Fake Happy End

Since the only review so far seems to be from an anime hating curator, lets try to write a review from someone, who likes anime. Though i might not be the best reviewer, since I normally dont make them, i read them. xD My progress at the point of the review is, i have beaten the main game and are trying to find the hidden secrets, still left within the tower. So, the gameplay itself if quite interesting, if one takes into account, this is an RPG Maker VX Ace game. Its a dungeon crawling type game, where one could skip enemies, if one has learned their moving patterns. You can expect to grind a bit though. The fighting itself is really nice, though it does have some flaws. There are some enemies and mini bosses, who cant do anything, after they have less than 0.5 AP, making the fight impossible to lose. This luckily doesnt happen to the main and secret bosses, since they can replenish their AP, even if their AP-regeneration has been debuffed. The story itself is quite good, though, ...

Fake Happy End is an odd variant of dungeon RPG with the exploration all being done on what would be the minimap in a more typical entry in the genre. Nonetheless, it manages to be a fairly solid indie RPG with charming characters and a fairly interesting combat system. To get my major nitpicks out of the way first: It's a fairly short game (by the in-game timer, my first playthrough took 5:37:22, my second playthrough took 2:49:54, my third playthrough took 1:34:11, and the postgame content took 47:46, for a total of around 11 hours for a 100% clear) by RPG standards, but not one that overstays its welcome. There's also a few puzzles with non-obvious fake hints, which I feel are somewhat unfair and likely to frustrate players, even if they find out the real solution. Thankfully, none of them are required to proceed through the main game. The combat system is interesting, but ultimately felt a bit limited. Characters and enemies start each fight with 5 energy and regenerate 1 point p...

Fake Happy End is a surprising gem of a game, one which I thoroughly enjoyed playing through every step of the way. Though it has some flaws, they're relatively few compared to all the strengths this game has. It's a fairly rudamentary dungeon crawler, one that, as the description states, is heavily inspired by Etrian Odyssey. The tower is split up into several areas, akin to EO's stratums, each with their own gimmicks and puzzles to solve. The puzzles are pretty simple, but slowly grow more complex as the game continues on. That said, never do they feel overwhelmingly difficult, so exploring the tower never slows to a crawl. The lack of random encounters only serves to make these puzzles more complex, akin to Etrian Odyssey's FOEs which served as tile movement puzzles. The battle system is where the game truly shines. Fake Happy End removes a lot of the drudgery that many RPGs fall into out of tradition, such as dwindling resources that you solve by either having an infinite nu...

I actually kind of enjoyed my time with this game. It has an interesting overworld system not usually seen in RPGs that allows for some alright puzzles, and the RPG elements, though very standard, are still fun. That said, I can't recommend it. I liked it a bit because I like RPGs, but the average player probably will not. The first thing of note is that the gameplay is sort of eclipsed by everything else. The story is okay, if a little confusing and cliche, but a lot of players will probably be put off by the cringeworthy dialogue, terrible art, stolen monster designs, and wholly unnecessary sexual themes. I mean, I get it if you want to play a porn game, but this isn't even a porn game. There's no sex, there's just a developer who inserts his own sexual desires and fantasies into a video game. If you're embarrassed by that one socially awkward weeb kid in high school, this game will make you cringe. A lot of players will be made uncomfortable enough by all of that they won't be abl...

Story: The player character is an ordinary citizen who is suddenly able to see a strange tower that looks like a lopsided jenga stack, but nobody else can see it. Upon entering, they fall into a trap door and get attacked by an OP monster, only to be saved by Karin, a human who can also interact with the tower. The two eventually recruit two more people who can see the tower so they can traverse the increasingly dangerous stratums and solve its mysteries. Since the party often returns to the outside during the journey, there will be some slice-of-life scenes and relationship/dating events. The dating scenes and relationship scenes add a lot of replayability due to how they show another side of the party members, and one of them will have a ton of references to Alter A.I.L.A. Genesis. I'll admit I was caught off guard by Mishika's date, where some of the choices are actually there to fake out people obsessed with making perfect sim dating choices. Gameplay: The dungeon crawling mec...

It's good.

It honestly baffles me that a game this fun is flying under the radar of so many steam players. Short version, buy this game. If you like Persona 3 mystery fighting, Etrian Odyssey dungeon style mapping, and typical Visual Novel goodness, this game is a perfect blend of all three and then some. Now the reason why; Fake Happy End is about a group of four random teens that are exploring a tower suddenly appearing in the middle of their town, that no one believes is there, much less try to go anywhere near it. The teens face monsters as they climb through the tower levels, but are strangely and suddenly adept in casting magic to defend themselves. Mysteries about the tower and its purpose become clearer the further they climb. The story has a visual novel feel to it. Text reads out through dialogue exchange and the MC's internal thoughts, but sometimes it mixes things up by shifting character focus to one of the heroines when the team splits up. You also get to make choices that can aff...

Kind of pissed that this game only has 7 reviews after all these years. It's better than at least 98% of RPGM games on steam. Neok, wherever you are, hope you're doing well.