Update Ninety-Six: 15 December 2017
Summer Nightmare
0.9 hours, 5 of 5 achievements
.....?????/10
☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆
Oh, wow. Okay. I…. I haven’t played a game that was this pretty and this jaw-droppingly dumb since, maybe, Bioshock: Infinite (EASY JOKE ALERT let’s not talk about it).
Summer Nightmare is, thankfully, a free visual novel with astounding production value for some god damn reason? The art isn’t Fata Morgana levels, but this artist clearly knows what they’re doing, and is especially skilled at coloring and shading even if the anatomy is a little weird sometimes. There’s as many CGs in this game as there are in a normal-length paid VN, and even the gory ones (of which there are…. a handful) are well done. This goes far in making this a disturbing horror visual novel, but…
This is the worst-written VN I’ve ever played. Worse than Elisa: the Innkeeper - at least that story was coherent. This? It’s… well, it’s free. Give it a DL and see for yourself. Beyond common spelling and grammar errors, the incoherent plot thread and the complete lack of logic or pacing or anything approaching skill makes this a truly bizarre undertaking.
I feel like I’m being hyperbolic and too mean. Like this is a middle schooler’s first creative writing project and they’re going to read this and feel bad. I have a strange almost fondness for this really weird really dumb little game that was as precisely as long as I could stand it to be. I can’t possibly ever recommend this… but if you need a quick, blindingly fast 100%, there’s really no prettier dumpster fire than Summer Nightmare.
Next up: RNGesus please please please please let me play a nice VN.
Well damn! Another spooky freebie VN… that’s overwhelmingly positive? All right!
See you soon!
It is good to hear that it was free. Your experience sounds a lot like Russian Horror Story (which was the worst VN I have played.), I was just lucky that I didn’t have gave to pay for it. Hope the next game is better. ^_^
Oooo, another one for me to try when RNGesus wants me to not enjoy myself.
It’s funny because after reading your review of Elisa yesterday I thought hmm I wouldn’t be so certain that this game couldn’t possibly be worse. Skimmed through the reviews and they were quite atrocious. Glad you enjoyed Trick & Treat a lot more. It’s one I really meant to get to in October but didn’t.
To be honest, though…. I absolutely would recommend Summer Nightmare over Elisa, even though it’s worse. It’s like the VN equivalent of The Room. It’s short and it’s free and I think has somewhat better art and just…. it’s a car crash you can’t look away from, where Elisa is just bad. This is bad with style.
Trick & Treat is perfectly suited for Halloween, but it’s so short and so cute it’s the perfect thing to play when it’s evening and you want to spook things up. Or just wait until Halloween again - that’s what I did for Costume Quest 1 and 2.
Dang, it was going so well and then the bombshell about how bad it was hit :P
I hope you’ll enjoy the next one. I played Trick & Treat during Halloween and it was cute.
Really? Nice! I’m glad to hear that. It’s got great ratings and looks cute, too. I’m excited for it.