The Specter's Desire

Really great stuff. Interesting characters, fun games. I love seeing MC's come up with a clever solution in the face of insurmountable odds, and this game is chock full of those moments. I'm in awe at the variety of mechanics and encounters in this game, feels like something this ambitious should have taken twice as long to make as it did, especially with such a small team behind it. At time of writing I do not believe there is a guide, so do be warned that this isn't really a game you can turn your brain off during, lest you be routed by a devious math puzzle or escape room, and you may have to ask for help in the discord. That said, I'm a dummy and I was able to beat the game without help (maybe a bit of brute forcing solutions...) My only real complaint in that the encounters in the final act are a bit underwhelming as they sort of take a backseat to the overarching plot. The earlier chapters do a great job at setting up certain characters to be really threatening to have logic battles with, and then they just kind of... aren't that exciting, in my opinion. Or maybe I was just getting fatigued by the 40th rule explanation. Might be my fault for not taking very long breaks, admittedly.

Gameplay: In between linear VN story, there are several Encounters that are pretty much gameplay segments. Gameplay segments are nearly all encounters in which you can interrupt a dialogue (or internal thought) with evidence, to interact with it. We have high diversity of scenarios, coming from Liar Game-like social games, Kaiji-like gambling-focused games, classic murder mysteries and even confrontations that focus on extracting information. Most of them are stories on rails in which you have to help MC get some in-the moment decisions that turn game around, figure out what's really going on, or how to cheat your way to survival. There are few actual games as well, in which you actually have to play the whole thing out, but these are few and far between, and none of them are particularly strong compared to on-rails encounters, aside from mysterious Peacekeeping game. Sometimes, game will throw a math or number decoding puzzle as well, so it's unfeasible to brute force through everything. Game features optional objectives that are not always known ahead of time, also tied to ambiguous reward at the end. It also implements a mental health "block puzzle" system that provides some punishment for wrong choices, or sometimes, lack of choice, keeping you on your toes especially as long term consequences of messing up are kept ambiguous. This system's actually pretty brilliant, as it's supposed to simulate main character's stress and messing up and being thrown to some random puzzle, breaking your concentration on actual scenario simulated this same feeling to me as the reader as well. Possibility of messing up, and thus extra care and attention you have to put in is a selling point not many VNs can brag about. Granted, there is enough leeway that you can still end up just having to check out every option like you would when stuck on Ace Attorney-like game. Overall, I'd say it's strong in gameplay, for mystery VN standard especially - as these generally expect you to at most select evidence piece. Technically it's also the case here for majority of puzzles, but multitude of scenarios and hanging consequences kept me interested. Plot/Writing: To avoid recapping story description too much, we're thrown in the role of 20-something upstart that pretty much wins the lottery to get into hardcore multi-stage celebrity game show, just to get his parents kidnapped by someone who wants the prize. Contrast of his desperation and determination against people just trying to further their careers is the leading theme here. Story is brisk and well paced, more so toward latter part of the game, as we get from focusing on games and totally unrelated loose threads to Colton getting better grasp on overall situation and how historical unsolved mysteries tie into situation he is in right now. As in 2 previous games from collection I played, writing is really strong, characters feel alive and intelligent. They can be pretty damn funny in the moment too, all interactions with Andy are fantastic and highlight of the show. It's surprising to think about as generally mystery VNs aren't very funny even if they try. That might be coming from it being written in english natively. I also can't recall any glaringly illogical or unrealistic behaviour or plot holes. It all came together in the end. Although the game (ambigous ending notes) [spoiler]doesn't play nice with telling you too much about parts of the story that it intentively kept in the dark, or limiting you to "3 questions" at the end. I don't have time to replay the game, so I had to mess with game files a bit to see more of script and even then it's quite ambigous. [/spoiler] It's set in same world as previous 2 games, although different location. There isn't much need to play them beforehand for Specter's Desire, but Specter's Desire itself will spoil a bit of these (especially Divine Deception). None of these are definitely runining these games' story, but since games are in my view improving, I'd recommend starting with first if you have time. Graphics: Possibly weakest part of the game. My leading problem is perhaps a very unfair criticism for not-AAA VN characters - game will spoil importance of characters by them not having a sprite. It's only problem for around first 30% of the game . I think at least [spoiler]Sigmund[/spoiler] and [spoiler]The Theurgist[/spoiler] were present for so long they could get sprites, putting aside their lack of influence on overall out-of-game plot. It is an unfair criticism because the game still has A LOT of characters with art, it's just nature of story cycles through so many early on. But it does spoil at least one instance of character pretending to not be the brain behind the group. [spoiler]Willa best girl[/spoiler]. Can't say it's a big deal, but it was messing with my immersion a bit. Sprite art itself is fine, generally, although [spoiler]astoundingly high rates of breast cancer in Aurea[/spoiler] were not part of world building - perhaps in future. Other art was good, unfortunately most repeating screen, crucial to overall plotline, looks just off anatomically - [spoiler]and I think doesn't really align with description of story moment it portrays[/spoiler]. Sound: Music's great, and always pretty appropriate to situation at hand. I think it reuses a bit less of Divine Deception than Divine Deception used of Zodiac Trial, and generally it's an improvement over previous games. I only didn't really mesh with "triumphant" music that often came up after some big win, it seemed out of place quite often. Voice acting is implemented selectively in bigger moments and chapter transitions, and it's quite good there. Technical: I managed to break the game a bit by rewinding few times, even unwittingly, with scroll-up rewinding after getting enough stress to be thrown to puzzle screen, but it didn't happen too often and would happen less if I didn't mess with it. Crashless experience otherwise. There are some typos and I think at least 1 game near the end didn't quite work as it should, but this can be a problem on my side. Game features post-game bonuses and minigames, although you have to earn them. Overall: Pretty great game, solid improvement to already 2 preceding games in the series on I believe all levels. Quite unique on VN landscape too, as it focuses more on "locked in somewhere" scenarios like Zodiac Trial or murder mysteries, and not so much on "Willing participant that's f____d if he loses" ones. This one quite succesfully meshes genres and makes you pay attention. Looking forward to next game. =====================end of review===================== Note to author: Can you please look into action [url=https://polishourprices.pl/index.php?page=developers&lang=en]#polishourprices[/url] and adjust pricing for polish market to same as in Euro, outside of Steam's faulty recommendation? It's a selfish ask, I just don't want to wait for discount on principle for the next game. Thank you.

