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alias_sqbrThe pretty art drew me back into trying Julian's route and...well! I can articulate why I didn't like that, and suspect that freemium dating sims of this sort aren't ever going to work for me. I went in not expecting to like it very much and was still disappointed.
The story is basically linear, choices affect the player's experience and the ending but the optional scenes don't contain any real plot. And the really appealing, fanservicey, romantic moments cost money. A lot of money.
Not only is the basic, free story unsatisfying, but I'm pretty sure that even if I paid the HUNDREDS OF DOLLARS required to see all the paid scenes, the story wouldn't hold together emotionally. I only saw one paid scene, but it feels unavoidable that since they can't affect anything plotwise they are emotionally static, bursts of romantic candy devoid of any further value to the story.
Which is frustrating because I really liked Julian's character. He's a self-hating cursed masochistic bi plague doctor inspired by Jeff Goldblum, and suffers beautifully.
Finally: even though the player character's gender is customisable, and I was playing mine as masculine leaning non binary, the dynamic drew heavily on het romance tropes. Fun tropes, mostly, and nothing contradicted the PC being a guy or non binary. And obviously this is fine for anyone playing a woman. But it made me feel a little weird. (You would think I'd enjoy the female LIs more, but they seemed very...toothless f/f as written by het writers)
Spoilery discussion of Julian's route below the cut. I only played through the first two and a half chapters of fourteen.
Before I get to spoilers, some maths (SORRY :P)
There's one or two 150-250 coin choices per chapter. 3 chapters a book, 14 books.
That's like 8K coins. 6500 coins costs a hundred and fifty United States dollars.
You get 200ish coins at the start, and can get like 10 more a day with random drops. So yeah. I watched the one scene I could get for free, and I was done.
So. To begin with, I was having an ok time. I said to a friend "I am not engaged with these characters as real people, but am happy enough to enjoy some pretty woobie m/nb fanservice". Julian is mysterious and angsty, and MC is dubious at first but then he saves their life and the two of them have a nice conversation, and then have to share a bed for Reasons and he blushes very cutely.
All good! I wondered how much shippiness I was missing behind the paid choices, but as it was it was a cute slow burn. I could see from the walkthrough that there was a LOT of chapters left, and was happy enough to watch them slowly get closer. I would have classified the couple as nearly friends, with UST and cheesy fanservice to keep players engaged.
And then he dumps her.
Julian: Whatever we have between us, it has to end. I'm too dangerous, I'll only cause you pain.
Me: THEY HAD SOMETHING BETWEEN THEM??
I mean I'm sure they get back together after that, there's a lot of story left to go. But this kind of scene only works if there's a relationship to break, and the story hadn't sold me on that at all. Which meant the romance after this probably wouldn't work for me either.
For a moment I wondered if the paid version formed a satisfying romance. But almost noone would watch ALL the paid scenes, and the writers have no way of knowing which paid scenes any given player will see. So the paid scenes can add some extra emotional colour, but no key narrative moments.
Since I had the coins, and had no intention of playing any further, I decided to watch a fanservicey looking paid scene just before the breakup. The walkthrough included a choice about kissing, which I had found a bit confusing since they really didn't seem to be at the kissing stage.
And...it's a kissing scene. A perfectly well written, kinda cute and hot kissing scene, which would have been fine in the context of a romance story it fit into naturally. But there's no leadup or conversation or surprise, she just kisses him and he cheerfully kisses her back and he says some vague, slightly bittersweet things about having something to remember her by, and then it goes back to the plot.
And so it felt incredibly hollow. He's about to dump her. I can see him being overcome by feelings and kissing her, but he should act conflicted, and he doesn't. And from my POV this is the first overtly romantic moment between them, so having neither of them act like it's surprising or a big deal totally undercuts the romance.
But if they had a Serious Conversation About Feelings, that would mean their dynamic should be different after the scene, and since the scene is entirely optional that can't happen. So it's just empty Romantic Content with no broader meaning to their relationship.
I can see players creating a narrative in their head where everything holds together, with the pretty art and cute writing making up for the lack of emotional coherence, but I would not enjoy trying to do that at all.
And the ridiculous cost means if I did keep playing I'd only be playing paid scenes very rarely, having to click past most of them knowing they contained the main romantic moments the game has to offer.
It reminds me of soap operas: not the tone, but the way individual moments can feel Real and Affecting, but the goal of the writing is the get you hooked, which means coherent arcs and satisfying narratives are sacrificed for moment-to-moment Feels designed to manipulate the consumer into the desired money making behaviour. For soap operas, that means cliffhangers before every ad break to make sure you keep watching. For this game, it means little pieces of empty romance fluff strung together on a plot skeleton designed to make you want More.
I said this to my friend and she linked me this comic which, yeah.
It's possible it's not all as bad as it seems from my specific experience. But I can't see any way it could be good, at least not for me.
So yeah! Time to uninstall The Arcana.
