Dispatch

• Genre: Visual Novel? TV Show?/Strategy
• Spoiler Free Review: Some allusions to spoilers, but mostly indirect.
• Time Played: 6 hours
• Too Short/Long: It was solid, maybe even just a little too short. I would have liked to have seen a bit more filler content, and maybe even a couple more dispatching missions. Some felt a little long, and I feel putting a couple more shorter ones in between to make sure all the characters get a bit more attention really would have hit the sweet spot.
• Did I cry: I did tear up a bit.
• Soundtrack: Great soundtrack, already acquired. Has some great synthwave backgrounds and some great closing chapter tracks as well.
• Why I played: Dispatch got a lot of praise and while I haven't played tons of Telltale games, I know this one specifically was from people involved with The Wolf Among Us, which I did enjoy a lot.
• Jank: Similar to Cosmic Wheel Sisterhood, it seemed like a couple occasions the selector was stuck and I had to just press other buttons to get things to "reset" so to speak. Also trying to select a mission when there are a dozen things on screen to select and you only have second to select them isn't the most intuitive. Both are games maybe most optimal on PC.
• Difficulty: There were times the challenges seemed pretty difficult, I failed a few hacking scenarios and wasn't necessarily able to save everyone every mission, but I didn't fail a mission and don't know if you can? I know you can turn off the ability to fail hacking if that's too hard - and it is, arguably the hardest part.
• Pleased/Disappointed: I'm very pleased with Dispatch. I probably liked it a good bit more than I thought I would. 
• Recommend to others: I definitely would, with the caveat that it's probably not for everyone. It can be a bit crude at times, and it feels like the obvious thing to say, but if you like stuff like The Boys or Invincible, this is right in line with them.
  

To elaborate on that, Dispatch is right in line with a more wholesome version of The Boys and Invincible. Both of those are crude, juvenile and cynical takes on subversive superheroes. Dispatch is basically the same thing but far less cynical. It know how to have a good time and let you enjoy the moment. The world that exists outside our story isn't inherently depressing and rotten. The heroes are "true heroes". Even their Super Man analog that is really just a Omni Man except what if he was dumb and not evil - at worse he considers doing bad things just because he's super depressed, a "take the whole world with me" type scenario but he more or less just says that as an offhanded comment rather than actually considering it... I think.

All that said, the majority of the cast aren't heroes. They're villains who have been given a second chance but aren't exactly having the best time of it. This is why Dispatch succeeds in still having a lot of the same abrasive and crude aspects you see in stuff like Invincible and the Boys, and yet somehow manages to be wholesome about it. These are people who have a bad history who are trying to be better, but they haven't shed their rough exterior and bad attitudes.

This made it really fun to watch them grow into their new roles. This is where I think Dispatch misses the mark a little bit though, because for the sake of keeping the story moving along at a more or less brisk pace, you aren't offered enough time to sit with any of these moments before things are shifted, before the pot needs to be stirred. So there is a little bit of emotional whiplash there. That's why I think the game would have benefitted from just a little bit more of a filler of doing some more or less standard dispatching mission gameplay with maybe a little filler scene between, here and there.

 

I'm not entirely sure how much the missions actually have an affect on the game. I never fully failed, so I don't know if you can, and I don't know if doing better or worse affects and aspects of the story, dialog, or interactions, but I would be surprised if it didn't, as it seemed to have a good number of variables for you to change up the scenes. The dispatching is fun, especially when you get more experience with it and get better with it. Which is another reason I wish there were maybe a couple more smaller/shorter missions sprinkled throughout.

All and all a really good game, with a fun story and set of characters though. I really enjoyed it.

Cosmic Wheel Sisterhood

• Genre: Visual Novel
• Spoiler Free Review: Not entirely, it's mostly story, so hard to not talk about that.
• Time Played: ~10 Hours
• Too Short/Long: It's fine.
• Did I cry: I choked up a couple times, maybe got moistened eyes.
• Soundtrack: Really good. Definitely need to acquire.
• Why I played: It just looked like a cute game, and even though I haven't played it, I always hear/see how Red Strings Club is so great and it's made by the same people. I also like witches and thought the card making might be neat.
• Jank: I played it on Switch and it was quite a bit janky when it came to the controls. You wouldn't think so, but the pointer would often get stuck and instead of being able to just use left/right to select things, I would have to move it via free movement of the right stick. This wasn't a consistent issue, so I know it wasn't meant to function that way. A minor inconvenience all-in-all but you would think something with so few controls would have the issue.
• Difficulty: Zero. There is no way to lose.
• Pleased/Disappointed: Both pleased and disappointed. I really liked it at first but it kind of diminished as it went on.
• Recommend to others: Maybe? I still really like the card creating aspect and actually wish there was more to do in that regard. Story options may affect perception and the game is certainly interesting. It's a hard call.
  

