Bookrage's review of "Neighborhood necromancer"

Hello all,

I just finished Neighborhood Necromancer and am here to let you know what I thought of the game.

disclaimer: based on the achievements, I have barely scratched the surface of the game so I don't know what else there is to do and if I'm missing something.

biases: I like both comedy and I think necromancers and stuff are cool, though I'm not a zombie fan, so the overall genre of this game showed promise when I read the advertisement.

Genre: This game delivers on what it promises. You are a small-town kid who finds a way to raise the dead and you have to manage that and what you are going to deal with it, just as the advertisement says.

writing: As a comedy game, this game is disappointing. The jokes are more sarcastic snark than actual humor and in most cases, for me at least, the gags fell flat. There was a lot of pop-culture commentary, and even though this game is 8 years old it holds good even now. It is rare when humor crosses time well, especially when it references something as unstable and nebulous as pop culture. That said, although the humor still is relevant to our time and current pop culture, it is rather lackluster and I did not find myself chuckling even once during the entire game.

I think weak humor was only part of the problem. the game has a bit of sandbox in it, which I generally do not do well with as I like a more structured story.  and I often was at a loss about what I should do. To make things worse, the game is often confusing with the choices you can make and it is difficult to see what one ought to do as there is little direction, no real either implicit or explicit advice on how your stats work, and the game often doesn't give you much information to work with.

The characters are also quite weak. I had a goth girl who was pretty paper-thin, and my adversaries, the cops and the military, had little going on either. There were a band of bullies who were pointlessly super-violent without the people in the town noticing or caring without any even comic reasons as to why, and most of the characters seemed to have little to no reasons for the things they did. Although the game was a comedy and characters can be archetypes and such, I diddn't want to deal with the characatures I dealt with through the entire story.

mechanics: clear as mud: There are a number of mechanics in the game, but only one of them made immediate sense to me. It was pretty easy to know what aninimity means and the fact that they give it in words as well made it easier to understand. I eventually found that energy dealt with how much you could use to use the undead, and control was your firm hold over them. I am unsure what luck was all about. How control and luck altered and what exactly higher or lower meant was never clear, nor was the difference between skeletons and zombies, if there was any. Understanding the stats was a real pain. and understanding how they went into success or failure at most things or what choices they mapped to was an exercise in frustration

romance: I will say openly that this is unclear for me as one of the love interests "Max" was someone I did not meet through my entire playthrough even though the achievements  mention them as a love interest. I was with Sam and there was no substance to it "Sam's a goth" "I think you're cute" "I think you're cute too" is pretty much what it amounts to. Other than that Sam wants you to be good, there isn't much to her. I'll try to meet and find max when I play again to see what happens, though if Sam is anything to go with, It won't be all that fun.

Railroading: This is an area where the game does well. I personally would like more structure than it gives me, but in most cases, you can do a number of different things each day, which is how the game is divided. There are a few pre-set events such as your battles with a couple people and the appearance of some special characters, but other parts of the game are pretty freeform. As I see it for my personal taste, This game actually doesn't have enough railroading as it often left me at a loss on what I should do.

Achievements: This is another area where the game does well. There are 24 achievements and from what I have seen, a lot of them are very legitimate achievements. If you want to keep replaying this game, you have a lot to work for and the achievements promise a lot of challenges. On my first playthrough, I got 4 out of the 24 and a lot of the ones I missed reference events that I never even touched or even saw.

closing remarks. "For Rent: Haunted House" set the bar pretty low as to how bad a "Choice of Games" title could be in my estimation. "Neighborhood Necromancer," with its weak humor, lack of direction, confusing stats, and inability to properly track what your choices mean or do was a real pain. I often also found myself showing up in places and failing at things for reasons that didn't make any sense. In part of the story, you are playing a zombie game and you commend "You spend a lot of time rolling dice only to find in the end that you usually fail." This is a good assessment for the frustrating gameplay of "Neighborhood Necromancer" as a whole. This is my new least favorite title. Even so, its open-ended choices at parts of the game and many achievements are places where the game does well, and they're also places where it beats "For Rent: haunted house." Even so, it is my new least favorite title and I would recommend you spend your $4 on something else.

