R is for Rachel

[code]Not a lot of people know about this game, and probably it should stay this way. This is going to be a rant, and I apologize in advance but I need to vent [b]hard[/b].[/code] [b]R is for Rachel[/b] is a visual novel about a queer girl Joan who falls in love with her neighbour Rachel. When I've read the name for the first time, I scoffed, to be honest, instantly remembering Life is Strange. But the premise got me, and I thought I should at least try the demo... It was horrible. I hated it so much I needed to complain to everyone. After some time, though, I felt shameful. Maybe I'm being too critical? Maybe I should give this game a chance, it was just a demo. So I bought it. [h2]Is there anything good in the game?[/h2] Uhh... no, not really. I honestly can't come up with any praises here. [h2]Okay. What was bad, then?[/h2] You really wanna know? First of all, thank you. Second — sit down, babe, we'll be here for a while. 1. The art looks awful. Remember that filter in Photoshop which made everything look as if it was drawn? I think every picture in this game was created with some sort of filter like that. Looks sloppy. 2. You cannot change the text speed, which is a must-h…

Very rarely do I thumbs down a game, let alone a sapphic one but...this was absolute dreck. For one thing, we don't even see the romance build between Joan and Rachel; there's a big time skip from when they meet at dinner, and to them at the beach kissing. It's not clear why Joan even likes Rachel, and Rachel herself isn't too interesting. She's very superficial, and that plot twist...such BS. Really, the best part of the game came from the drama surrounding Rachel. Oh, and the gameplay was...very tedious and frustrating. I wasn't a fan of having to figure out what I needed to type in for much of the story prompts. Too many times what I thought was the right answer wasn't. The writing was a bit weak as well, with strange word choice an editor would've caught. Normally I'd let something like that slide, if the story is good enough, but this was...it wasn't great. I would've gotten a refund, but the game was only $3. I just wish it was better.

Depressing baby gay visual novel with unique aesthetics and a neat synthwave soundtrack to accompany you through the misery.

[i][b]R is for Rachel[/b], who we only wish we could’ve liked as much as Joan did.[/i] [h1]Who's this game for?[/h1] [list] [*]Art aficionados [*]LGBQT community [*]Short-on-time gamers [*]Story-driven gamers [/list] [h1]Negatives[/h1] [list] [*]Can’t change a lot of outcomes [*]Characters aren’t really believable [*]He says, she says [*]Short sequences [/list] [h1]Positives[/h1] [list] [*]Interesting graphics [/list] Our verdict: [b]Unworthy[/b] [table] [tr] [th]For more games like this...[/th] [/tr] [tr] [td]Check out [url=https://tgexp.com/r-is-for-rachel/]The Gaming Experience[/url] website[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]Watch our [url=https://www.youtube.com/@tgxp]SFW YouTube channel[/url][/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]Follow our [url=https://steamcommunity.com/groups/rated_s]Curator Group[/url][/td] [/tr] [/table]

I love visual novels, but there's tons of grammatical and spelling errors. I also strongly dislike how you cannot press enter / mouse click to show all the text at once. Also, the story is incredibly rushed. I finished this in an hour.

This genuinely might be one of the worst things I've ever "played." The central conceit of gameplay is clunky, uninspired and it feels like a gimmick. There are no options - only right answers. I have little to say about the authorial tone beyond its juvenile presentation and the artistic presentation is... fine, its not my thing but its more than what most do. Typos and grammatical errors are present (as they often are in these small-scale games. I have no issues with that) but the story - that thing you're paying for - is almost offensively bad. This is not a love story, this is an odd mish-mash of media. Clearly aping off of Life is Strange but this is not a positive nor a particularly well-written love story. In fact, [spoiler]the game functionally centers around the player character, Joan, falling for another teenaged girl who is sleeping with Joan's father. That's right. The contrived mommy-daddy fight time and mother's concerns about an affair are true because for some reason the plot twist in this game is that Joan's girlfriend is having an affair with her father.[/spoiler] Its such a baffling and asinine twist that it beggars actual belief. I almost regret spoiler tagging…