Well a good time as any to drop this review.
I'll start off by saying Superhuman was one the first VNs I've ever played, so to prevent myself from judging it with rose tinted glasses i went on another playthrough.
Superhuman at it's core is a power fantasy story. You got your standard weak af mc. He makes questionable decisions and ends up getting ravaged by a monster and gains the ultimate power fantasy super power we've all dreamed of having at some point - shapeshifting. He starts off doing what all of us degenerates would do when blessed with great power - be as irresponsible as humanly possible. And that's how the game pulls you in, it sets you up with delusions of grandeur and then springs the trap ( a literal trap, not the one you're thinking of. Although.. there are a surprising amount of what you're thinking of in the game too ngl), the trap being the PLOT. One moment you're chasing skirts and showering with cheerleaders, and the next you're throwing hands with eldritch gods to a heavy metal soundtrack - the absolute peak of human fantasy.
The things that really drew me in are,
1. The World building : It's absolutely insane the amount of world builing has been done in a frickin avn game of all things. I shit you not, this the type of lore that you'd be pondering about at 3am in the morning and not getting any sleep and then go around arguing with strangers on internet forums and making your warrior ancestors who shed their blood sweat and tears on the battlefield for you proud.
2. The Characters : There are a metric shit ton of them and they're all interesting. There are so many that you're bound to forget the names of most of them, but one look at them and you'll remember them regardless. Most of them are mostly goths in some way or form. Everyone has their own unique personality, their own secrets and quirks that they almost feel alive and you crave to know more about them.
3. The Visuals : I'll admit,at the beginning it's rough. But as the story goes on, the charm in those crudely drawn characters starts getting to you. It oozes the feel of an artist who has a story to tell, but isn't able to show it visually properly because he lacked the skill to do so. He does get surprisingly good in the later chapters though, a perfect mix of that charm and the skills he's improved upon to create his own artstyle. The character designs are gnarly, creepy, badass, sexy, and downright horrific at times( in a good way). The environmental designs to show the monsters habitats and other otherworldly areas are beautiful, almost like something you'd get on an acid trip.
4. Soundtrack : Don't think i need to say much about this because come on dude, you're fighting eldritch entities to heavy metal and punk music. It speaks directly to the evanescence groupie everyone has inside of them.
5. The Choices : The game offers a ton of choices. You got choices that affect the current path, choices that let you mould your protagonist to become an edgelord kill em all Alex mercer fanboi or a good ol' I'm not gonna kill unless it's necessary or threatens my moral compass Mark Grayson type character. Up to you. You got choices to gain specific powers that could help you in specific situations, Your power levels you get from making training choices can either make or break your current path, save or let characters die, and not to mention the core of an avn game, the sex. There's so many kinks being played out, that sometimes you'll be surprised and be like "wait, there are people into stuff like that? Huh". The mc uses his superpowers to it's kinkiest extent during his scenes.
Now with all the good points, i do have to pull it down from its high horse though because like all the greatest things in life it has it's imperfections but these are minor in the grand scheme of things,
1. The inconsistencies in the artstyle is a bit jarring at times. I did say it gets better in long run, but the dev seems insistent on using some old sprites during conversations that look very different to the new and improved ones. Like you'd have the mc looking like Conan the barbarian in his emo phase at times and then during conversation sprites he looks like shaggy from scooby doo in his goth phase. Granted he is a shape shifter, but it's also prevalent in other characters he meets too.
2. The Lore gets confusing at times and you need to look up on the net what the characters are referring to incase you've missed something. It'd be nice if the dev added a feature that'd let you know what they are referring to by clicking on the word that you want to know about.
3. I've seen some typos here and there, they're minor but it might irk some of the grammar police squads.
4. The scenes are a bit too dark at times. By dark i don't mean the tone of the story, but as in visually the scenes are hard to make out. I have to crank up the brightness in my screen to the max to make out some stuff in some scenes.
In conclusion, I'd say Superhuman is one of those rare gems that's like a gift that keeps on giving. The plot hasn't gone stale in the least and it just keeps getting better. Sure it needs a few improvements, but it still holds extremely well as it is. Heck it even motivated me - a serial procrastinator - to start my own power fantasy story script.
Highly recommended. No regrets, just a delightfully exciting story chock full of eldritch coochie - 9/10.
