Celestial Return

Clearly AI writing, why should i want to read a story based game when you can't even be bothered to write it.

First of all, I really want this game to gain a lot of traction, 'cause I need a 7-hour long YouTube breakdown on what the hell I actually experienced. I finished the game - at least my first playthrough, because I'm not leaving this like this. Some stories can work only within a specified medium. As a book, a comic book or a movie this wouldn't work, because I wouldn't have felt the impact of decisions made by an author(ity) in stead of myself. In a TTRPG scenario I'm sure any GM I know would pity me in the end and cooked something up to make the ending less... my own making. But here I'm sure I brought it upon myself. Like that evening I decided to listen to all Neurosis records and believed it won't leave me scarred forever. Enough of the rambling. I'd say most games are entertainment. Some are art. Singalis. Norco. Celestial Return. Those. Go and play that stuff, feel vulnerable, experience weird game mechanics, weird stories, let them judge you and ask you questions that won't leave your head for months. Maybe ever. Down to the game'y stuff and game-wise features of a computer game: some people compain about the dice mechanics, I can see those were patched and I never had any issue with them. At some point I was afraid the dice economy might be broken like it was in Tides of Numenera, where you could lock yourself from progressing forward when you run out of resources for test. Here most of my failures still lead me somewehere - yet not in the direction I was trying to force. Maybe adding an option to push a test without a die - to intentionally fail it or simply because stacked modifiers are enough to pass a test without burning a die would be something to consider? Anyway, I had all the time enough to keep gambling, few enough to feel I need to plan at least some of my gambles well enough. I had some music stutter issues in Book 3, and that's about it when it comes to technical issues. Very late in the Book 3 I had a dialogue option to mention something about I footage I didn't watch, I believe it should be a "missed opportunity" as I chose to not watch it a few steps earlier, but do something instead. Back to the good stuff - the art direction is superb. The writing is amazing. The pacing is to the point, the choices are so heavy I won't be able to crawl away from the ones I made, at least not until I finish another run. It all works not only as a weird cyberpunk dystiopa, but also as a detective story weird enough to make sense, but old-school enough to not be about the case as much it is about the detective. About you. because beind the choir of voices in Howard's head there's you - the conductor.

For Gourmet Players! I came, i played and i loved. For an Indie Game this Gem would be a shining Star of your Month

Kickstarter backer here, and oh boy am I glad that I managed to grab Celestial Return early on. This is a diamond in the rough. First, the bad: There are some minor bugs but nothing game breaking. The story is rather short, though there are multiple endings. The dice system needs a soft reset option so you don't accidentally soft lock yourself in a bad situation. These are all very minor gripes to what is a great game, so if none of those are deal breakers for you, and they really shouldn't be, you are in for a treat. Now, the good: THE ART! THE SOUNDTRACK! THE WORLD BUILDING! They are all superb. The gameplay with collecting the dice and using them for various rolls is a cool design that really keeps the gameplay fresh. The storyline, while not genre defining, is really cool. So, all in all, a solid 8 that can hit a 9 if you are into the genre, or dip to a 7.5 if you are not a huge fan of text heavy rpgs. I recommend it!

S-tier: art, characters A-tier: story (which is different than writing. in this I mean the themes, tone, overarching direction), mechanics B-tier: game interface C-tier: writing (to clarify, sometimes the English feels a bit clunky and might've done a service to have another editing pass)

Really liked the atmosphere and visual style. It has a few minor flaws, but the overall experience is very enjoyable

General review: Would highly recommend playing this game. Pros: Fantastic and engaging story, characters you quickly become attached to, beautiful art, decent music. Cons: -Infrequent saves can lead to frustration / promote save scumming. There is no ability to save immediately after completion of each 'chapter', which can lead to some lost progress if you close the game after completing a chapter. - The dice system is quite interesting, but not overly engaging. It feels like either feast or utter famine. Before the recent patch, I found myself often with almost no dice, which felt more limiting than engaging. I think the greatest annoyance is the fact that in many situations, you cannot refuse a dice check. For instance, if you want to choose to save your dice and instead take some damage / fail a check, the game does not allow this - instead, you must choose between several choices that all use dice. After the recent patch adding more dice, I hit act 3, and I gathered way too many dice, which made the system feel meaningless. - Ending felt mildly unsatisfying / abrupt