Welp, honestly I would give this one 2.5 stars, but since I can't and my grade gravitates towards the lower spectrum, I'll settle this with just 2.
More recent reviews seemed to be rather positive, so I decided to try the game out. Thing is, it's not a game. The sandbox tag is misleading and, overall, is a straight-up lie. While it's true that you can "move" around locations and "choose" your actions, the amount of those actions is either one or two, one of which is secondary
(like, check the bathroom every morning) or whatever the main action is which will progress the story. It gives a very strong illusion that you, a "player", are in control of your story and you always think that there might be something else that could be done, but no, there's nothing of a sort. You are locked onto a single existing path and there's nothing you can do about it. And there's absolutely nothing to do between the scene transitions, which in this case is moving between the locations.
Basically, it's not a game. It's a kinetic novel.
Would be fine if it was... what's the correct word? Advertised? Well, let's go with that. If it was "advertised" as a kinetic novel from the very beginning, but no, there are strong implications integral to this game's design that are screaming that it's a sandbox game. Not cool guys, not cool at all.
Moving on, this, sigh, "game" has a very strong fixation on lactation fetish. There's no way to obscure it and there was no warning whatsoever in that starting disclaimer that it was one of the main focuses. Worst of all, it's integrated into the, heh, "plot".
Personally, I find it fucking disgusting. At the same time, I have a few kinks of my own, so I decided to be an open-minded person and ignore it the best I could to appreciate the whole experience for what it was.
The plot's rudimentary idea is not bad, but it was implemented rather poorly and doesn't reflect in the title at all. Like, what would you expect from the phrase "Prince of Suburbia" and the puny looking MC in the cover art? An underdog story, perhaps. Sure, an overused trope, but depending on how you do it, it might just work. But no, the whole premise is that yourmom landlady is having some tough times, her financial situation taking quite a dip due to unresolved debts from her dead husband and her daughter being a total bitch.
In order to get rid of at least the financial part of her problems, she, a scientist that she is as we find out, decides to accelerate production of her new drug by bypassing human trials. How? By taking them herself. Okay, I don't really see it working out, but for the sake of PLOT progression I am willing to overlook this. What does that drug do? We don't fucking know. No, honestly, there's no explicit explanation as to WHAT THE FUCK THAT DRUG SUPPOSED TO DO EXACTLY, only some innuendos in the latter half of the current(0.55 Rewrite) version. Only the side effects that come from it. And they are, you guessed it - excessive lactation, which is exclusive to females. Also horniness, which is present in both sexes.
The MC, who's eh... okay, let's not fuck around, THE SON of this scientist chick, decided to help his mom out by taking those pills too, without any fucking idea how they work or what they do. I saw many smoothbrains in games, movies, literature and, ofc, the real life, an this guy is the pinnacle of that archetype. What happens next? Well, he apparently becomes real horny and wants to fuck all the time. Why I said "apparently"? Well, that's because even before taking those pills he was horny as fuck, that's why. There's no transition between his normal state and another, he literally is the same guy he was before.
Honestly, just thinking about this "plot" hurts my remaining two braincells more than anything ever could, so let's just wrap it up there and say that this story doesn't get any better, and it goes even heavier on the whole lactation thing. Oh, and, of course, MC somehow manages to finger and caress some girls even despite his broken arms which were sealed in cast. Right.
Interactions between characters are as basic as they could get. Even a fifth-grader could do better, but I digress. What I hate the most, however, is that one thing when you interact with multiple characters: let's say MC has finished an event with the first girl, and then the second one comes up and says that there's the second event coming up, and there's no reaction to this from the first girl, she just straight up... disappears. Vanishes from existence. Snapped away, even. No extra interaction, no basic reaction, nothing at all. This whole mess of a game already felt pretty empty and deserted, and now it feels simply... alien. Oh well.
Where Prince of Suburbia shines the most is the CGs. But no, not the character sprites, they are horrendous. I have no idea why there's such an unsurmountable difference between the naughty CGs and sprites. The MC himself is the very definition "look at this dood" meme. His asymmetric eyes, his shitty hobo-teenager haircut, his robotic expression that sometimes felt borderline psychopathic. Dear God, whenever I read VNs or played similar types of games, I've never felt anything like I did in this one: MC's stare drilled right into my soul - mercilessly, relentlessly. I really am glad I've managed to make it through this torture and not break in the process. But I doubt I'll ever be the same after this for as long as I live.
The rest of the sprites are pretty meh too, but nothing as bad as the MC's - the devs were probably aware of it and decided to tone down the whole horror bit so as not to scare away the rest of the players.
No one cares about backgrounds, but since I started shitting on this game, might as well shit on this too: those are very poorly-rendered 3D pictures, no actual effort was put into them and it shows.
CGs are gorgeous though. Like, actually gorgeous. Most of the scenes are animated too(Live2D, at that), and most of those animations are of amazing quality. Sure, would be nice if they weren't running on, what, 24 fps? But they still are banging hot. Considering how much this part of the game is better than the rest of it, I'm surprised that there's no cheat code or an option to unlock the full gallery to save every sane person some time. Though, even if the CG-transition does(50/50) make the MC look less of a Zuckerberg-type of a robo-lizard and a bit more like an actual human being, it doesn't rectify his fundamentally dull character design.
And, basically, that's it. I'd give this one star, but the art just barely saves this whole mess. I just, for the life of me, can't understand how people like this, but hey, if they do - good for them. I still don't understand though.