Cosmic Wheel Sisterhood is a game where you play as an exiled Witch and create your own divination cards - many story paths/elements are dictated by your readings. It's is kind of an odd case because I feel like it's both good and bad. Sometimes the writing is clever, cute, fun. Sometimes it's crude, tactless, amateur. The mechanics are fun and neat, but restrictive and confining. Besides the mechanics behind the choices you make, at least in my playthough, I was barely provided with enough resources to continue making cards I wanted to make. Even toward the very end of the game.

Tron: Identity

• Genre: Adventure/Visual Novel
• Spoiler Free Review: Not exactly. There isn't much to write about without mentioning the progression of the story.
• Time Played: 3-4 Hours.
• Too Short/Long: Feels a little short. I thought the end would have been more like the first chapter. But it's just all there is to it.
• Soundtrack: Pretty good, but standard Tron sounding stuff.
• Why I played: I started to play Tron: Catalyst and met a character from Identity, so figured I should get that out of the way first.
• Did I cry: No.
• Jank: Nothing to really jank up in this game.
• Difficulty: It's so easy the actual game play portions are entirely optional. You can skip or have the game auto play them, or undo any of your moves. The main attraction is the story and the various paths you can take through it.
• Recommend to others: Not unless you're the most diehard Tron fan. Which I am. It's not bad, but the only thing you're going to really get out of this game is "more Tron".

Tron: Identity is kind of your standard detective solving a mystery adventure/visual novel. It's barely "adventure" except you can interact with some environments, choose where to go, and do some puzzles, and things will change in the game depending on your interactions, but it could have just been 100% a visual novel. It's interesting that some of your choices make for dramatically different perspective to a situation, but ultimately they don't change much in the overall outcome. Most of the story beats are still dependent on the fact there are multiple misunderstandings and unknown information, so while your actions have consequences, ultimately they are of no consequence. It also kind of skips the fact you should be able to solve the case 1/3rd of the way through with the resources provided to the detective, and things continue to just occur due to happenstance.

In my opinion, that's the absolute worst way to tell a detective story. Let me investigate, learn things relevant to the case, and solve it. Offering a revelation at the end that the main character and I both should have known 1/3rd the way through the game and most things just occurring because they happened to occur is just too convenient. It's not really a detective story, I just happened to be a detective and I was there. I just don't like it all being a coincidence. So if you consider the issues with the story and the story is 90% of the game, it's arguably a bad game. But it's Tron, so I'm not mad that I played it. The little puzzle gameplay was neat and felt like I was actually doing stuff, but I think it's also set up in a way nearly impossible to lose. I should have just skipped them to pay attention to the story.

Slay the Princess

• Genre: Visual Novel
• Time Played: 3.6 Hours
• Too Short/Long: It's fine for what it is, I personally would have thought it would have been fine to make you go through/find all possible routes before completing the game.
• Pleased/Disappointed: Pleased enough, it was fun, and I had Alice play on the TV so I could watch her do a full playthrough too.
• Why I played: It just kept coming up in various peoples "end of the year" posts and such. I saw Slay the Princess from no less than 5 different sources in the past few days and I'm not sure if it was fomo or genuine interest, but it was enough to make me buy it. Plus I knew if I didn't like it, at least Alice would.
• Recommend to others: I would, if it seems like it's something that would interest you. Which is a pretty wishy-washy recommendation, but it's hard to recommend a visual novel as a must play. Especially one that's kinda weird, kinda violent, and just specifically what it is. It's not for everyone, but some people may really enjoy it.

I don't really have much to say about Slay the Princess that can't be summed up by a previous category. I guess to expand on the Too Short/Long, I could say, me personally, playing games the way I do - I wouldn't have minded an option to see more of the routes/options/dialog in a single playthrough. It does have multiple endings which provides incentive to play through multiple times, and from what I can see, you can do stuff differently enough to (almost, because some stuff you will see multiple times even in one playthough) not see the same situation twice. At least within two playthroughs, three might be pushing it. That said there is a good amount of content and variation for your choices.

Some visual novels border on "kinetic novels" which are really just digital comics, rather than a game, but this offers so many dialog choices and branching paths, it's definitely more of a choose your own adventure and makes it feel more like a "game" than many visual novels do. Which I do appreciate. I think some of the dialog and story was meant to be thought provoking in a way that makes it seem a little try hard, but if you can appreciate it on the surface level, I think that's fine, and maybe better.