Placebo Love

I've heard quite a lot about this game from my internet friends. After giving it a shot, I see why: simple, addictive gameplay; deep plot; perfect balance of mystery and social element; multiple choices leading to different endings; option to choose the ending you prefer; little callbacks to other interactions you've had; amazing ost; replayability...should I continue? Honestly, there's a lot to say about the gameI, but I don't want to turn the review into yapping. Let's just say I had fun with this game, plenty of it. And would gladly erase my memory to relive the experience. If you're looking for a game to kill time with, try Placebo Love. It's an experience you'd be happy to have. I really hope that eventually more people get to know about this gem. It deserves that.

Not my usual style of game, but I was greatly curious on how Twelve Tiles would handle that dating sim/time management/social sim kind of game. Overall, I think Placebo Love does a good job at being a social sim kind of game, with the majority of characters not being romantic relationships. All of the characters are interesting, and the main character manages to have his own personality (which can be rare in the genre). I also really appreciate that in most cases, rather than choosing from various dialogue options, you instead usually get to pick whether Lorne tells the truth, lies, or says half-truths, as it both helps make Lorne be able to have a personality, and it gives more interesting outcomes than the common "correct options"/"wrong options" that you get in a lot of games. I think Rawn and Annie were my personal favorite characters, and (as an aro person), I really appreciate NOT feeling like romance was the whole point. Various forms of relationships are all present and important, which makes all of them feel more meaningful. I also enjoyed seeing what happened to some of the characters from other Twelve Tiles games, too (I greatly enjoyed Last Word, for instance). On to…

Even tho im not a fan of visual novels, i cant deny that this game has very funny dialogues, catchy characters and awesome artstyle. Every aspect just shines with passion of the developers. Anyone whose attention span is still alive will enjoy this game, because the plot and the main mystery are very intriguing, i hope that someday ill get throught myself at finish this game

Reminds me of Persona games but with pixel graphics. I loved the mystery and trying to handle building up relationship bonds with all of the characters. This is a severely underrated game.

A story rich game that instantly draws you in to the mystery. The game encourages the player to theorise about what is happening, only to have the characters disprove the theories which just adds to the mystery. The ending is a bit weird and unexpected, but this game is easily worth playing for the journey.

Placebo Love is a thoughtful exploration of loneliness and connections, but one I wish would have gone a little further. PL is a scheduling game with multiple endings (and conveniences to make seeing much of the content reasonable), pleasant music and art, and occasional minigames to give things a different feel. The characters were broadly enjoyable (shoutout to CC 🦑 ), and the bond system had nice little touches (like what happens when you neglect bonds, the desire to keep up relationships but having to balance time to yourself)... But despite using every character to show different facets of connections, and having some good lines in their stories, the characters themselves and the overarching mystery didn't quite capture my imagination as much as I wanted it to. Which may just be me asking too much of a 10-15hr game! I enjoyed my time with it, hence getting all the endings, and I would recommend it to people who want to look at bonds that aren't as simple as family vs friends vs lover(s). It might just not stick with you for very long after you play.