You don't have permission to view the spoiler content.
Log in or register now.
More recent reviews seemed to be rather positive, so I decided to try the game out. Thing is, it's not a game. The sandbox tag is misleading and, overall, is a straight-up lie. While it's true that you can "move" around locations and "choose" your actions, the amount of those actions is either one or two, one of which is secondary
(like, check the bathroom every morning) or whatever the main action is which will progress the story. It gives a very strong illusion that you, a "player", are in control of your story and you always think that there might be something else that could be done, but no, there's nothing of a sort. You are locked onto a single existing path and there's nothing you can do about it. And there's absolutely nothing to do between the scene transitions, which in this case is moving between the locations.
Basically, it's not a game. It's a kinetic novel.
Would be fine if it was... what's the correct word? Advertised? Well, let's go with that. If it was "advertised" as a kinetic novel from the very beginning, but no, there are strong implications integral to this game's design that are screaming that it's a sandbox game. Not cool guys, not cool at all.
Moving on, this, sigh, "game" has a very strong fixation on lactation fetish. There's no way to obscure it and there was no warning whatsoever in that starting disclaimer that it was one of the main focuses. Worst of all, it's integrated into the, heh, "plot".
Personally, I find it fucking disgusting. At the same time, I have a few kinks of my own, so I decided to be an open-minded person and ignore it the best I could to appreciate the whole experience for what it was.
The plot's rudimentary idea is not bad, but it was implemented rather poorly and doesn't reflect in the title at all. Like, what would you expect from the phrase "Prince of Suburbia" and the puny looking MC in the cover art? An underdog story, perhaps. Sure, an overused trope, but depending on how you do it, it might just work. But no, the whole premise is that your
In order to get rid of at least the financial part of her problems, she, a scientist that she is as we find out, decides to accelerate production of her new drug by bypassing human trials. How? By taking them herself. Okay, I don't really see it working out, but for the sake of PLOT progression I am willing to overlook this. What does that drug do? We don't fucking know. No, honestly, there's no explicit explanation as to WHAT THE FUCK THAT DRUG SUPPOSED TO DO EXACTLY, only some innuendos in the latter half of the current(0.55 Rewrite) version. Only the side effects that come from it. And they are, you guessed it - excessive lactation, which is exclusive to females. Also horniness, which is present in both sexes.
The MC, who's eh... okay, let's not fuck around, THE SON of this scientist chick, decided to help his mom out by taking those pills too, without any fucking idea how they work or what they do. I saw many smoothbrains in games, movies, literature and, ofc, the real life, an this guy is the pinnacle of that archetype. What happens next? Well, he apparently becomes real horny and wants to fuck all the time. Why I said "apparently"? Well, that's because even before taking those pills he was horny as fuck, that's why. There's no transition between his normal state and another, he literally is the same guy he was before.
Honestly, just thinking about this "plot" hurts my remaining two braincells more than anything ever could, so let's just wrap it up there and say that this story doesn't get any better, and it goes even heavier on the whole lactation thing. Oh, and, of course, MC somehow manages to finger and caress some girls even despite his broken arms which were sealed in cast. Right.
You don't have permission to view the spoiler content.
Log in or register now.
Interactions between characters are as basic as they could get. Even a fifth-grader could do better, but I digress. What I hate the most, however, is that one thing when you interact with multiple characters: let's say MC has finished an event with the first girl, and then the second one comes up and says that there's the second event coming up, and there's no reaction to this from the first girl, she just straight up... disappears. Vanishes from existence. Snapped away, even. No extra interaction, no basic reaction, nothing at all. This whole mess of a game already felt pretty empty and deserted, and now it feels simply... alien. Oh well.
Where Prince of Suburbia shines the most is the CGs. But no, not the character sprites, they are horrendous. I have no idea why there's such an unsurmountable difference between the naughty CGs and sprites. The MC himself is the very definition "look at this dood" meme. His asymmetric eyes, his shitty hobo-teenager haircut, his robotic expression that sometimes felt borderline psychopathic. Dear God, whenever I read VNs or played similar types of games, I've never felt anything like I did in this one: MC's stare drilled right into my soul - mercilessly, relentlessly. I really am glad I've managed to make it through this torture and not break in the process. But I doubt I'll ever be the same after this for as long as I live.
The rest of the sprites are pretty meh too, but nothing as bad as the MC's - the devs were probably aware of it and decided to tone down the whole horror bit so as not to scare away the rest of the players.
No one cares about backgrounds, but since I started shitting on this game, might as well shit on this too: those are very poorly-rendered 3D pictures, no actual effort was put into them and it shows.
CGs are gorgeous though. Like, actually gorgeous. Most of the scenes are animated too(Live2D, at that), and most of those animations are of amazing quality. Sure, would be nice if they weren't running on, what, 24 fps? But they still are banging hot. Considering how much this part of the game is better than the rest of it, I'm surprised that there's no cheat code or an option to unlock the full gallery to save every sane person some time. Though, even if the CG-transition does(50/50) make the MC look less of a Zuckerberg-type of a robo-lizard and a bit more like an actual human being, it doesn't rectify his fundamentally dull character design.
And, basically, that's it. I'd give this one star, but the art just barely saves this whole mess. I just, for the life of me, can't understand how people like this, but hey, if they do - good for them. I still don't understand though.