A downloadable conversation for Windows, macOS, and Linux.
We Should Talk Certainly has an interesting concept. I actually liked the way in which you craft responses and would like it if other visual novel type games would adapt it and build on it. It wasn't always perfect though. A few times I couldn't really find a suitable response to certain situations. It seemed liked the game was trying to force you to make a response that would inflame drama and conflict at certain points. The story overall lacked much meat to it. It is basically a short game where you are out at a bar. The game hints at possible issues in your relationship before and hints at flimsy endings but never really gives you much context or resolution. It just came off as really thin. There also didn't feel like I had much choice or control in the story despite the point of the mechanics being to change that. I also want to point out that I got one achievement which said I lied about talking to my ex which is weird because I mentioned them by name and Sam knew that this was my ex so if I used their name and my girlfriend knew that was my ex how did I lie ? Graphics wise the game had a decent style to it but at the same time it wasn't enough from feeling like it lacked either visual pop or texture detail. The music as good and lended to the bar atmosphere well but was a bit repetitive.
I played We Should Talk on Linux. It never crashed and I didn't notice any spelling errors or bugs. The game has one resolution option and one graphics setting. I did notice that every time I launched the game it would default to 1920x1080 and I would have to manually change it to 2560x1440, it did save my choice of Ultra though. The game didn't appear to have any save system. I tried exiting and going back in early on at different points and it always put me at the beginning of the game. This means that to see the possibility of any different dialog choices you have to replay the game in full. It is a short game but a manual save system would still have been nice. There is also no mouse support and you have to use the keyboard. There is also no v-sync option so the game runs at crazy high frame rates which pushes the GPU usage way higher than it needs to be. Performance was fine obviously given this issue.
Game Engine: Unity
Graphics API: OpenGL
Disk Space Used: 1.7 GB
Graphics Settings Used: 2560x1440, Ultra
GPU Usage: 79-99 %
VRAM Usage: 3199-3276 MB
CPU Usage: 16-19 %
System RAM Usage: 4.7-5.0 GB
Frame Rate: 392-491 FPS
Overall I can't call We Should Talk a bad game but it isn't exactly a good game either. It simply exists. I think with some more technical polish and some more meat on the story's bones it could have been much better. As it stands it has a good concept that was held back by other parts of the game and was never used as well as I had hoped. I finished my first play through in twenty three minutes. I paid $10.06 CAD for it and felt that alright for what I got.
My Score: 6/10
My System:
Intel i5-12600K | 32GB DDR4-3200 | Gigabyute RX 7800 XT 16GB | Solus | Mesa 25.0.4 | Kernel 6.12.23
