I was recommended "Mouth Sweet" by the community - they nominated it as RPG Maker Cola's 27th best RPG Maker Game of all time. I've just played "Mouth Sweet" and I gotta say, it was really fantastic, innovative and interesting all the way through, despite my personal misunderstandings of a couple mechanics that initially left me frustrated, but after I'd realised what my misunderstandings were, my appreciation of the game suddenly grew, until I can finally say that I love this game!
I loved the way that the graphical style, music and especially audio (!) contributed to the overall surreal feel and style of the piece. I feel like it greatly supported the narrative of someone being stuck in a dead-end job, being forced to do immoral deeds under an oppressive structure, and not being able to escape. The "Mouth Sweet" title still evades me, but somehow it seems fitting to the themes of the game? I'm not too sure about that, but hey, I can just say that - it feels right?
The central mechanic was also extremely well-done, I feel, and very innovative. If there was anything that was frustrating, it was because I failed to understand initially that you could initiate a battle with the unseen foes BEFORE they brushed up against you. It was only when I approached enemies that required TWO shots (another thing I didn't understand initially) that I realised I was stuck. It took me searching a YouTube walkthrough to find out what you actually had to do - which was to initiate early. Once I'd figured this out, it all became clear, and suddenly, I was the master of shooting.
I liked the sense of panic you get when running out of bullets. In some places, I thought it might be possible to softlock yourself out of a win, but in the end, I got through, by just winging it and hoping that I didn't get encounters. So that was okay in the end.
Overall, I feel like it was really interesting and personal expression of the way that the developer was feeling at the time. I love when a game feels like a personal love letter to their audience. It's really quite nice. I am also happy to know that L.O.V.E. games is still creating games until this day, 5 years after "Mouth Sweet". I don't have any claim over the authorship of the developer's life (of course!) but at least I can say it somehow makes me happy that they may have been able to get what they wanted by expressing themselves through this game. Again - judgements here abound!
All in all, I thoroughly recommend this game, and I think it deserves its status as one of the RPG Maker Classics. <3