Little Goody Two Shoes isn't a perfect game. You WILL have issues and annoyances here and there while playing. Despite this however, I still consider this game to probably be my favourite I've ever played. Let me get into why. The Positive -Visuals The games visuals are top notch. But you don't need to take my word for it, you've seen the screenshots, and maybe even a trailer or 2. -Soundtrack The games soundtrack is really beautiful. It generally (but not always) goes for a cosy and/or cheerful vibe. I listen to over 30 of the songs regularly, and the song Moon Bird, is one of my favourite pieces of music in general. -Narrative The game has a very solid narrative that will keep you pondering both about what's going on, and just how far things will go. You play as Elise, a maid of all work struggling to makes ends meet in the small German village named Kieferberg. Elise has wishes to become extremely rich, and will go to great lengths to make this dream come true. Just to what lengths will she go? Well, wouldn't you like to know? Meanwhile, the town of Kieferberg is very paranoid of witches, and many strange and absurd going ons is only further exaggerating this paranoia, and Elise's brash personality certainly isn't helping her avoid any accusations. -Characters While there are many of residents of Kieferberg, the focus is primarily on Elise, and her 3 love interests, the optimistic and carefree Rozenmarine, the kind, cheerful and thoughtful Freya, and the sassy and caring Lebkuchen. But don't worry, this isn't a game where the love interests are only present while dating/pursuing them. They all got their own presence, moments and meaningful interactions outside of just dates/pursual. Overall their writing is extremely good! I felt really attached to all of them by the end! Although one critique I have is how the game ask you to start choosing who to date, before you really get to know 2 of the characters, leaving you without much basis on who you want to choose. (You can easily pursue 2 in one play through though, so it isn't a massive deal.) -Atmosphere The atmosphere and vibe of the night sections are perfect, with lots of variety in environments. Art and atmosphere are clearly this dev teams strongest suit. But I'm quite bad at describing environments and atmosphere, you'll just have to take my word on this one. The Neutral -Game play The game play itself isn't particularly special, but it I wouldn't call it bad either. The game consist of 7 days, during the day you will: Work by playing mini games to make money so you can buy food, and/or other things. Go through story cut scenes, and go on dates. You do all of this while managing your hunger, your sanity, and how much the town suspects you of being a witch. Plus there is plenty of optional flavour dialogue that is different at every time of every day, via means of the talking to the village folk. At night you'll be typically entering the forest, and this is where the horror part of the game is. each night is different, but generally involves puzzle solving and/or avoiding death via various means. The night sections actually aren't very good gameplay wise lots of the time, but more on that later in the review. Overall, the game play is definitely more involved than your typical puzzle horror rpg maker game, but it isn't that much more involved. The Negative -The Puzzles One lesson the devs should of learned from their previous game Pocket Mirror, (which I also recommend) is that they aren't very good at designing puzzles. The devs didn't learn this lesson, nor did they get any better at designing puzzles. It honestly feels like they've gotten worse. The game has plenty of puzzles during the night sections, and most of the puzzle design in this game is ass. While the puzzles are typically bruteforce-able/stumble-able, so you won't get stuck too long that frequently, You will find yourself having to brute forcing/stumble your way to the solution through most of the puzzles, many puzzles you won't even realise how you were supposed to figure out even after "solving." Even many non-puzzle gameplay moments during the night aren't telegraphed what to do well and will result in you taking lots of damage/dying/getting stuck just cause it isn't clear what your supposed to do. The night sections are very atmospheric and beautiful, it's such a shame they are filled with these issues. -Bugs/Glitches Even after the patch there are still a few intrusive bugs here and there. Nothing too crazy, especially after the patch, but you will probably have to deal an annoying bug like, 1-3 times. Such as Welma's shop not working during the final day, which is potentially a huge deal, as you can't go into the other shop once you enter town during this day, so if you don't have enough food to last the day you're screwed. Or another bug, where Interacting with the fish statue before Thursday with a certain item in your inventory will soft lock your game. Or how a certain note says has the completely wrong message after you've read it once. Again, it used to be much worse before the patch, but these bugs (especially the Welma one) are definitely problematic. Conclusion Overall, I think Little Goody Two Shoes is an incredible game that despite its imperfections, is 100% worth your money and time. I do seriously consider this my favourite game I've ever played. The highs really are just that high for me. This game genuinely shifted the way I see video game narratives and how I think the best way to write them for my taste are.
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