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This game is a masterpiece. Really reminiscent of Undertale, but with its own unique story. So much heart in this game. I love you Niko.

Story - 5/5 - What can I say. Every character feels real. There's actual stakes. For a game with a linear storyline, this is actually worth revisiting.

Visuals - 5/5 - The artwork is charming, especially in the dream settings. Niko is the cutest. It has a very dark theme to it, so I was on the edge of my seat anticipating that something would pop out at me.

Sound - 5/5 - It's hard not to compare this with Undertale, and if I were to compare them directly, I think Undertale does music better. But they're not the same game, and the sound selection is very admirable and plays well with the story.

Mechanics - 5/5 - The game was clear even when introducing unique mechanics. I did have to look up one thing, but even that I would have figured out with time. I never felt like I had to look up a playthrough to progress, and I appreciate the absence of a hint system as it would detract from the story. I especially appreciate how the game is almost meant to be played in enjoyable bite-sized pieces, it helped with game fatigue.

Overall - 5/5   Difficulty - Normal

Progress - Single Playthrough (~10 hrs)

This game is a delight. While the graphics leave a bit to be desired, the artwork still drew me in and I sat in awe at the top of the mountain. Controls were sharp, and after one got over the slight fear of jumping off a mountain, flying quickly became one of my favorite things to do in this game. I could go to the top and just listen to the music again. 

Sound - 5/5 - Easy listening, great transitions to match the scenery.

Mechanics - 4.5/5 - A bit hard to stay on the path, especially walking on bridges, but the game is quite forgiving with the addition of golden feathers. 

Visuals - 3/5 - Artwork is charming, but initially it felt like I was watching a blurry screen.

Story - 4/5 - There's not much of a true story to this game, but the objectives were clear and the dialogue was light and humorous. I found myself wanting to talk to every character I came across. The sparseness of the story actually lends well to the game, considering the title and the laissez-faire nature of the game. 

Overall - 4.5/5   Difficulty - Slightly Easy

Progress - Single Playthrough (~1-1.5 hrs)

Point and click games have the difficult task of making their games challenging without frustrating the player. Milkmaid of the Milky Way successfully balances this tightrope while delivering an engaging story from beginning to end.

Story - 4.5/5 - I really wanted to give this five stars, but there were just a few too many loose ends that I wished were tied up by game end. That's a testament to how compelling the story can be, and I'm holding out hope for a sequel. The dialogue can be a bit heavy-handed with the rhyming at times, but overall I found it clever.

Mechanics - 4.5/5 - Being able to run was great, and the design of the area made it fairly easy to move back and forth between spaces. I had no problems using my inventory with the exception of one interaction with the queen. One gripe was the lack of hints or any guide when I got stuck - highlighting things or making better use of the Oracle could have helped.

Visuals - 3/5 - At times it was funny, and for its 8-bit nature there was still a lot of beautiful settings. At times, however, it would have been nice to have more detail, as that can be important for a point and click game.

Sound - 4/5 - Soundtrack isn't something I would go back and listen to, but it always fit the setting and was immersive. Sound effects were forgettable.

Overall - 4.25/5   Difficulty - Normal

Progress - Completed (2-3 hrs)

Great storyline, amazing voice acting and sound effects, but maneuvering can be so goddamn frustrating at times. 

Mechanics - 3/5 - On one hand, the controls are an integral part of the game, and it can be entertaining to knock things around as you flail your arms. But more often than not, I found the controls to be more of a hassle that prevented me from getting on with the storyline. Especially since the camera view was out of my control, it made tasks like climbing stairs and throwing items forward extremely frustrating. FYI, I played with keyboard and mouse; perhaps this game would be easier with a controller. 

Story - 4.5/5 - Love the characters. The kids are a riot, and the voice acting lent really well to the storytelling. The only thing that prevents this aspect from being a full 5 stars is that many of the tasks didn't require much thinking, they only posed a challenge due to the difficulty of navigating the environment. I especially enjoyed the scene on the boat, as the tasks felt a little more like puzzles. 

Sound - 4/5 - Very pleasant to listen to. From the start, the music hints at the type of game you are about to play. Not AMAZING, but for me, this wasn't meant to be the focus. 

Visuals - 5/5 - Sure, the graphics could always be better. But they were smooth enough that it never bothered me, and the art style actually helped convey the goofiness of the game. 