The story is basically linear, choices affect the player's experience and the ending but the optional scenes don't contain any real plot. And the really appealing, fanservicey, romantic moments cost money. A lot of money.
Not only is the basic, free story unsatisfying, but I'm pretty sure that even if I paid the HUNDREDS OF DOLLARS required to see all the paid scenes, the story wouldn't hold together emotionally. I only saw one paid scene, but it feels unavoidable that since they can't affect anything plotwise they are emotionally static, bursts of romantic candy devoid of any further value to the story.
Which is frustrating because I really liked Julian's character. He's a self-hating cursed masochistic bi plague doctor inspired by Jeff Goldblum, and suffers beautifully.
Finally: even though the player character's gender is customisable, and I was playing mine as masculine leaning non binary, the dynamic drew heavily on het romance tropes. Fun tropes, mostly, and nothing contradicted the PC being a guy or non binary. And obviously this is fine for anyone playing a woman. But it made me feel a little weird. (You would think I'd enjoy the female LIs more, but they seemed very...toothless f/f as written by het writers)
Spoilery discussion of Julian's route below the cut. I only played through the first two and a half chapters of fourteen.
Before I get to spoilers, some maths (SORRY :P)
There's one or two 150-250 coin choices per chapter. 3 chapters a book, 14 books.
That's like 8K coins. 6500 coins costs a hundred and fifty United States dollars.
You get 200ish coins at the start, and can get like 10 more a day with random drops. So yeah. I watched the one scene I could get for free, and I was done.
So. To begin with, I was having an ok time. I said to a friend "I am not engaged with these characters as real people, but am happy enough to enjoy some pretty woobie m/nb fanservice". Julian is mysterious and angsty, and MC is dubious at first but then he saves their life and the two of them have a nice conversation, and then have to share a bed for Reasons and he blushes very cutely.
All good! I wondered how much shippiness I was missing behind the paid choices, but as it was it was a cute slow burn. I could see from the walkthrough that there was a LOT of chapters left, and was happy enough to watch them slowly get closer. I would have classified the couple as nearly friends, with UST and cheesy fanservice to keep players engaged.
And then he dumps her.
Julian: Whatever we have between us, it has to end. I'm too dangerous, I'll only cause you pain.
Me: THEY HAD SOMETHING BETWEEN THEM??
I mean I'm sure they get back together after that, there's a lot of story left to go. But this kind of scene only works if there's a relationship to break, and the story hadn't sold me on that at all. Which meant the romance after this probably wouldn't work for me either.
For a moment I wondered if the paid version formed a satisfying romance. But almost noone would watch ALL the paid scenes, and the writers have no way of knowing which paid scenes any given player will see. So the paid scenes can add some extra emotional colour, but no key narrative moments.
Since I had the coins, and had no intention of playing any further, I decided to watch a fanservicey looking paid scene just before the breakup. The walkthrough included a choice about kissing, which I had found a bit confusing since they really didn't seem to be at the kissing stage.
And...it's a kissing scene. A perfectly well written, kinda cute and hot kissing scene, which would have been fine in the context of a romance story it fit into naturally. But there's no leadup or conversation or surprise, she just kisses him and he cheerfully kisses her back and he says some vague, slightly bittersweet things about having something to remember her by, and then it goes back to the plot.
And so it felt incredibly hollow. He's about to dump her. I can see him being overcome by feelings and kissing her, but he should act conflicted, and he doesn't. And from my POV this is the first overtly romantic moment between them, so having neither of them act like it's surprising or a big deal totally undercuts the romance.
But if they had a Serious Conversation About Feelings, that would mean their dynamic should be different after the scene, and since the scene is entirely optional that can't happen. So it's just empty Romantic Content with no broader meaning to their relationship.
I can see players creating a narrative in their head where everything holds together, with the pretty art and cute writing making up for the lack of emotional coherence, but I would not enjoy trying to do that at all.
And the ridiculous cost means if I did keep playing I'd only be playing paid scenes very rarely, having to click past most of them knowing they contained the main romantic moments the game has to offer.
It reminds me of soap operas: not the tone, but the way individual moments can feel Real and Affecting, but the goal of the writing is the get you hooked, which means coherent arcs and satisfying narratives are sacrificed for moment-to-moment Feels designed to manipulate the consumer into the desired money making behaviour. For soap operas, that means cliffhangers before every ad break to make sure you keep watching. For this game, it means little pieces of empty romance fluff strung together on a plot skeleton designed to make you want More.
I said this to my friend and she linked me this comic which, yeah.
It's possible it's not all as bad as it seems from my specific experience. But I can't see any way it could be good, at least not for me.
So yeah! Time to uninstall The Arcana.
no subject
Date: 2019-10-07 03:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-10-11 12:42 pm (UTC)You're welcome!
Also, totally unrelated, but I'll forget otherwise: chrry compiled some info on Hakuoki manga https://otome-games.dreamwidth.org/7004.html?thread=41052#cmt41052