Yvesangelist Dark Auction Review

It's really challenging for me to give this anything above a 60, and that's even while being generous. Let's start with some of the good, though. The character designs are pretty nice. The 2D is art is pretty good. They're also fully voiced, however, only in Japanese. Regardless, it is a nice touch, and it's great to have that ambiance, especially when so many games are missing that. It gives the characters much more life. The menus have a fair bit of style, and are clear to move through, though you won't be spending much time there. there's a fair amount of AI assets in this game. However, We gotta address the elephant in the room, though. There's A LOT of use of AI-generated assets, and this wasn't addressed in the game promotion. I'm not going to simply give this game a bottomed out review for that, regardless of how I feel about that. I will give this game a genuine review based on the content. That said, I really, really hate AI in games, and I am not a fan of most game companies thinking it's easier to beg forgiveness than ask permission and disclosing these things upfront. They know there are people who would not buy their game if they knew ahead of time. That said, they're SLOWLY replacing the assets, but I imagine it will take a fair amount of time, and I'm not sure they'll get all of it. Now that that's out the way, the game was...more or less milquetoast. It's fine. It feels half-baked. Obviously, there's the fact that this game in centered around a contentious individual, to put lightly. Having a game centred around that doesn't bother me. There's complexity around that, and I think, to a degree, it's better to have some humanizing components around vile individuals. People need to realize these people can walk among us, and when you're in the thick of things, there's complex emotions and actions that can come up in the midst of fear, and make individuals act in various ways. There's also the fact that children can deal with discovering terrifying things about their predecesors that may need to be worked through, and that generational trauma doesn't have to continue. This game really didn't deal with much of that. Sure, it sort of danced among these themes, but it was so surface level and any topics that could garner discussion were moved on from before you really got to digest it to keep up with the strange, breakneck pacing of the game that it barely even mattered. Without giving any spoilers, this is not even considering the conclusion that really feels like it jumps the shark and just...leaves way, way more questions than answers. It felt a bit like hitting a brick wall. Was this due to poor writing overall? Budget? Time crunch? I can't really tell. The fact that the AI was jammed in and the fact that this game REALLY relied on using Rika Suzuki of Hotel Dusk and Another Code fame to sell the game, I want to believe some of that was a contibutor, but we'll never really know. Probably. Another indicator of budget and crunch is just...the mechanics of the game. It flips between conversations using hand drawn, 2D assets and "exploration" portions in 3D using models. The models leave...a lot to be desired. They're stiff and janky, the animations are minimal and rather poor quality. Honestly, I think the game would have been much better if there was simply first-person movement, or even menu movement with more focus on making more robust 2D art. The reason I say this is because the explorations segments really didn't add much. It was filler to make you run from Point A to Point B, and nothing more. Some games, such as the Zero Escape series, made sense with some 3D environments due to puzzle rooms engaging you as you progressed through the story and importance being played out in layouts. It just didn't make sense here. You're basically restricted to short visits to character rooms and back and forth between about four rooms in a very repetitious cycle. Perhaps this would have been better if budget had been conserved just focusing within means. I'd much prefer more simplistic, stylistic games with a cohesive style over trying to do everything out of compulsion and filling it with half-measures, truthfully. Speaking of repetition, this game really didn't give you room to mess up. If you pay any amount of attention, you would be excessively challenged to miss anything. There was nothing really to punish any mess ups, and all of the "challenge" points did not deviate between auctions. The only thing distracting was the aggressive use of AI art that was jumbled beneath texture filters to distract from how poor it looks. Any of the twists don't really feel shocking due to great storytelling. They're either painfully predictable or so from left field that it's just leaving you wondering where it's going to go, then the game suddenly ends. All in all...it's fine, I guess. It's not gonna blow your mind or revolutionize anything. The subject matter wasn't really justified by any amazing story telling. It's far from the best visual novel I've played. It's also not the worst. I'd still play this about ten times over before I look at something like Yurukill again. I want to see Rika Suzuki do something more. Personally I wouldn't waste your money on this. If you really, REALLY feel like you have to play this, get it on a steep sale. I wish I could recommed this. There's so many more amazing games out there, at better price points at that.