Royal Alchemist

Small thumbs up, the art, music and story of this game is nice. However the stat building keeps me from fully enjoying this game. Even with a guide I reloaded so many times already. And these kinds of games shouldn't be played with a guide. It takes away the relaxed and immersive feeling VN games should give you.

I would definitely recommend Royal Alchemist to anyone who prefers survival/raising sims that are genuinely difficult. Because that's what this game is. Most of my time spent on the game was spent trying to figure out what stats to raise for a scene or two at a time---honestly quite exhausting, if anything. But I quite enjoyed the story, which was the saving grace. The characters are, for the most part, interesting and have a decent amount of depth. Their relationships with the main character (Alexis) are well thought out and easy to engage in. Actually---I think I preferred Alexis over any of the love interests, since they're not at all a blank slate like most protagonists and have a very refreshing personality that works well regardless of gender. The game is very good at remaining neutral and you can tell that it was created by people who genuinely wanted to represent people, rather than adding in the option to choose your gender as an afterthought to draw in more players (you would be surprised at how many dating sims do this). Alexis' personality and actions remain engaging regardless of their gender, and there aren't any stuffy or ambiguous moments that point towards an "int…

Mixed feelings about this game. The soundtrack and sound design are very good. Male characters are drawn well but female characters have weird bug eyes and weird faces. I like that you can choose pronouns (she/he/they) independently from a male/female character (the art changes to reflect the character, the writing changes to reflect your pronouns). The character you play is smart and believable. The story is good. The game worked, had plenty of save slots, and I didn't have technical issues. The stats raising is straightforward. Replay value is bad. The skip button sometimes gets stuck. After you've skipped an event, gone through training, then a new event triggers - the new event is sometimes skipped as well. Furthermore, the skip button stops at choices, as expected, but it does not stop at skill checks. So on my second playthrough I wanted to see how different stats would affect the story, and also test the minimum stats I could invest in for a check, but I was stuck manually clicking through everything. Because a skip wouldn't have informed me whether I passed or failed a stat check. I decided to quit and stop playing rather than go through the whole game like that. Which is…

I was expecting more, but I liked it. It's kind of hard but I got used to not passing every skill test... It also has not so much romance and the story is kind of boring sometimes...

alexis rosenkreuz you will always be famous

I really wanted to like this game, but I kept getting soft-locked and it was incredibly frustrating. And don't get me started on the stat system, it seemed utterly pointless. I don't even know if I can bring myself to finish my playthrough.