One of the best visual novels I have ever read! (Also: the soundtrack is awesome!)

this fictional work really felt like it was written by a genius. a must read for those who like fictional works with mind games such as death note and liar game.

Definitely the best game in the series. Loved the new gameplay features, the encounters and interactable statements were implemented amazingly. Lots of tense and exciting moments, great length and pacing of the story. Will definitely purchase the next game.

I'm honestly just here to play Dimensional Sniper. Some of the puzzles towards the end are bloody hard, but this is one of the best VNs you'll ever play. Such a massive improvement from Themisian's earlier works, which were also fairly good.

this is liar game on crack but visual novel. this is an amazing experience, few hiccups but holy ♥♥♥♥ its so good

To begin with, before I get into the nitty gritty of the good and the bad, it is vile that this game is sitting at 38 reviews. This game is vastly better than that, and for $20, if you want a fun Kaiji-like experience, this might honestly be the best game to encapsulate that that I’ve ever played. It is also a clear and massive step up from The Zodiac Trial in almost every way, and I’m really not sure what went wrong for it to be so unknown. It is far from perfect, but it is pretty phenomenal in its own little niche. So yes, this is a glowing recommendation. Many of the games are fun, things tend to be logically workable more often than not, the writing is overall a fun time, the art is a massive step up from their previous stuff, and the sheer length is pretty staggering for a game that you would expect to be fairly small in scope. Despite not all of the games really resonating with me, the variety is pretty incredible, and I have a ton of respect for how much love and care clearly went into thinking them up and designing them. With that being said, I do have a lot of problems with the game. I think it’s also generally easier here to talk about my issues without spoiling anything that it is to talk about what I like, so don’t get the wrong impression. My overall thoughts about the game are overwhelmingly positive. For one, it’s… surprisingly buggy. I’m not sure the exact count, but I would guess it outright crashed maybe 8-10 times through my playthrough. That’s… pretty bad, for a visual novel. There are also a plethora of random UI-related bugs, but they’re mostly all fairly easy to fix. The second thing is that, wow, most of these characters are just totally and remarkable unlikable lol. I can count on one hand the amount I actually liked, out of a cast of roughly, 20-25? I vaguely remember TZT also having a supremely unlikable cast, but they’re mostly turned it up a notch here. There were multiple characters who had dialogue I legitimately had to FFW through and scan for important bits because I just couldn’t stand to read what wretched nonsense they had to say. The worst offender by far is the main character’s “best friend,” Carolyn, who the game kinda treats as a “tough, gives it to ya straight” kinda person. She’s not. Damn near every line of dialogue is just her taking a colossal dump on the MC, calling him inbred idiot in more flowery language, all the while the MC is just kinda like “:3 so tru.” The difficulty is going to be really hit-or-miss for most people, I think. Some of the mandatory solutions are… quite hard, I think. Overall the difficulty isn’t too bad, but the hardest stuff is multiple leagues harder than anything you might find in Ace Attorney or Danganronpa. What makes this kind of worse is that it feels fairly arbitrary. I would go 10 hours without struggling with almost anything, and then there would be like 3 (IMO) extremely difficult puzzles in a row, and ones that seemingly weren’t meant to be that tricky. This is no fault of the game, but documentation and guides are completely nonexistent, so if you get stuck, you should join the discord. In my limited experience, people there are very friendly and extremely quick to help. I do think the game could have done with some editing down. The dialogue can get VERY wordy, and about nothing in particular. Your mileage may vary on how much you like the wordiness. For myself, even as someone that absolutely enjoys overly verbose media, I still found my eyes glazing over at a lot of points. All in all, a very unpolished game, but one that is very, very unique, and has a truly impressive breadth of content. I love Steam dumpster diving, I camp hidden gem threads constantly, and I gotta say, this might be my #1 choice ever for “game that deserves way more love than it’s gotten.” Despite all the flaws, this is something special.