Next up and I'm starting in a couple days: "Mecha Ace: Heroes of the Vetrian War"

I'd like to hear more of what you think about the game because I like to hear opinions different than my own. I know some people also like "For Rent: Haunted House" which I also don't like. I'd like to understand what they see in the games: not so I can say "you're wrong" but to see what they see.

@Bookrage: I found some parts of "for rent: haunted house" slightly amusing, but the game wasn't that great.
@Darkblade 98: Definetely agree! Along with Choice Of Robots, Slammed (even though I am not into wrestling) and some others that game is among my all-time favourites. I might do a top list at some point.
I just find the story of mecha ace fantastically written.

i advise you try the samurai a game series, man, this series is freaking awesome i do not know its name exactly, but, the 5th version is coming out. i think i don't know somewhere december

thanks for the advice and such about games that I can look forward to. Though I'm going slowly I am working through them over time and will get to many soon.

Surprisingly, Hosted games has released another title at the same time as "Soulstone War II" called "Studies in Darkness"

This is a short, 30k word-count story where you play as a cast of 5 scoundrely students that are using ectoplasmic steampunk gear to dive into the depths to steal an artifact from a lab deep underwater. The game features shifting perspectives between characters, flashbacks to give you insight and bonuses, and a calculated risk system based on stress.

The thing is described as a Dark fantasy, story, but it sounds like there are definitely some weird fiction and eldritch horror elements in it as well.

It will be a long time until I get to hosted games at all, if ever, so I can't say anything about this one and won't probably be reviewing it until the distant future, if ever since new titles are being relased on the main line faster than I'm completing them.

Hi guys!

we've got a new bit of bonus content for the Heart's Choice wrestling game. There are 3 short bonus stories you can add to the game that you can buy. Although they did not say this, I assume it is like the other bonus stories and that they are not interactive and are just things you can read.

I have not played any "Heart's Choice" titles, but my question is "Why would you want to invest in non-interactive content for the titles?"

I know I'm criticizing something I don't understand and maybe the content is something that's good, it just seems a little weird to me that this is the route they are going.

I guess if you really like the characters and want to learn more about them, you would buy those noninteractive stories.

Bookrage's review of "Mecha Ace: Heroes of the Vetrian War"

Hello all,

It has been a little bit since I've had a review to you but I've got a nice one here.

Biasses: I like sci-fi but am not big into many animes which this game heavily evokes a "Gundam Wing" vibe. That said, of the Gundam series I've seen, "Gundam Wing" was the only one I sort of liked.

Genre: This game promises exciting Mecha battles and also politics as you navigate the war and your relationships with friends and foes alike. This is exactly what it delivers, and it delivers it well.

Writing: this is one of the best-written Choice of Games Titles I have yet played and it reminds me of "Choice of Kung Fu" (another title I really loved) in an important way. Though the mecha battles were exciting, and they were good even if that is all the game offered, they were the least interesting part of the story for me, just as the Wuxia action in "Choice of Kung Fu" while good, was the least interesting part of that story. The mecha battles were great, but the interpersonal reactions and politics among your side, and sometimes the other side, are where this title really hooked me.

I've been complaining in some of my recent reviews that a lot of the characters have felt wooden and unremarkable. There are few stories, gamebook or otherwise, where the NPC's have felt so alive and well-designed. Asadi is a hawkish scrapper, Weaver is a war-weary soul who just wants the bloodshed to end, and Watinabi is the wide-eyed new recruit who is very naive, and then you've got the tough-as-nails captain with their grim determination and "The Blue Mask" who very much invokes Sechs from "Gundam Wing."

All the characters were thoroughly alive.

As for the battles, the game sort of holds your hand, and sort of doesn't. A lot of times, It weighs the options for you when you are considering an action, explaining the possible benefits and detriments of courses of action or explaining what sort of skills you might need. I don't resent this, because even with this hand-holding, I made a number of collossal blunders on my first playthrough, as although the game helps you decide individual actions, you often need to keep the big picture in mind on your own as the battles unfold, something I failed to do in many cases.

