Update THREE HUNDRED!!!: 9 April 2019

☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆

Holy shit, look at that - review 300. Okay, well, it both is and isn’t review 300 - it’s games on Steam review 300 (and I know for sure this time!), but with the four non-Steam Yakuza reviews it’s put me a bit over. Regardless, it’s a red letter day as it stands. Today isn’t the best day for me—I’m prone to anxiety and today is one of my worse days—but review 200 (technically 201) was maudlin and I don’t want this one to be, either. I’ll save the big grandstanding for my 2nd BLAEOiversary, but I want to at least offer big big thanks to mandrill, for maintaining the site, the group moderators who tolerate me posting as much as I do, and to everyone here who not only took the time to read ANY number of the bajillion reviews I’ve done, but commented and said something nice as well. As lame as it is, I cheerfully report them to my girlfriend and it lights up my day every time.

ANYWAY! The review.

Ghosts of Miami is painfully underrated, and while I have some suspicions I can’t really say conclusively why. It has a paltry three ratings on vndb, all unfavorable ones (until I swoop in, motherfuckers!). While it’s a little rough around the edges, I simply don’t agree—I enjoyed my time with it very much.

The premise is both familiar enough to get into easily, with a unique take to deliver something fresh. You play as Chelo Martinez, a young Cuban woman starting up her own private investigation joint in Miami in the late 80’s. The aesthetic is used to the MAX, in the UI to the backgrounds to the adorable opening animation to the character design. I, personally, ADORE it. The late 80’s vaporwave-clunkypixel-retrosunset moment we’re (still) in is brought to its apex in, around, and about Miami, and you won’t find it stronger than here. I’m a sucker for pastels and bright prints and this game just looks so good.

It, unfortunately, doesn’t run as well as it looks. I want to beg any dev who would listen to stop using Unity to run visual novels—Ren’Py is RIGHT THERE, and whatever bonus you get from Unity I know you can do in Ren’Py. VNs in Unity experience a strange, unnecessary lag, and lack vital quality of life features that are near required in VNs. Things Ghosts in Miami is missing? Oh, nothing big, just the ability to save in more than one slot.

The game autosaves at EVERY line, and there’s no going back if you fuck up. Its story is split into 5 cases, and you CAN restart any case after you finish it… and while it’s not a long game by any stretch of the imagination, not having this feature just pinches. Vndb also inaccurately lists this game as having no skip function—it does (it’s the ‘tilde’ key, or whatever you have immediately above the tab key) but it also doesn’t stop for unread text, another vital feature for VNs that, like this, pretty much require multiple playthroughs.

This game does, for sure—two love interests don’t unlock until after you play the game once, and there’s another, more final, more realistic ending that unlocks once you get both of THEIR romantic endings. It was a good, interesting decisions, gutsy, even—I just wish it were easier to get to.

The characters are well-fleshed out, and I liked that the realities of Miami at the time were portrayed matter-of-factly, without hiding or sensationalizing them—criminality, the drug trade, racism, homophobia and transphobia are facts of life, and these characters have had to live with that reality and act accordingly. The love interests are all very different and well-drawn and appealing.

I think I just want more. I’ve had just enough to really like what I see, but it feels like it’s over just as things are getting good, with the romances often put on the backburner behind the cases you’re in the middle of solving.

Overall, it’s very worthwhile, and I’m charmed by it. I’m adding it to my Visual Novel Master List.

Next up: With this, I’m down to under 50 VNs in my backlog. Sometimes being underemployed for a while can have its benefits! c: <:C

See you soon!