Update One Hundred and Twenty-Five: 19 February 2018
Mystic Destinies: Serendipity of Aeons
196 hours, 35 of 35 achievements
6/10
☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆
Oh my god that took me a stupid long time to finish. It also is a finish that comes with a lot of turmoil - as neared the end, I found myself fretting about whether I should put this on my recommendation list or not. I warred with myself, but finally game to a conclusion - I don’t think I can.
Before that, let’s get into the good stuff: the prologue of this is free, and, I think, so is the first chapters of the guys’ routes so you can see how you like it. The art is crazy gorgeous. Maybe one of the most straight-up attractive-looking VN characters, ever. Maybe even better than the House in Fata Morgana because the character sprites are meant to be gorgeous, yes, but haunting and a little off putting. Mystic Destinies is just FULL of attractive people - I didn’t count, but there are over probably a dozen and a half complete character sprites, and a good chunk of them have multiple outfits. There are so many pretty men in this pretty men dating game. The prettiest. I was running into problems where sometimes the side characters in people’s routes were more attractive than the main guy, and I wanted to date the side character instead. That’s a good problem to have in a dating sim.
Unfortunately, I am mad ambivalent about everything else. There’s a lot of content, but it’s only okay rather than good or special. The formatting reminds me too much of Dogenzaka otome games, which lends it a cheap kind of feeling. The writing can be all over the place, and the main character in too many routes comes off as stereotypically weak and scared - the real stars are everyone else DEALING with her.
The biggest issue is how this game is set up. If you want to play the FULL game, the FULL experience, with all the routes, epilogues, and extra bits, this game is about 45 US American dollars. I feel especially fleeced by the 10 dollars I spent on the Deluxe edition that was mostly goodies in the form of wallpapers and stuff like that. I bought it for additional story content, which I got through in less than half an hour. That was the last thing I played, so I was left with a bad taste in my mouth.
I am mostly glad to be done with this game, which is a shame - it was so close to being great, but got in its own way. I’m all for indie devs getting paid and making money, but I don’t know if this content is worth the price. It wasn’t, not for me.
It DOES mark my 250th perfect game, though! Here’s to 250 more c:
Next up: This…. isn’t actually a visual novel. How did it end up on that list? Well, thus spoke RNGesus.
See you soon!
I think I’m going to avoid episodic vns, I just don’t like the format and the excessive price of the final product.
I was puzzled to see that I “owned” the VN and even had an achievement in it, I think that this might have been published as a free prologue-only title (which I guess I ound on an quick-to-100% list) and then updated with more chapters at a later date.
Looking at some screenshots it *does* look gorgeous, but everything else seems way too off-putting, thanks for the warning
You’re welcome <:c I’m so sad I couldn’t recommend it. I even recently had a conversation on SG about my VN list, and the guy was surprised I recommended something like Everlasting Summer, and while I felt comfortable with doing so because I recommend it with a big caveat and also that it actually charmed me, it made me think one more time about my standards and the list, especially re: near-misses like this one.
I guess the difference was, somehow, in some way, even something like Everlasting Summer had that spark, had somethin that Mystic Destinies didn’t.
… also Everlasting Summer is free and Mystic Destinies is one of the most expensive VNs out there for the full package is just - that counts for something, especially as money gets more and more tight.
Wow, that’s a lot of hours! How long was the actual playtime? I’m glad you bring up the “stereotypically weak and scared” protagonist. That keeps me away from otomes for the most part. I just want a main character that is intelligent and knows how to take care of herself.
Good luck with A New Beginning. I hope you enjoy it, but for me it was one of the weakest Daedalic Entertainment games I’ve played.
Oh man, I really can’t estimate. I had a hard time focusing on it so I left it idle a LOT.
She’s not SO bad in some arcs - like especially Shinji’s - but for the most part the MC really has the ‘I can’t control my powers!!!!’ played up, and it gets SO OLD SO FAST. She’s not even PARTICULARLY dumb or weak, it’s just that she can never save herself.
Thank you! Yeah, I’ve heard some rumblings about this not being great, and one of my steam friends also doesn’t recommend it. I have it already and I might as well give it a shot to get it out of my backlog, you know?