The suspense and pathos this game evokes were good enough I had anxiety stomach aches at some points in the story because the tension was brought forward so well.

Mechanics: this is the only place in the gamebook that could use some improvements. Piloting and perception are easy to understand, but sometimes, even with the game's hand-holding in certain aspects of combat,  being outright explained, I found it hard to understand when my Will and my leadership (both dump stats for me) were being used. Exactly what the stats for a meha are and why the mentioned weapons matter is also unclear.  The rocker stats that are obviously personality-based largely determine your connection to other characters in the game, and they were pretty cut and dried, though in the game, these were not explained when actions came up, mostly during interlude chapters, where these might matter.

Romance: I played with an all-female cast and also used the achievements to learn who my love interests might be. I'll tell you that what I experienced with the one I liked  didn't reacha  conclusion as she died mid-way through the story (more on that in the "Railroading") section.) All the ladies had their charms and each one felt different and with what I did experience with my love interest attempt was really sweet and did not overdo or underplay the feelings the characters would've had for one another. I was quite bummed when she died. A lot of the romancing goes on in the interlude sections of the story.

Railroading: Heck No! Three words sum up the railroading situation in this story: "Actions have consequences." If you screw up in this game, you or your allies will suffer. If you say something you shouldn't, bad things can happen in a future battle. If you don't protect your friends, they can die and they don't get saved by the plot device fairies, and if you are clever, you will be rewarded for your talent and skill. To give you an idea of how consequential my actions were in the first playthrough: of all the named NPCs on either side of the war, only one survived, and she didn't like me very much because I was a dove rather than a hawk. I made several poor decisions, and even some costly big decisions that were strategically right that got a lot of people killed for the cost of victory. Your decisions really matter in this game and when you screw up, the narritive isn't going to save your allies, or you, though I did make it to the end of the main story.

achievements: Not a huge number, but definitely a good set as most of them, from what I can tell having played through the game once, are real achievements that take careful play to get. On top of that, there are nearly a dozen hidden achievements. I only got like 4 of the 37 total achievements, but I'm excited to go back and try to get more.

closing remarks: "Choice of Kung Fu" set the bar pretty high for what a Choice of Games title could be. "Mecha Ace" Is right up there and through this game, I have come to really appreciate Gundame Wing and some of the other Gundam series a lot more. This game is well-written, has living characters, is so good that the mecha battles are the least interesting part of it, and it is a game where what you do really matters, moreso than any other Choice of Games titles I've played.

Though just as an aside, Giant mecha robot war stories came out in America first in the 40s and 50s.

I'll be playing one of my old titles again at least once before I go onto another title to review for you all so it will be a bit.

I'll admit nobody in my lance died, but everyone else did.

About super super soccer star: From what I played so far, the word count isn't meaningful here, because the dialogues (words) are repeated per game.
I'll try to finish it, but it's really nothing special.

About interactive bonbons: I wanted to try it yesterday, but when opening it through the hosted games app, it just said "in progress" and nothing happened.

Hello all,

for once Heart's choice has a new title and for the very first time, it looks like something I might want to play.

"Brimstone Manor" has been released. In this one, you play as a nanny in the titular manor and you get drawn into the battles between angels and demons. You can pick a side, learn magic, and otherwise take part in the cosmic battles as well as finding yourself with a charming angel or demon.

This game reportedly involves deciding whether to out the existence of demons, picking a side in the war, taming a hell hound, and several other neat things.

Furthermore, unlike most of the Heart's Choice titles, gender and sexuality are completely up to you and you aren't locked in like most of them.

this is a title in this line that interests me, though it will be a long time, if ever, before I get up to this one.

also, on the personal front, you will be getting a review faster than I thought. I'm playing "Choice of the Vampire" again, but I've never played "Fall of Memphis" or "Unreal city" before, so if I cover and get through that content, I'll have a new "Choice of the Vampire" review for you.

Another recommendation in the list, and I can confirm this one's hella good one. Try 180 files. It's really good. I'd like to see the review on that too. It's a gem really.