October 28, 2021
Played in the "Club of Romance". The most awkward dates in your life
There is such a category of books as cheap love novels in a soft cover. They do not claim the title of masterpieces of world literature, but they have aptly aimed at a very specific audience of readers, at the expense of which they have been continuing to exist for many decades. Individual representatives of the genre can even become real bestsellers and get high -profile movie adaptations, but even they do not avoid the anger of critics and misunderstanding from the sophisticated audience.
All this has long remained a headache of cinema and literature lovers, but, of course, the arrival of similar entertainment in the sphere of video games was only a matter of time – romantic visual novels became a game embodiment of cheap love novels. In the West and Asia, many similar games have long been released (usually in a mobile format), but this wave has not reached a mass Russian-speaking audience for some time. Until the Moldavian studio Your Story Interactive did not release her own free-to-play mobile phone "Romance Club" , which successfully reproduced the formula for reading boulevard novels in a new, slightly interactive form. Complete shame, awkwardness, and, of course, microtransactions.
Like a real hardcore gamer, the first thing I chose Arkanum’s novel, hoping that the bad plot would not be called so. Naturally, it turned out that this is a story about fellow
Responsible for romance
The peak of its viral popularity “Club of Romance” survived a couple of years ago, but since then the audience of the game only continues to grow, and the new plots are still coming out-the last current story was only a few weeks ago. This renewal again stirred the established community of the game, and the fresh wave of hype was a good reason to finally see the "Club" personally.
Important disclaimer: I am completely aware that the “Club of Romance”, obviously, is not designed for a player like me. The developers clearly aimed at exclusively casual entertainment, moreover, there is almost nothing to do with traditional video games. But at the same time, I am sincerely convinced that good visual novels can find a response from any player, regardless of gender, age and genre preferences. In the end, history knows enough melodramas and romantic plots that the audience that was distinguished from love novels praised. So I threw the prejudices to the side, scored full, light air and ducked headlong into this abyss.
The design of the characters came out predictably glossy, but there are serious questions to the quality of their drawing
In fact, the “Club of Romance” is a collection of two dozens of unrelated novels united by an emphasis on (suddenly) romance. They cover almost all existing literary genres and can boast of an unexpectedly long timing: whole seasons consist of individual episodes. In each short story, the player takes control of the new heroine (male protagonists are also, but rather as an exception), and the entire gameplay comes down to the choice of replicas in dialogs, a significant part of which does not affect anything at all. There is still a share of nonlinearity in the plots, but it mainly concerns only the choice of love interest.
Despite the quantity and variety of stories, they can be conditionally divided into two groups. The first is an incredibly dull reading, which feels like a visit to a theme park dedicated to hackneyed cliches from romantic films. The simpleton came to Hollywood, the heroine-choreographer meets a group of hot dancers, the student unexpectedly falls into the royal family … Hopes for a good story are melting already during the reading of annotations, and the further maintenance of the novels only exacerbates the effect: they find literally everything for which it is customary to scold the boulevard novels. Unbearable dialogs, clumsy characters, endless passages like "In his gaze, X with an admixture y" reads ". It’s somehow embarrassing about the quality of the script, even considering my not too high expectations. What a serious narrative can we talk about if such battered stories are taken as the basis of the plot, and the characters look like they left the television advertising of mayonnaise?
But the backs were unexpectedly a success. I just want to see them in some Point-Ed-Click adventure
But the second group of novels is a real comedic gold. In them, the scriptwriters break off the chain of common sense and hit such nonsense that the absurdity of what is happening on the screen almost fascinates. This is written as disgusting as before, but the authors clearly tried to dilute the routine atypical for melodrama setting. Cosmic science fiction with a defiantly ridiculous male version of Azari, hysterically awkward “school of angels and demons”, absolutely impudent tracing paper from all vampire stories at once – the more ridiculous and pretentious the cover of the novel looks, the funnier the plot will be. Events so quickly and incoherently replace each other that they merge into a continuous stream of pure scenario stupidity, and plot turns and holes seem to try to surpass each other. In general, the output is something worthy of the pen of Tommy Vaiso himself: it is physically difficult to read such literature, but a very specific reward awaits the most resilients.