Overall - 4/5   Difficulty - Slightly Hard

Progress - Main Story Completed (3-4 hrs)

Charming and cute, but deceptively hard puzzle game that hits the sweet spot in both time and difficulty progression. 

Mechanics - 5/5 - Puzzle games shouldn't ever let a gamer's technical savviness get in the way of the game, and this game is a masterclass of how to keep things simple. No rules are explained, but that's because the objective is so obvious. Push the ball in the snow to make a snowman. Easy. But the beauty of this game is that such a simple objective becomes quite the challenge, yet never so far out of reach that it feels impossible to solve. Nothing but applause from me. 

Visuals - 5/5 - Each puzzle gets a splash of personality from the silly names your character gives the snowmen to the funny hats they wear. Seeing your character bump into bushes or trees or give hugs to the snowmen provides a soothing distraction to the difficult puzzles on hand. 

Sound - 4/5 - Sits in the background, just a calming hum. Personally I found it a bit annoying, but that's because I prefer to think in silence. 

Story - N/A - There's potential here for some backstory, but it's so completely unneeded. I appreciate the emphasis toward puzzle making. 

Overall - 5/5 Difficulty - Slightly Hard

Progress - Completed (5-6 hrs)

Fun, simple game that has a surprisingly high skill ceiling.

Mechanics - 5/5 - It's so easy to play. Yet there are some pretty challenging pants to find, and some require some unique thinking.

Visuals - 4/5 - The art style is cheeky, and I love the haircut options. I would love the option to customize the character. The camera can sometimes cut a little too close and be disorienting, especially in the sewer.

Sound - 3.5/5 - Music changes along with your presence, making the pressure rise. Similar to the visuals, however, the repeated effects could sometimes be disorienting.

Story - N/A - Premise is really funny. It would be cool to have a story mode!

Overall - 4.5/5   Difficulty - Slightly Hard

Progress - 11 out of 15 pants (1.5-2 hrs)

Superb mechanics, with a difficulty that ramps up as levels progress. For all its beautiful visuals and sounds, this game can be bang-your-head-on-the-wall frustrating, but I expect that in a puzzle game.

Mechanics - 5/5 - Every time I thought I had figured out the game, it threw something new and challenging at me. Each new mechanic fit it well with the old, and I felt like I understood more nuances of the old mechanics as I continued to play.

Visuals - 5/5 - Beautiful, clear, simple.

Sound - 4.5/5 - Overall quite pleasant, but the constant sound of running water isn't actually the most peaceful thing to listen to. If anything, it just made me want to pee.

Story - N/A

Overall - 5/5   Difficulty - Hard

Progress - 53 Levels (~2 hrs)

This game is beautiful. If not for some quirks in the decisions around the mechanics and the sparseness of gameplay, this would be an easy 5 stars. 

Story - 5/5 - For a game without words, the story comes across clear in the still images, and it's mirrored well by the environment.

Visuals - 5/5 - The art is stunning. Love the watercolor-esque touch to the flashbacks.

Sound - 5/5 - The music also helps guide the narrative of the story really well. Enjoyable to listen to throughout, which certainly helps considering the slow pace of the game.

Mechanics - 3/5 - I found the choice to center the game around moving the landscape odd. It's still a reasonable choice, but unlike the visuals and the music, the landscape didn't pose much of a challenge as a puzzle until the latter half of the game, and it didn't integrate with the story either. At times, it was also a little confusing to figure out which direction one was supposed to go, and with the slow pace of the character, it felt just a touch clunky at times. Still, it's a unique mechanic, and I could see a younger audience appreciate the gameplay.

Overall - 4.25/5   Difficulty - Easy

Progress - Completed (1-1.5 hr)

The dialogue is what drives this game. It's snappy, humorous, but didn't shy away from tackling deeper beliefs that really fleshed out each character. Would love to see more like this with more fleshed-out artwork.

Story - 4/5 - The overall story is great, and the writer really takes time to develop each character that is introduced. I liked that the relationship develops naturally over the course of the game. I would've liked to have had more decisions to make throughout, as it is a pretty long game for the amount of decisions available.

Visuals - 3/5 - Each character is clearly delineated from another, from the clothes they wear down to the name font color. I would've liked a few more emotion states for each character or cutscenes. There would be times when what was said in the text wasn't reflected in the character's face, and some situations I felt deserved more love from the artist.

