had 99 in the patience stat could have handled this (Nah, I'm kidding myself, that person would would finish this).
I really wanted to see the "purple goddess" in action, but I just ended up quitting and uninstalling, shortly after the 3rd girl joined. And there you have it.
Now, let's move on to another common place: "My opinion is that this is average, so why is this so highly rated, when I'm obviously (always) right". My best bet is that people just finish it, due to the initial interest. I don't work like that however, cause I have "goldfish blood" (kinkier than it sounded in my mind), and I need to be constantly entertained. Life is too short to be wasted on dreary, I already have enough of that, thank you very much.
In all seriousness, the title doesn't do enough when compared to others here. For me, this is a 6/10, and I will say that leaving something unfinished, after playing for an extended period of time, is something that I only do, when I really believe it's not worth it. If you like Mist, that's fine, I'm not that self-centered, but I just don't see it, and can't recommend it.
*** Sweet release for the sake of it, is actually very much OK. There's better ways of achieving that, though.