Anchored Hearts: A Tale of Destiny

[h1]”That's a sturdy mast.. or are you just pleased to see me?”[/h1] [i]Anchored Hearts[/i], at its core, is a visual novel, but solely in terms of playing time, it may qualify primarily as a top-down simple strategy battle-at-sea shooter. [h1]Story[/h1] Let's look at the game as a visual novel in the first instance. We take on the role of pirate Nova (changeable) Ramos, female captain of the ship “Lady Vengeance”; who finds herself thrown in jail, accused of sinking a number of Republic ships, having been widely seen as the last person to have been aboard all of the lost vessels; and who therefore stands as number one suspect for a grievous act which has broken a 300 year truce between the Arcomare Alliance (the aforementioned republic of four states) and the pirates of Libertown. To begin, she needs to escape jail (done by progressing the story talking with other people). Whenever someone is available for conversation, their portrait appears with a large exclamation mark alongside it. Clicking on the portrait begins an exchange and also presents that character's full sprite, as seen below: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3298551146 Upon r…

wow that was actually a great game! I had no expectations, but damn, i was impressed by the plot and characters yes it has some bugs and not much background pictured, but the story is too interesting

before: just look at how many positive reviews are here and how many of them have gotten the product for free. This tells you anything you'd need to know. So here is my honest review (mind you: i am queer). Let's go: The devs were yapping about consent all along the story (whilst forcing a "they" into the story like hamfist was on sale) and then they went on with, and ill try to stay civil, ill really try: they were brute forcing the hetero relationship idea onto the player by asking around 5 times if "i really only want to be friends" and if i am really reaaaaally reaaaaally sure about that i dont want to get into a relationship with any of the men? All this whilst there is no other option for the player to mingle. You've really done it: You have implemented the DEI concepts to a degree were all sides can rejoice in disliking this game and by that extend the dev studio. - The left can, totally understandably, call you cowards/ pink washers etc. - The right can, totally understandably, call you [insert DEI slur here]. - The modern women can, totally understandably, call you midieval since you shoehorned them into being alone or HAVING to go with a male. - And even the cavem…

Loving this game so far! The game play is fun and engaging and the art style is cute. Time flies whenever I play it which, in my opinion, is a sure sign that I am enjoying myself.

I got fully lost in the story and gameplay of Anchored Hearts - the ship battles give a nice break in the narrative and are a super fun mechanic. The story in this game is really well-crafted, and if you're into romantic narrative, you'll definitely have a great time. The characters are very lovable (well... the ones that are supposed to be) and the character art has a really soft, friendly feel to it - making you warm up to them even faster! I definitely didn't see the end coming and it resulted in a super satisfying conclusion to the story. The gameplay for the ship battles is very fun, and there's a setting to make these a little easier if you'd rather have a less challenging play. I enjoyed how the battles are both a nice break in between chapters, but also incorporate the story in a really solid way. Once you get more upgrades, the battles feel even more satisfying! All in all a very solid game that'll definitely keep you entertained until the end.

First, kudos to Studio Witchstar for trying something different from the typical romance VN/dating sim. It doesn't work much of the time, but I appreciate when devs take risks. That's not to say this game isn't lovely, or at least the VN parts of it are lovely. You're a pirate trying to prove her innocence for committing an infraction that she's innocent of. The writing is tight; the love interests are compelling and complex, and the MC is funny, tough, and sympathetic. The romance-leaning scenes create excellent tension. The VN scenes, however, are broken up by a sailing "roguelite" (I use that term very loosely) where you steer your ship along preset paths comprised of a series of events, most of which involve cannon fights with other ships. Along the way you can pick up points and ship upgrades and money that can be used to level up and keep acquired ship modifications. However, the cannon fighting is an unfortunately janky minigame that isn't really worth all the time it drains, and the game seems to really want you to think it's as good or better than the story. It isn't. All told, I recommend this game. I think the battles (on easy mode) are tolerable enough and the story…