Sound - 2.5/5 - It's ok. Nice that both sounds and music can be adjusted.

Mechanics - 3.5/5 - Great to have quick save and save states. Would be nice to be able to scroll back and forth, I didn't find that option if it was possible. It didn't feel like the player's decisions had much impact, but I didn't play through to see if Aadra had a redemption storyline.

Overall - 3.5/5   Difficulty - N/A

Progress - Single Playthrough (~5-6 hrs)

I think the fact that my favorite thing about this game was playing the bass tells you how I feel about this game. I could definitely see people enjoying the pace and relating to the themes, but I needed quicker development to be drawn into the story. 

Story - 3/5 - It's not really fair for me to rate this since I only played through the end of part one. Many people should be able to relate to the main character and her feelings of inadequacy and failure, plus the awkwardness of facing old friends who wonder what went wrong. The story is there, and if you're familiar with slice of life genres you might like this one. Again, for me, it just didn't hit hard enough to keep my attention.

Visuals - 4.5/5 - Putting aside the choice to use anthropomorphic animals, the town in this game breathes character. Old friends are memorable, and there's a real edge to the game through the use of darkness. Characters pop off the surface of the town, and it was enjoyable to explore and interact with both.

Mechanics - 3/5 - Navigation for the most part is fine. There's just a lot of different things to interact with to remember, and I do believe the slight difficulty here was partly what made the story drag. 

Sound - 4/5 - Not my personal favorite, but good.

Overall - 3/5   Difficulty - Easy

Progress - Incomplete (Part 1 Completed) (4 hrs)

To say that this game is enjoyable would be callous to the developers. But I'd say this is a meaningful game, albeit on the short side. I'm interested in seeing what else the developers have planned.

Story - N/A - This is also something that can't really be rated. As a telling of personal experience, it's done well and there's a clear sense of the danger one can face. It does rely greatly on the personal narratives to hit home, not that that's a bad thing.

Mechanics - 4.5/5 - It's very easy to navigate, the puzzles don't feel like puzzles as much as the next natural step. It would've been nice to be able to move around a touch faster. 

Visuals - 3/5 - There's nothing wrong with it. The game ran smoothly and everything was clear. Still, this is an area where I feel an improvement could lead to a more impactful story.

Sound - 2.5/5 - Solid.

Overall - 3.5/5   Difficulty - Very Easy

Progress - Completed (30 min)

The brief moments of wit and creativity did not make up for the common pitfalls of point and click games that Nelly Cootalot succumbed to.

Story - 2.5/5 - There is a loose story here, but the wackiness rarely impressed me, and on occasion relied on the player to foresee large leaps of logic (or look up a walkthrough) to progress. I could see some people enjoying the dialogue, but to me it was only just tiredly amusing.

Mechanics - 1.75/5 - For such a small map, there was so much navigating back and forth that could've been mitigated. The designer missed the chance to use more dialogue to drop hints to the player, and a lot of the puzzles felt like they just had to be brute forced. Navigating between the inventory and the map was also clunky, and upon exit the game sometimes froze up. Kudos to the hint mechanic, but many times it would simply be misleading or wouldn't highlight items one could actually interact with.

Visuals - 2/5 - The artwork is just slightly less than good. At times it's comical and fits the humorous bent, but mostly it felt shoddy.

Sound - 2.5/5 - The writer is actually decent at voice acting. The music was okay; I think having to traverse back and forth made me hate pirate music.

Overall - 2/5   Difficulty - Hard

Progress - Completed (~4 hrs)

The story hit me even harder every time I reached a dead end and replayed the chapter. This game addresses some of the deepest desires and fears we have as humanity: the yearning for meaning and for love. 

Story - 4/5 - The length is just long enough that I felt connected with the characters, but short enough that backtracking doesn't feel like a chore. What really stood out to me was the nuances in dialogue that shifted through each playthrough based on my choices. This game makes me seek out a happy ending. That being said, using death to tug at heartstrings is somewhat cliche, but that didn't stop it from being effective.

Mechanics - 4/5 - Obviously nothing groundbreaking, but for visual novels, the most important thing is that the mechanics don't break immersion.

