Ledgerbound

A very horny game set in a dystopian world of BEAURACRACY. The writing is fun, smart, hot, and endearing when needed. There are some questionable jokes in there, but not everything can be a banger. The tactics combat is simple, and acts as a fun distraction from the dialogues. I did not enjoy the Burnout mechanic, even though it's naratively justified. It's either completely useless, if you excell at the combat, or punishes players that are already down. It's surprisingly well-optimized, was running smoothly even on an ancient laptop. I'd like to reiterate: THIS GAME IS NOT SAFE FOR WORK, even though there is no explicit sexual content, it's VERY suggestive in it's writing.

had to listen to a grown man tongue-bathing a cat. 11/10

For all its snark and spice (which I equally enjoy), Ledgerbound is a beautiful game with a compelling narrative and a cast that I found myself caring about wholly by the end, and a story I felt no less invested in either. Combat is simple but fun, felt satisfying to get strategies going even if they were basic. Camp time management can be a little iffy, but with equal shares of heartfelt moments and humour it doesn't feel too bad to have to skip out on one conversation or another. (There has also been a setting added recently to toggle off time management if it is such a dealbreaker!) Each of the party members' stories felt unique and grounded in the world too, I never found myself bored in talking to anybody. Romances also have plenty of rewarding connection and spice if that's what you're after too. Overall, full marks, the only issue I ever really had was with initial bugs both in the demo and nearby the release itself, but all the major ones that I'm aware of have been corrected!! Thank you for the opportunity to experience this story :)

Just a silly goose good time. The writing is fun and funny, the combat is interesting enough that I don't find myself getting bored, and the characters are all fun to interact with. Zero complaints so far.

i fell in love with a talking hat rack 10/10

Solid so far. Quick playing, funny enough to get a chuckle or a laugh every now and again, tactically it's a variation on Fire Emblem with extra equipment, abilities, etc. Interesting time management system where even things like replaying a battle to try for a better rating (no XP grinding, but it does allow you to get better items and extra scenes) costs a tiny bit of time between combat encounters. Charming and more high polish than you might expect, I'm a big fan of the battle replays being done with the main character's hand drawn pawns and her voicing each important dialogue line throughout the encounter (complete with her own 'interesting' interpretations of their personalities or dialogue, even the selection quotes for other characters). Music is... well, fine? I haven't really noticed it much. Voices are solid to good. Story and spice are very...I want to describe it as being like a tabletop RPG group where everyone's comfortable making sex jokes, and only take the plot seriously in character at particularly dramatic moments. I've been a player at those kinds of tables and had a good time with stuff like picking apart odd phrasing, or intentionally phrasing something in the lewdest way possible. It's very on the nose, and if you're not comfortable with one character mocking another for having a small ♥♥♥♥ in the first 20 minutes in a recounting of how the world's greatest heroes died, or with the main character freaking out about murder despite being assured Heroes can legitimately murder anyone who gets in the way of their Quest, or an HR Rep who's an overt pervert, then you should probably skip. Maybe also skip if you're not okay playing an insurance adjuster whose goal is to make sure that families don't get a payout on their life insurance policy and is slavishly devoted to the company, but I find that kind of thing funny with the way it's written, personally. Difficulty is solid. I'm playing on Terrestial (the second highest difficulty/second skimpiest insurance coverage), and while I've cleared every battle, I haven't been able to 3 star one of them so far. It's a tricky one.