It seems like gamers love it when they have the option of making multiple choices within a game. We've seen that before on Life is Strange as well.So, it's no surprise that somebody decided to release a game which is based around choices. And since we love such games as well, we decided to check it out and give you our opinion.
Through the biggest part of the game, you'll mostly have multiple dialogue options. But, as you can see in the image above, there are times where you'll also have to choose things like expressions, what clothes to wear, etc.Now, before we even start, all of that definitely sounds awesome. But, you know how you look at the cover of a movie or something and you somehow know that it's going to be cringy as hell? That's the feeling that what we got with this game as well. But, still, we decided to move along with it and it's definitely not one of the best choices we've made.Moving on with the review. This game has multiple stories to go through. You can go with a romance story, horror, drama, or whatever. We decided to go with the high school story because why not?The art style, though, is definitely not bad. Some of the expressions definitely give you that cringy feel that we talked about earlier, but there's lots of attention to detail.As you can see in the image above, the characters got a somewhat cartoonish feel to them. But, not exactly. It's like a cartoonish face with normal eyes maybe? In any case, you get the point.Optimization wise, well, again, for the most part, this is nothing but sequential frames/images. So, it's really not a demanding game.You should be able to run it on a potato phone and we didn't have any issues running it in one of our mid-range devices.Are you serious now? You need to pay to make a choice in a game that's all about choices? That's absolutely terrible!And if you paid attention to the previous screenshot that we uploaded, you probably noticed that we had to spend more diamonds for selecting a specific outfit. By the way, that outfit is not purely cosmetical. It raises your affection stats with other characters.To the massive surprise of nobody, the same thing goes for the choice that you can see in the image above. If you pay in order to move on with that choice, your affection stats with the specific character will get higher.We suppose that affection stats affect the probability of you managing to hit a romance with another character. But, we're not sure as we didn't move on any further. After all, this concludes our review. We don't recommend this game.
At this point, we can all safely assume that the same thing will happen quite a few times throughout the game. And even if it doesn't, the game is unacceptable as it is.It's not something new. There have been numerous games that try to get your money by giving you some sort of advantage in return. Angry Birds 2 and Free Fire are only two examples that come to mind.But, there's a massive difference between them and Choices. Angry Birds 2 will help you get by through the stages easier, but you can still move on without necessarily paying.Free Fire gives you a few extra perks, but nothing overwhelming. You can still play the game for free and get the first place without paying anything.Have you noticed a pattern? In both of these examples, the in-game purchases do not directly affect your gameplay experience. You can still move on with them without giving anything.To be more precise, most games don't necessarily restrict you from playing the game as it's meant to be played. That's something that doesn't happen with Choices.If you choose not to pay, you're getting restricted on what you can choose and what not in a game that's all about choices. These small paywalls ruin everything.And the bad thing is that by the point where you're asked to pay something, you're already getting a little bit deeper into the characters and story. The worst part? This game has thousands of positive reviews. People are actually fine with that.
The main concept and core gameplay
The main concept is pretty simple, you, as the main character, will get to choose amongst various responses and general choices. Each one of them has a different outcome and will affect the storyline accordingly.
Through the biggest part of the game, you'll mostly have multiple dialogue options. But, as you can see in the image above, there are times where you'll also have to choose things like expressions, what clothes to wear, etc.Now, before we even start, all of that definitely sounds awesome. But, you know how you look at the cover of a movie or something and you somehow know that it's going to be cringy as hell? That's the feeling that what we got with this game as well. But, still, we decided to move along with it and it's definitely not one of the best choices we've made.Moving on with the review. This game has multiple stories to go through. You can go with a romance story, horror, drama, or whatever. We decided to go with the high school story because why not?Graphics and optimization
Choices is more of a frame by frame game with a few animations thrown in instead of what you're used to. So, we obviously can't say much about the graphics.
The art style, though, is definitely not bad. Some of the expressions definitely give you that cringy feel that we talked about earlier, but there's lots of attention to detail.As you can see in the image above, the characters got a somewhat cartoonish feel to them. But, not exactly. It's like a cartoonish face with normal eyes maybe? In any case, you get the point.Optimization wise, well, again, for the most part, this is nothing but sequential frames/images. So, it's really not a demanding game.You should be able to run it on a potato phone and we didn't have any issues running it in one of our mid-range devices.In-game purchases
For one more time, this is where things go terribly wrong. The in-game purchases of Choices are placed in an absolutely terrible way and for the love of Android, we can't understand why people support this kind of monetization strategy.
Are you serious now? You need to pay to make a choice in a game that's all about choices? That's absolutely terrible!And if you paid attention to the previous screenshot that we uploaded, you probably noticed that we had to spend more diamonds for selecting a specific outfit. By the way, that outfit is not purely cosmetical. It raises your affection stats with other characters.To the massive surprise of nobody, the same thing goes for the choice that you can see in the image above. If you pay in order to move on with that choice, your affection stats with the specific character will get higher.We suppose that affection stats affect the probability of you managing to hit a romance with another character. But, we're not sure as we didn't move on any further. After all, this concludes our review. We don't recommend this game.Why you shouldn't waste your time with Choices
At this point, we can all safely assume that the same thing will happen quite a few times throughout the game. And even if it doesn't, the game is unacceptable as it is.It's not something new. There have been numerous games that try to get your money by giving you some sort of advantage in return. Angry Birds 2 and Free Fire are only two examples that come to mind.But, there's a massive difference between them and Choices. Angry Birds 2 will help you get by through the stages easier, but you can still move on without necessarily paying.Free Fire gives you a few extra perks, but nothing overwhelming. You can still play the game for free and get the first place without paying anything.Have you noticed a pattern? In both of these examples, the in-game purchases do not directly affect your gameplay experience. You can still move on with them without giving anything.To be more precise, most games don't necessarily restrict you from playing the game as it's meant to be played. That's something that doesn't happen with Choices.If you choose not to pay, you're getting restricted on what you can choose and what not in a game that's all about choices. These small paywalls ruin everything.And the bad thing is that by the point where you're asked to pay something, you're already getting a little bit deeper into the characters and story. The worst part? This game has thousands of positive reviews. People are actually fine with that.