Stormy reviews Time Hollowposted Nov 6th 2009, 8:12PM
Mood:
Boy-o, I do love playing games nobody ever seems to have heard of. S'fun.
Anyhow, on to reviewing.
I suppose it's best to start at the story!
Story
Well, the story is a pretty long one. You're a kid named Ethan Kairos who can control time with a magic pen, and you gotta keep the time stream intact. It's got a loooot more detail, but so much I'll have to give you only the most important details. That's why I got the game. I need a good adventure, one that will draw me in. Visual novels, you know.
And it succeeded. Granted, a lot of the characters were pretty interchangeable. You never really cared about more than a few of them, and the rest you just wanted to shut up. And then so many things happen that you're confused about. It's a really winding story that takes enough turns to make a sidewinder dizzy. Very fast-paced, but maybe too much. That's why the characters don't get developed enough. There's too little screentime for you to actually care about them. Ethan's likable enough, but a lot of the characters are so flat, you barely notice them.
I guess this is the point,however. Because to succeed in the game, you have to forget about all of them and how you feel, because what's best for everyone might not be best for one person. Such as Morris, one of your friends. You make him drop out of school and spend most of his teen life being a dog-walker. And before this, the guy was a genius. One who you promised you'd help bring his GPA up so he could get into college easier. But the main problem is that in the other realities, the guy died! So your main worry is keeping him safe, instead of happy.
Not to mention, however, so many points that go on unsolved. Who's that mystery council shrouded in darkness? Who knows the game never tells you.
Who actually killed Ashley and that one guy nobody cares about? Nobody knows.
Why can your cat find little balls of energy all of a sudden? Yeah I don't know. It drops off points like that all the time. I assume it's trying to leave it to the imagination. I dunno. But then, if they explored every possible reality Ethan goes through, the game would never end.
Anyhow, I won't bore you with more details. But the thing is, despite its constant turns, roster of uninteresting characters, and strange concepts, it's a good story. The dialog's good, Ethan's a likable guy, and it's really full of interesting ideas. Overall:
8/10.
Gameplay
Oy, it's a visual novel game, what do you want?
Alright, fine. There's not much to the game. Go here, talk to people, go there.
The game hasn't got much at all to its gameplay. But it's not supposed to. It's a visual novel, made to tell the story. So I'm not going to pick on it there. Overall, I can't say much about it. Nothing's too bad, nothing's really outstanding. It's just where it's supposed to be.
5/10.
Graphics
The graphics for the game aren't half-bad. They're crisp and clean, and the mugshots can really display a lot of emotion, and tell a lot about the characters, however much that is.
The art's very very good, and it has so much detail in it. Even the menu screen does. The style's not to different from most anime styles, but then again, it's anime. What can ya do?
Anyhow, from me, this gets a
8/10.
Soundtrack
Eeeeeeeh
I never seem to pick games and stuff with a full soundtrack.
Always just some filler music, nothing too special.
It has one neat opening, though.
Anyhow
6/10
Overall
It's a good game. I can't reccomend it to everyone, though. If you're interested in a good story, and everything else isn't that important, then this is a game for you. Otherwise, there's not much too it.
So, overall, it's a 7/10.
A decent game, and definitely very overlooked, but maybe for a reason.
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