Visuals - 4.5/5 - The art style is gorgeous, and the general lack of motion makes scenes with movement more meaningful. The only time immersion was broken was when there was a transition in scene and the characters suddenly looked like they reversed in age 10-20 years. I would definitely recommend fixing that, but otherwise, I have no complaints.

Sound - 3.5/5 - I'm not a fan of Lo-Fi, but the music generally fit the art style and topic. A little variety would be welcome to break the repetition.

Overall - 4/5   Difficulty - Very Easy/N/A

Progress - Completed (5 out of 5 endings) (1 hr)

Note: I played this game on my phone, which I would recommend for the optimal experience.

I can't deny that this game is well-made. The creator makes use of the unique interface to spin a compelling narrative. The puzzles make use of this feature well. I just can't get behind the message this game wants to get across.

Story - 3/5 - As a narrative, the story is well-rounded and immersive. I could see many people liking it. But for me, the ending to this story is not something to be applauded, and lauding that decision soured the entire game.

Mechanics - 4.5/5 - Puzzles can often be frustrating, but because the search for clues kept unfolding new pieces of the narrative, it made the process a joy rather than a chore. There was a bit of information overload at the start, but this was the best part of the game for me.

Visuals - 3/5 - The pictures were a crucial addition to help get the narrative across. I didn't find the artwork to be a key attraction or detraction to the game.

Sound - 2.5/5 - Average.

Overall - 3.5/5   Difficulty - Normal

Progress - Completed (1.5 hrs)

Wide Ocean Big Jacket has character, but unfortunately, that didn't draw me in enough to make up for the slow nature of the story and the lackluster controls and graphics.

Mechanics - 2/5 - Navigating the space felt painfully slow at times.

Visuals - 2.5/5 - Very average. Character design is nice, but the environment was a bit too simplistic for my tastes.

Sound - 2.5/5 - Didn't hate it, didn't love it. Generally pleasant, but nothing to write home about.

Story - 2/5 - It didn't catch my attention. Humor was pretty miss most of the time, and the start was so slow it was difficult to stay engaged.

Overall - 2/5   Difficulty - N/A

Progress - Incomplete (~30 min)

**Got the game to respond after restart - NEW REVIEW: I can see this appealing to a younger audience especially, but after the technical difficulties, I couldn't get into it.** - (OLD: It may have just been my computer, but I couldn't get the game to consistently respond to my clicks.) 

Story - 2/5 - **NEW: I got more accustomed to the switching, but I'm still not a big fan of it.** (OLD: From the little I could see, it was a bunch of characters gathered around a table role-playing as pirates, similar to D&D. Maybe this is one of those games where you need to play the others, but it was jarring to be switching back and forth, and the intro didn't give much info at all.)

Mechanics - 4/5 - **NEW: The game still stuttered a lot. But props to having a hint and in-game guide; I'm willing to attribute it mostly to my computer.** (OLD: I could get the game to respond to two items I clicked consistently, and the dialogue boxes were fine. But every other click felt like a crapshoot as to whether the game would respond. I only got to talk to two characters once the game started.)

Visuals - 4/5 - Bright and poppy -- it was what drew me to the game in the first place. The art style reminded me of Adventure Time.

Sound - 3/5 - The sounds the characters made were cute, and the music had a jaunty bop to it.

Overall - 2.5/5   Difficulty - Easy

Progress - Incomplete (1 hr)

The artwork is just about the only redeeming thing about this game, if you can even call it that. Senseless dialogue crawls by that leads to a very unsatisfying finish.

Visuals - 5/5 - For what it's worth, this game is very pretty. The mostly rigid view has many subtle and beautiful changes that wow. The artist did well to play with the light as the game progresses, and it was a real treat to bask in it while I played.

Story - 1.5/5 - Unfortunately, the dialogue felt like a hodgepodge of words thrown together by a sixteen year old who at one moment is trying to use every inch of his vocabulary and the next reverting to slang. It somehow successfully manages to appear introspective while remaining largely uninspiring. Throwing in my most hated ending trope felt like the author laughing in my face for wasting my time getting to that point.

Mechanics - 3.5/5 - Fine.

Sound - 3/5 - It certainly fits the setting, which is why I decided to rate it above average. I enjoyed the rainstorm music the most, but it really takes a backseat to the dialogue, a mistake in my opinion.

Overall - 1.5/5   Difficulty - N/A

Progress - Single Playthrough (1 hr)