I was just painted like that
A combination of stupid situations, very bad text and ridiculous setting is in a core in harmony with romantic scenes. From the game called "Club of Romance" it is logical to wait for a particularly thorough study of everything related to love lines, and in this regard my hopes came true. Romance here came out cloudy. Sudden souls, sympathy, which took from nowhere and disappeared nowhere; Sometimes the characters simply forget not only about the moments experienced alone, but even that they have already managed to sleep. If you enjoy the cring, then an overdose of transcendental awkward compliments you will like.
Oddly enough, there are also plenty of bed scenes in the game, but I strongly do not advise you to strive for them. If during “ordinary” romantic scenes there is a risk of punching his forehead with a palm, then from sex I want to escape into a deaf forest and never look in the eyes of other people again. The person who wrote these moments either hated his work, or had a very superficial idea of how living people function. Remember the "funny" options for answers in Super Seducer? Here is about the same, only the decorations are more diverse.
However, I will lie if I say that I have not received a certain pleasure from the Club of Romance. To disassemble the delusional dialogs for quotes and revel in the absurd of the setting of some stories was really fun: the definition of “so bad that it was even good” as if it were invented for this game. In general, many play the “club” for the sake of this life-giving cring, and some of the players are firmly sure that the insultingly low quality of everything and the whole is part of the idea. Say, we actually have a post-irony here: the scriptwriters subtly parody cliches and do not perceive what is happening seriously.
I would like this conspiracy theory to be true, but there is one detail that, it seems to me, destroys the illusion. The "Club of Romance" has perhaps the most impudent and unpleasant microtransactions from all that I have ever seen. The game has two resources that can be purchased for real money: cups and crystals. Cups give access to the new series of short stories, and for crystals you can purchase not only a cosmetic trifle, but also “special” replicas options in dialogs.
Regardless of the setting and the scene, the game regularly offers to choose the player a room in which his heroine will live. The most pleasant options are available only for donate currency, but no one guarantees that the heroine will generally spend at least some time in the bought mansions
And then at this moment it becomes not funny. Both resources are slowly accumulating due to viewing advertising and passing episodes, but the prices for replicas are significantly bitten. Moreover, behind Donat, not just some optional episodes are hidden-the player is always asked to pay for the most interesting (at least from the point of view of scriptwriters) Options for the development of events. Want to seduce an aristocrat handsome? Afraid that the character with whom you built a relationship with half the plot will suddenly be offended by you right up to the final credits? Want to intervene in the conflict and save a lover from an impending catastrophe? Well, I hope you have enough currency for a happy ending, because any free option will always be noticeably worse than a premium. Often up to a sharp change in dynamics in relations with heroes.
And before you ask, no, the need to constantly pour finance is not woven into a narrative. Donate remarks do not suggest that the hero really spends money: the game just puts you an ultimatum – fork out or come to terms with an unwanted turning of the plot. This is a very vile manipulation, especially if the player really got involved in the passage, because the payment audience will get a noticeably more pleasant story than everyone else.
In general, all this leads me to the idea that the authors of the Club of Romance relate to their plots with maximum seriousness: the irony would not allow me to ask for money so brazenly for a deliberately bad product. But as for Mr Slots Club sister sites me, it’s even better. Unintentional comedy is often much funnier than a conscious parody.
Nevertheless, despite the perverted pleasure, I do not wish anyone to play the "Club of Romance" of goodwill. “It’s so bad that even good” is still “bad” first, and consciously spending time (and even more so money) on a similar product is simply dishonest in relation to games made with real talent and diligence. As they say in an old joke, instead of “Club of Romance” it is better to read the book. What? Any.
- New Intel Alder Lake processors: What was shown in a closed presentation
- Review The Good Life. Life is my tin
- Age of Empires 4 – a nostalgic gum with a new taste