Update Thirty-Six: 12 August 2017
How to Take off Your Mask
14.4 hours, 27 of 27 achievements
tsuper review: 5.5/10
☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆
Cute enough to finish but not deep enough to be truly enjoyable, How to Take off Your Mask is just okay!
On the surface, it’s a cute little romance game between a baker girl you can name and her childhood friend. There are cat-human creatures (called, oddly enough, luccretias. I’ll just call them catgirls) that everyone hates, and our heroine discovers that she’s one of them! She is a half-blood, and can change back and forth by sneezing. Through the normal body-switching shenanigans, she works out her love with her childhood friend.
It’s hard for me to get more into it than that because when I do, I like the game way less. The moment you begin to pick beyond the candyfloss, it dissolves. Why does the city and its people hate catgirls enough to have a whole movement dedicated to their elimination? What was the purpose of having the protagonist’s catgirl side appear much, much younger (protag is an adult woman, catgirl form appears 14-15 years old), and still give her romantic scenes with the male lead anyways (they reference how bad it is multiple times)? The central conflict in the romance is the couple to be able to ‘take off their masks’ for each other - but that metaphor doesn’t really work the way this game thinks it does. The mc views the male lead as a younger brother and she puts herself in the role of an older sister, and it’s difficult for them both to realize their feelings have changed. Is that compelling enough to have a whole VN about it? Especially when the ‘big sister’/’little brother’ roles seem to be centered on ‘who spoils who?’ which, is, like… both of you. You both spoil each other when you need it. Inter-dependency is the name of this game.
I dunno. I marathoned this in one day, and there’s not a lot I want to say about it. It was cute!
Next up: After being in early access for four billion years, I got this in a bundle. Now I’m ready to use my…
See you soon!
I thought this game would be better! :/
Ah Backstage pass, I should really continue it. I started to became bored of stats raising otome that I put this game on the side and I forgot about it!
I don’t blame you - I’m not super fond of VNs with stat-raising aspects to them, either. They don’t do much for me, and it ends up just being something like a chore.
I’m excited about this one, though, because it looks really nice and it was probably one of the first things I ever put on my Steam wishlist, and now I finally get to play it! there’s also a super-thorough guide that I can follow c;
Yeah that’s it: It became a chore. Then, I just decided I would play it later.
But I agree, this game is really nice, the voice acting is good and the characters are enjoyable. I just did one character route, I think I might use the guide too because I made a lot of bad choices that I had to restart it a lot and it was pain. :3
I hope you will like this game!
Yay, for playing it! And yay, for calling it cute :D
As to the thoughts you spent on it: You are right. Also you are right saying, that if you think too much about it, the fun is kinda ruined. I stayed clear of thinking too much about it for that reason. I tried to just enjoy the story on the surface ;)
On to you next VN: I’m really curious about that one! Have it in my library. And since I started playing more VNs again, it might… come closer to actually playing it! bounce
Have lots of fun with it!
Happy VN killing :)
I tend toward the critical analysis, so it was like dealing with an excitable dog on a leash when reading this VN, when my brain just wanted to ‘WELL WHAT DOES THIS - ‘ and I’m like no, brain, we’re here to have a good time.
I’ll definitely report back on Backstage Pass, and I’m pretty excited for it c:
Ha, yeah, I tend to think about things afterwords and then it suddenly stops being nice or something. Or I get all philosophical over something. OR I just don’t think about it and let it rest in peace. Guess I did that with this one :]
I totally support that ^^
Heh, yeahh, I had forgot about the fact that the lucretia form of the protagonist looked much younger than her real age :/ so weird