Dark Auction

I waited for a year for this game to come out so I bought it as soon as it was released, but I've decided to drop it because the (undisclosed when i purchased) ai art really threw me off, and even though the team is working to replace those pieces, i can't get myself to continue playing mainly because of the story itself. The game mechanisms i found were actually really cool! but after the first two chapters it was very repetitive, and the conclusion in chapter 3 REALLY made me rethink continuing the game due to how the topics surrounding this game are handled. kohske's art/chara designs was the only thing that kept me playing because it's so so pretty, but the game was very underwhelming after waiting for so long. I really enjoyed yurukill which is why i was eager to play dark auction. This game is also very pricey for what it is, so if you want a visual novel that's actually worth playing, you should check out 'murders on the yangtze river' (from OMEGames) or 'yurukill: the calumniation games' (which is also by izanagi games) I *might* come back to finish this game just to complete chapter 4 (because I really liked chris) and for the ending, but I highly doubt it.

Gameplay is super repetitive, but I kept thinking alright there must be some grand pay off to all the small elements I am learning... the plot twist has little to do with most of the intricacies you learn, and there is no closure. Closure doesn't need to be good, I don't even mind tragedy, but it felt like they genuinely had no idea how to end the game and just ended it haphazardly. There are so many better games in the genre - this one is unfortunately not good.

No one who played Dark Auction is really talking about the game itself, and with good cause: the publisher didn't disclose the use of generative AI tools in (seemingly only) generating preproduction art. A real shame, though it seems like, to paraphrase Dril, they're trying to delete it. But I totally understand anyone who doesn't want to play this game for this reason alone. But if you already paid $30 for it? Dark Auction is crafted by the writer of the DS adventure classic Hotel Dusk, and in line with the vibe/design of that and other games from the defunct developer, Cing. Essentially, it's a glorified visual novel with just enough interactivity to keep you engaged, a collection of "put the round peg in the round hole" puzzles, a focus on bittersweet melodrama, and a general sense of claustrophobic, cozy dullness—and I mean that in the kindest possible way. This time around, there's a dash of Danganronpa to spice things up: every chapter ends with a sort of trial that could possibly end in death, but because we're fully in the sleepy Cing design sense, the stakes never seem especially high. It's been a while since I've played Hotel Dusk and the like, but I'd probably rank Dar…

I can’t get through second “trial”. It’s just become so boring. I had hopes of it being good and regret spending money on it. 7 hrs in and almost nothing has happened. Strong first hr or two and then it fell off a cliff.

So, even ignoring the GenAi debacle surrounding most of this game it's pretty mediocre. I went into this expecting something along the lines of Hotel Dusk or Trace Memory, and I was very disappointed with what I found. It's fine as a visual novel, there's some interesting character details to be seen here and I will give it credit for completely blindsiding me with the twist at the end. But for all the good moments this game has, I find myself finding several more frustrating or even outright terrible ones. There isn't any player agency in the investigation segments. It's a simple go from point A to point B as shown by your minimap with basically 0 flavor or any extra crumbs to be found. Mysterious Coins, which one would assume are neat bonuses handed out for being thorough and wanting to explore the castle and its history, are just thrown in your path as another unmissable object to collect. Any time the player is required to use one of the many keywords discovered over the course of the game, the answer is handed to your or you are given such a softball question I struggle to think of a reason for the game to even pretend it's trying to get you to think. And then there's…

The obvious comparison is Root Letter. A solid mystery with some good puzzles that also is slow as hell with a dry translation