Riddle Jokers
Entry posted by Clephas
6637 views
I'm going to be blunt (as usual), Riddle Jokers is probably a sign that Yuzu Soft is starting to stagnate as a company.
I'm not trying to be mean or bashing Yuzu Soft for the sake of it... but, after finishing two paths of this game, I felt hugely exhausted, despite the fact that the paths are actually shorter than some of their other works. The reason is fairly simple... the cast of characters this time around just isn't that interesting.
Part of that is that the protagonist himself is a bit too 'normal' for someone in his line of work. Another part of it is that the heroines all fall into standard Yuzu Soft archetypes (whether setting or the character personality), and as a result, I was able to figure out the specifics of the paths I played so far almost from the beginning. The most 'interesting' of the heroines, Ayase, I intended to leave to last, so I haven't played her (because she is the obvious main heroine candidate).
The common route is, at best, 'all right'. Of course, there are moments that made me smile, and the SOL is standard Yuzu Soft quality/style. However, I felt that they hit on all the wrong notes when they were handling the Astral abilities. One issue is that the balance between the oddly realistic/gritty moments and the rest of the game is horrible (those moments tease at a much more interesting set of possibilities), but another is that I honestly just got bored with what was going on too early. Yuzu Soft makes long SOL games, and as a result, every time I play one of their games, I end feeling at least a little fatigued. Worse, the humor is too mild to keep the brain stimulated most of the time, and the h-scenes are just... excessively long. Ichaicha in the heroine routes is excessive (I've been complaining about this since Dracu-riot, so that's nothing new), and... each of the first two paths I played (Hazuki and Mayu) had just enough of it to put me over the edge of my ability to endure.
Since this game was channeling Dracu-riot so obviously (isolated/enclosed environment, persecuted inhabitants, background efforts to destroy their refuge, etc), it was hard to escape the feeling that this was a pathetic attempt to relive what was best about that game. Unfortunately, because they traced the ideas so closely in some ways, the points where the game comes up short are just too obvious.
One of those areas is action. Say what you like about Dracu-riot, but its few action scenes were generally excellent (for what they were, action scenes in a charage) and the buildup was skillfully orchestrated. The same can't really be said about this game. While there are a few action scenes, the effort to narrate them and build up to them is rather... underwhelming.
Another is the secret agent angle... to be frank, the protagonist just isn't that capable. Oh, he is a decently-skilled fighter and his ability is cool in a way, but he falls apart whenever he hits an emotional block and he has a critical failure for an agent... he hates lying.
Last of all is the Astral-user issue... I have to say that this wasn't handled nearly as well as the vampires in Dracu-riot. There are very few times in the VN's common route where prejudice or persecution even comes up, much less becomes an issue (aside from the conclusion of the route), and there is no attempt to bring the situation 'to life' in the reader's mind, which is a critical failure, in my opinion.
Honestly, when it comes down to it, the reasons I couldn't bring myself to like this game are all involved with me inevitably comparing it to Dracu-riot. On its own, it isn't a bad VN, but I have had the unfortunate experience of having both played Dracu-riot twice all the way through and have helped as a translation-checker on the translation... so my impression of this game was further ruined by my excessive involvement with the game it was imitating in structure.
I couldn't bring out an unbiased opinion here, so I'm not going to say you shouldn't play it... but if you do, play it before Dracu-riot, not after.
Edit: Also, one thing that was missing was non-romantic friendly intimacy between the characters... despite the fact that they mostly live in the same dorm, there is relatively little interaction between the characters as a group, meaning I didn't really feel that they 'came to life' like the characters of Dracu-riot or even Senren Banka.
- phantomJS, Nuberius, Kenshin_sama and 1 other
-
4
5 Comments
Recommended Comments