Binary Hearts

[lordcloudx]

one of 3 vn's.

[F.I.A]

Done with the first ending(Original).

Well, for most, it is quite an interesting game. But it was quite... eh, violent. I shall go more detail in spoiler.

In the early section, there is no blackout to split the prologue(The inevitable duel) with the beginning. It may confuse some gamers.

As I quoted about being "violent", Frei and Lia seem to use their inhuman strength rather freely, as in sending someone into hospital over a loss on a game. If I were a refugee, I would have try to keep a lower profile as not to arouse the academy of my whereabouts.

For one thing, I am not sure about a trainee who has been kept out of the outside world to know anything about "money". If anything, Frei should have all things arranged for him in the academy.

The original ending, starting from when Frei return to the academy, got some grammar mistakes. And during Frei's tranformation, Frei speaks out his thought(As in speech box instead of narration.)

The quest about searching Lia's parents is rather cut, when you abruptly bring the gamers to the scene where Jarel trapped them. More eloboration is necessary.

There is a time conflict. After you saved Mirei and such, you tell that a year has passed with both Frei and Lia together, but in the last part of the ending, Frei requoted it as "6 months".

I assume the name "Frei" as in "free" in german, eh?

[DaFool]

Dual Hearts was one of the first fan games I've played, I was interested in the 'to release or not to release thread', finally it's here!

I guess the VN fandom has matured if we have remakes now, not that it's a bad thing.

Anyway, looking forward to the new storytelling style.

[lordcloudx]

thanks for the crit... F.I.A. but about that time-conflict. I'm pretty sure I put in half a year, which is six months

It had been half a year since we first came to this city, Elysium City.

Also, was it really that violent?

Dafool: actually, I also made a remake of wings a few months after its release but it went mostly unnoticed because I put it in the same thread as the original game.

[F.I.A]

thanks for the crit... F.I.A. but about that time-conflict. I'm pretty sure I put in half a year, which is six months

It had been half a year since we first came to this city, Elysium City.

Also, was it really that violent?

Alas, my fault for misisng that "half" then.

Well, it is not actually violent, but the way Lia treats on Jarel in disguise, be it humor, is rather overkill. It kind of makes me wonder if she has no remorse if she has put a little too much pressure on her hits. Kind of make me think that she goes something like "Annoy me and you will have a knuckle" type of attitude. It is fortunate that the victim is Jarel and no normal human.

Of course, we tend to see these humoric(sp?) violences from girls in anime, but to hit a guy just because she loses a round rather makes her a rather "spoiled" girl. If anything to compare with, Akatsachi Saki from Mahoraba fits as the brawny girl in such scenario. Instead of hitting Shiratori Ryushi at the first loss in an arcade game, she challenges him over and over till she wins a round.

Then again, maybe a part of me wants logics in VNs as many as possible. So don't mind me much.

[mikey]

Excellent job, once more.

The frequent skipping of kanamode to textbox mode was a bit unorthodox, but why not. Zoomed images and such were a welcome change. I also loved the new multichoice aspect of the story, as well as the additional parts - this game is actually pretty long. I think it also has a distinctive RD2K style, at least I felt it, and I appreciate it a lot. This includes feisty girls, which I don't appreciate, but I meant it overall.

Gripe with kanamode: When you have the text unwrapping, clicking in the middle of it doesn't cause the rest of the block of text to appear, but skips to a new block altogether. This is particularly bad when a new page follows, as there's no way of reading quickly - that is unless you change text display settings... which are there for just that reason ^_^. Still, this little part is a bit counter-immersive.

You used stock graphics, and it's fine, but I also miss the crying Lia under the glass roof, as well as the matrix-green picture of the city - especially, as the text mentioned these places (glass roof and skyscrapers) and all you see is a desk and old houses respectively. Though I understand that the first-time player will probably not notice, incidentally, these parts were my favorite.

I like the new parts of the story and they retain the condensed narrative style of the original. It's actually very hard for me to guess what comes next in your stories, they have very unconventional or unpredictable storylines, at least for me. It's great, though admittedly I have troubles finding an underlaying theme or something I could hold on to - but it's a style I've become to expect already and I can set my mind to it.

The BGs unfortunately have caused some deja vu for me, and took away some of the originality, but of course I know these BGs, and many people won't. I probably would have gone for original BGs, as they had more of an technocratic feel to them (which fitted the story IMO), but it's your decision. This said, I think it has become a nice game, definitely worth a play, and quite possibly the best you've done.

Because of the relatively eventful narrative, I think the game still has a lot of potential to build on if you decide to do it - there could be many other storylines and developments, alternatives if you wanted, and just like the original, it kind of left me wanting more, in a good sense, and that's always a nice feeling.

Congratulations.

[Mr. E]

I don't know if it's just me, but when I clicked on the download section it opened a .php file that my computer did not recognize. After downloading it I used winrar and it opened fine. (Probably it's just my stupid and old computer pestering me again.)
Anyway, I had already played the original so it was very intresting comparing it with the remake. I liked the choices and I think it suits the game. The characters also had more time and oportunity to develop their personalities and some things were better explained. Just a little coment to spoil the fun: I think some of the dialogues feel a bit awkward. Frei sometimes speaks too elaborately or othertimes the dialogue seems a bit unfitting. I know how hard it is to write anything in a language that is not your first (I suffer from the same problem) but I know you can write fluent dialogues too. Many dialogues in the game were great (especially Jarel's lines, they were very adequate with the character) and narration was smooth so all I think you need is to be more careful with the dialogues when doing your next game, which hopefully will come out soon!
Best of luck

[lordcloudx]

F.I.A.

I'll tell you about Frei's name in a pm. hehe why put this in a spoiler tag? Saa... just because I can.

mikey: thanks for the detailed review. I think this is it for Dual/Binary Hearts. I'm gonna shift from creator to gamer mode now and try out all those new games I missed. (at least until my voice actress for the Hikari's Ribbon update decides to start voicing)

Mr. E.: yah, I'll keep that in mind. It was a little bit harder for this story since some of the characters were based on one of my fanfics but I tried to alter their personalities specifically for this game.

[teankun]

So, is this an actual branching VN?

[DaFool]

There are several choices which don't make a difference, several which lead to an immediate GAME OVER, and several which intertwine and remerge onto common paths. I think there were 2 good endings (1 of them true ending)

[lordcloudx]

teankun: ya, what Dafool said.

[lordcloudx]

here's an update. A windows installer version upgraded to ren'py 5.6....something (I forgot) but this was the only time I had to upload on an internet cafe.

My sister finally agreed to do the voice acting for my hikari no ribbon update this weekend.

[DaFool]

Where are the official links for the game?

They just...disappeared...

This is for updating the wiki Ren'Py released games...for World Domination, obviously.