Bios Ex - Yami no Wakusei

Usually visual novels fall into one of two categories: choice filled and kinetic. Choice filled is obviously with branching stories while kinetic have no choices and are totally linear. Bios Ex is kind of in the middle. It has fewer choices than many visual novels but the ones it does have are ones with a big impact and implications. I thought I was going to dislike this setup as I am used to having more freedom with the story but I ended up liking it. The story was very interesting and I liked how dark it ended up becoming in my play through. The art was well done and had a good style. The music was great at setting the pace and mood of the story. I enjoyed the characters and enjoyed learning more about them and seeing where they would go to next. I played Bios Ex on Linux. It did have an issue where the game would crash on launch through Steam but would launch if I manually ran the executable in the game folder outside of Steam. The developer responded quickly to this and was able to get it fixed in about a week while keeping me in the loop and having me test out new possible fixes. Overall the game launches fine through Steam now and it showed me the developer cares about fixi…

This will be a very mixed review, in my opinion the game offers great potential but the execution is lacking in several areas. I can only recommend to buy this with a high discount! Pros: - the overall aesthetic, I love the retro vibes, also the art! - the soundtrack is WONDERFUL - the plot idea: the story went into a very different direction than I initially expected, which I actually enjoyed a lot! I think the idea is very creative and I was invested in the mystery Cons: - the game feels... quite incomplete altogether - in my opinion the amount of CGs could've had more variety, considering that (especially towards the end) there had been so many opportunities to include more illustrations - to me, the game often struggles to achieve a thrilling atmosphere, e.g. there are many BRUTAL scenes that were supposed to feel intense and grotesque but due to barely having any changes in the music or extra sound effects, combined with the lack of illustrations, they feel rather flat. Those scenes would've been insane with some sound and visual effects. - despite it being an interesting story, its writing feels quite superficial and certain characters feel rather one-dimensional - the le…

A young man with no memories apart from nightmares of destruction finds himself transferred from prison to a madhouse. However, he's confident that he's not a lunatic nor a terrorist – he's determined to get to the bottom of the conspiracy against him. [h1]I liked...[/h1] [list] [*] The retro style (the game is presented in modern widescreen, but otherwise feels like something from 90's Japan in terms of story, music, character design, etc.)[/list] [h1]I didn't care for...[/h1] [list] [*] The story (for a mystery thriller, I wasn't feeling much intrigue or tension; at multiple points I was wondering whether I'd finish it) [*] The super-sized chests of female characters[/list] [h1]Verdict[/h1] I'm hesitant to recommend [i]Bios Ex[/i] after finishing the game. It's obvious that it's a labour of love on a tight budget, and the end result does look and feel like the untranslated Japanese VN you've never heard of but chanced upon on VNDB. And like it, it doesn't seem to have the spark that turned a few of such games into cult classics that are still being played decades later. Does that make it a bad game? Not really. Is it the right game for you? You be the judge. [i]For more EVN …

I received this game for free thanks to the creator who wanted my honest review. Now that I've completed it, I'm ready to share my thoughts. I didn't know anything about this game beforehand and so went into it completely blind. It had an interesting description and seemed to contain romance, so I decided to give it a try. I was surprised to find that it was a lot more interesting and enjoyable than I expected, as this genre outside romance isn't my usual interest. The story was unique, and I haven't seen any other works with quite the same concept, so that's a plus. The characters were all unique and nicely drawn, the backgrounds were well drawn, and the music was fitting for the scenes. The dialogue wasn't perfect and there were minor grammar issues, but none so much that it took away from the enjoyment. Getting the various endings were fairly straightforward, though there's a couple of sneaky ones that might require a second or third play. I used the skip command a lot to find them. Shizune was my personal favorite, but all the girls have their charms. Overall though, it was a fun game, so I appreciate getting a chance to play it and I hope my thoughts will be helpful to othe…

It's alright, takes awfully long to unwind the plot and get to any decisions and once it gets going it shift to paranormal story rather quickly, which while not my favorite genre, was written well enough to keep me interested. The choices are rather minor and even if you "fail" at some of them the game will give you the answer or don't acknowledge that you even found the solution to a converstaion and even mc will act as if he had a revelation after getting the same asnwer from someone else... that is until the end when it actually matters. Nao ending and the whole romance idea is probably the weakest side of the game, but other 3 endings make up for it, I'm glad there is some proper diversity tho and it makes us seem as if we had impact on protagonists personality. Art was nice but I would be sold more on all the back and forths and physical interactions if they would be depicted properly and not just in text as a still picture is shown in the middle of the screen. They were even doing so in the first scenes with Nao in our cell, her going up to the guard, us looking up after being "released" or Shizune on the bench (once as for the second time I don't think she was even shown m…

It [b]could be [/b] fascinating story with unique heroes, decend soundtrack, well-painted landscapes. None of it is in the game. Sprites of main heroes look terrible - none of them look somewhat near good, soundtrack is just awful (game is poorly made so time to time soundtrack just go off), story-telling is too long and boring for that kind of synapsis. You basically read feelings and thoughts of young boy who is trying to understand his past, present and decide his future. Some really cool plot twists, yeah, but is it not worth the time. I don`t like main sprites, sound, story-telling, and when you come to explapanation of main puzzles - it dissapoints too. Mid at best, there are a lot better VN to read than this.