I'll start off by saying Superhuman was one the first VNs I've ever played, so to prevent myself from judging it with rose tinted glasses i went on another playthrough.
Superhuman at it's core is a power fantasy story. You got your standard weak af mc. He makes questionable decisions and ends up getting ravaged by a monster and gains the ultimate power fantasy super power we've all dreamed of having at some point - shapeshifting. He starts off doing what all of us degenerates would do when blessed with great power - be as irresponsible as humanly possible. And that's how the game pulls you in, it sets you up with delusions of grandeur and then springs the trap ( a literal trap, not the one you're thinking of. Although.. there are a surprising amount of what you're thinking of in the game too ngl), the trap being the PLOT. One moment you're chasing skirts and showering with cheerleaders, and the next you're throwing hands with eldritch gods to a heavy metal soundtrack - the absolute peak of human fantasy.
The things that really drew me in are,
1. The World building : It's absolutely insane the amount of world builing has been done in a frickin avn game of all things. I shit you not, this the type of lore that you'd be pondering about at 3am in the morning and not getting any sleep and then go around arguing with strangers on internet forums and making your warrior ancestors who shed their blood sweat and tears on the battlefield for you proud.
2. The Characters : There are a metric shit ton of them and they're all interesting. There are so many that you're bound to forget the names of most of them, but one look at them and you'll remember them regardless. Most of them are mostly goths in some way or form. Everyone has their own unique personality, their own secrets and quirks that they almost feel alive and you crave to know more about them.
3. The Visuals : I'll admit,at the beginning it's rough. But as the story goes on, the charm in those crudely drawn characters starts getting to you. It oozes the feel of an artist who has a story to tell, but isn't able to show it visually properly because he lacked the skill to do so. He does get surprisingly good in the later chapters though, a perfect mix of that charm and the skills he's improved upon to create his own artstyle. The character designs are gnarly, creepy, badass, sexy, and downright horrific at times( in a good way). The environmental designs to show the monsters habitats and other otherworldly areas are beautiful, almost like something you'd get on an acid trip.
4. Soundtrack : Don't think i need to say much about this because come on dude, you're fighting eldritch entities to heavy metal and punk music. It speaks directly to the evanescence groupie everyone has inside of them.
5. The Choices : The game offers a ton of choices. You got choices that affect the current path, choices that let you mould your protagonist to become an edgelord kill em all Alex mercer fanboi or a good ol' I'm not gonna kill unless it's necessary or threatens my moral compass Mark Grayson type character. Up to you. You got choices to gain specific powers that could help you in specific situations, Your power levels you get from making training choices can either make or break your current path, save or let characters die, and not to mention the core of an avn game, the sex. There's so many kinks being played out, that sometimes you'll be surprised and be like "wait, there are people into stuff like that? Huh". The mc uses his superpowers to it's kinkiest extent during his scenes.
Now with all the good points, i do have to pull it down from its high horse though because like all the greatest things in life it has it's imperfections but these are minor in the grand scheme of things,
1. The inconsistencies in the artstyle is a bit jarring at times. I did say it gets better in long run, but the dev seems insistent on using some old sprites during conversations that look very different to the new and improved ones. Like you'd have the mc looking like Conan the barbarian in his emo phase at times and then during conversation sprites he looks like shaggy from scooby doo in his goth phase. Granted he is a shape shifter, but it's also prevalent in other characters he meets too.
2. The Lore gets confusing at times and you need to look up on the net what the characters are referring to incase you've missed something. It'd be nice if the dev added a feature that'd let you know what they are referring to by clicking on the word that you want to know about.
3. I've seen some typos here and there, they're minor but it might irk some of the grammar police squads.
4. The scenes are a bit too dark at times. By dark i don't mean the tone of the story, but as in visually the scenes are hard to make out. I have to crank up the brightness in my screen to the max to make out some stuff in some scenes.
In conclusion, I'd say Superhuman is one of those rare gems that's like a gift that keeps on giving. The plot hasn't gone stale in the least and it just keeps getting better. Sure it needs a few improvements, but it still holds extremely well as it is. Heck it even motivated me - a serial procrastinator - to start my own power fantasy story script.
Highly recommended. No regrets, just a delightfully exciting story chock full of eldritch coochie - 9/10.
