Not to sound judgmental, but some of you do real Incorporate the beauty of anime girl Fukiun. If you are one of them, I have good news! water haze It is a game where you can watch anime girls exhale billowing smoke. Based on my social media feeds, this alone is enough to attract a sizable following. I’m looking at you, ANN commentator Steve Jones.
For the rest of us, water haze Gives the impression of being a bit imitative VA-11 Hall Aa critically acclaimed visual novel/adventure game set in a cyberpunk future of bartending. Although the story takes place in modern-day Akihabara, the dim lighting, pink/cyan neon lights, and rave party costume design give it a “comfortable cyberpunk” feel. Gameplay is simple, with mini-games to mix shisha to create different flavors and replace coals to get the smoke to the right intensity, breaking up the visual novel’s dialogue.
Much of it is very superficial, which makes it a bit inferior to its predecessor, and a fairly forgettable game overall. You play Tohru, a young man in his twenties who has suffered from an unknown debilitating disease for most of his life. Your most recent treatment attempts have failed, and you decide to enter hospice care rather than try your last remaining options. Your doctor recommends that you try “Last Wish,” a program for terminally ill patients that allows them to fulfill their final fantasies before they die. Your desires are more abstract than most: you want to connect with others, but this has been difficult because of your illness. Your doctor recommends that you take advantage of your interests in hookah and aquariums and opens a store for you in Akihabara. They also provide you with enough pain medication to last two weeks so that you can function normally enough to run your business.
It doesn’t take long for customers to start showing up, and you spend two weeks getting to know your regulars. These regulars are three girls: Amu, an Akihabara maid who is both spoiled and adorable; Kokoro, whose joy masks trauma and deep sadness; and Kurumi, a doll designer whose obsession with nuts The obsession is as crazy as hers. They chatted while drinking shisha, getting to know each other and Archer. As is usually the case in games like this, you get closer to each one as they slowly open up about their problems, although Tohru remains silent about his own.
The thing is, two weeks isn’t a very long time. It adds to the believability that the characters form such deep connections and understand each other’s problems in such a short period of time. I’m not saying you can’t feel an immediate kinship with people, but the structure is that Tohru not only hears their problems but helps them start taking steps to solve them. The result is that everything feels compressed and shallow, starting from prototypes to make the characters feel familiar rather than building them from scratch. Does the heart act energetic to cover up insomnia and psychological trauma? Why, you don’t say! The writing is enjoyable enough, but coupled with the short length—you can cover the entire route in an afternoon—the superficial character writing makes the story’s meditations on death only slightly intrusive.
The gameplay is also pretty boring. First and foremost, it’s a visual novel, so I didn’t have high expectations beyond clicking to advance dialogue and making the occasional choice, but it’s frustrating that the mini-games are of so little importance. When I say they don’t matter, what I really mean is that they don’t matter at all. Every day, your customers let you know what mix they want, but whether or not you mix what they like is irrelevant to the plot. Same with resetting coal, this happens in the middle of each visit; you can set it so hot it burns their throats and they’ll keep coming.
The only player choices that have any impact are what mix is set as the daily special, which determines who appears; and at the end of each route, whether you get a good or bad ending. Note my wording – it’s pretty obvious which choice is the right one, whether you’re thinking about what to do or say is the right thing to say, or you notice that the “good” choice is always on the left, and the “bad” choice is always on the left. “The choice is always on the left, always on the right.
But I get it – the point isn’t the challenge, it’s the resonance. I must admit, water hazeThe temperament is impeccable. this CuteStylish character designs aren’t my speed, but the 2D pixel art is cute. While I’ve never smoked, there’s definitely a certain satisfaction in watching the characters take long, slow puffs from their pipes and then blow the smoke out with a distant look… If I said I was Lying. There’s a programmable lo-fi beat playlist, but there’s one big drawback: If a new scene comes on in the middle of a track, the song will start over, but the track is longer than most scenes. After manually skipping to the next track a few times, I turned the music off completely and just enjoyed the sound of the rain making up the ambient background noise.
water haze It’s a very enjoyable way to spend an afternoon, but over other games that do similar things but better, I’m not sure I can really recommend this one. Well, unless you’re one of those perverts who likes anime girls to smoke (and I say that with affection). In this case, chase your happiness.
