Fatehaven

I purchased this IN due to some positive reviews elsewhere. It doesn't have achievements to work toward, which is usually a negative point in my eyes, but I thought I'd give it a try based off those reviews and the fact the game markets itself as having a 4 hour play-through time.

Well, first up, I've completed the game 3 times in those four hours, not counting the couple of time I got an early game over. Secondly, even when you take wildly disparate approaches to the game - and I'm talking as extreme opposite alignments as you can manage - the game barely changes, just one or two paragraphs here and there, and the epilogue (which frankly comes out of nowhere to end the game).

Writing is, technically speaking, reasonably good for the majority of the game, although there were some idiosyncrasies that were a touch odd, and I genuinely enjoyed the romance options I've found even if I wish there was more exploration of them. The humour in character interactions is often also enjoyable.

There's so much potential here, and I can see why the author got commissioned to write a different series of games, but this just feels like it was half finished when they threw in the towel.

Honestly, the ending is ruining the entire game. I actually got angry at it.

Before, it is a decent game, but choices matter little, the corruption bar does nothing and its often hard to guess what the choice for your allignment is. Beside that its standard stuff.

But then you get hit with a ending that straight up tells you that everything has been pointless and completly negates everything that happend bevorhead. And then you get an epilouge that is based on the renow statt and discribes something that has almost nothing to do with the game before.
This would have worked better, it it would have been the story about revenge and its price that it seemd to be at first.

This is honestly not worth the money.

The first choice decides if you're male or female. The second choice decides if you feel pain like getting 'kicked in the balls' or 'smacked in the breasts'. If you pick the latter, this is the next screen:

"You are a woman.

Why yes, I'll try to be modest here. But your sensitive teats are stinging in pain that shoots through your entire nervous system. You brace your arms over your chest instinctively.

"Hurry up! We don't have time for this!"

It just gets worse from there. This is what it says when asking you to choose if you have siblings:

"While your mother did a fine job of getting you out of her nether regions, were you the only one?"

I bought the game awhile ago and stopped playing almost immediately but i'd forgotten why. Now I remember. Other reviews claim the writing is good and maybe it is, later, but this is perhaps the worst intro I have ever read.

I’ve never wanted to be able to give a neutral review more than I do now. This game is front and center what I’d consider a mediocre game. The humor, although sometimes amusing, is very hit-and-miss. And as soon as you get a bit further into the story, the choices come around less and less often. Apart from the nature of my magic, my first and second playthroughs played out very similarly for the vast majority of the time. Also, how the story is told disagrees with me.

You’re constantly told what you think and feel about things, even though that’s not at all the impression you, as the reader, may have of those same things. For example, you can be told you like or respect someone, but it’s a thief you dislike wholeheartedly. In short, you’re told a story, and you’re told what you should think, which is not how a choose your own adventure should go. The choices, opinions, and outcomes are taken out of your hands too often.

Finally, sometimes it’s hard to differentiate between your character’s thoughts and words. At those times, there are no quotation marks, and it’s like the text describes what you’re thinking, and then the game behaves as if you said some of it even though you didn’t, making it confusing when someone responds to those unsaid words.

If I had known beforehand what I’d be getting, I’m not sure I’d have bought the game. Make of that what you will, and decide accordingly. (5/10)

I was super excited to read this since I am in love with the author's other story, Samurai of Hyuga... So reading this was a huge disappointment. I couldn't even get passed the 1st chapter. The theme itself seems great, but the why it is write through me off. It is not as well done as SoH and the MC has NO personality at all. The MC doesn't even talk which takes away all story immersion. I don't know if this came before SoH but it was a huge disappointment and I'm just glad I didn't read this before SoH because if I had I wouldn't of read the other. This story really doesn't show how amazing of a writer the author really is.

Just... go buy Samurai of Hyuga and the DLC. Maybe even support him on the usual sites.

Not a good game, nor yet a good story, all told. Perhaps a test-run? Irrelevant, go play the Hyuga series, seriously.

I am officially in a lost here. After reading all the favourable reviews I was expecting… well, I don’t know. Something.

It starts as a legitimate (although not really original) coming of age story with a decent (although not really abundant) number of choices. But after your would be magic teacher arrives, story quickly downgrades into a third-rate fantasy time-killer read. And when I say “read”, I really mean it: you have to read 3-4 walls of text to get from one choice to another – and these are mostly binary choices we are talking about. And if only it was good text; but oh, no, it’s mostly a futile attempts to be dramatic, mixed with what author takes for humor. And humor is only laughable in a sense that it fails to get a single smile from you despite all the efforts. And believe me, there is a lot of attempts. On the other hand, what it (the humor; or the author, both variants are correct) actually manage to do, is to made what’s left of choices basically a gamble: you make a choice, and then watch how the author changes it into a literal opposite with his “wit”.
No, when I say “I wear dress I usually wear to church” I don’t mean “dull grey-brown puritanical rags that covers me from head to toes”. I mean “the very best dress I have”. Cause it’s a CHURCH, the only place where THE WHOLE VILLAGE gathers = place, where all the local youths dress on to show off. Have you ever been to country, eh?..

Gameplay:
-I really enjoyed the first 2 chapters, but everything goes to shit starting in chapter 3. You don't really have stats/abilities, but can craft a personality from 6 trait bars. Initially your personality will change based on your choices, and there's quite a few of them, not too much text. BUT starting in chapter 3 you are stuck with your personality. Your choices won't affect whether you're successful or not, but your personality will. For example: If you're sly and pick a sly choice, you'll succeed.

The Story:
-It starts out sort of like a coming of age story. A new person comes to town and changes the dynamic between you and your best friend. Soon your life is uprooted and you are forced to deal with a difficult situation.

Pros:
-Light hearted, sense of humor. *Some of the humor is a bit pervy.
-Corruption system seems interesting, but i've only played once so it's hard to tell what impact it has on story.
-Characters are well written. Their personalities stand out and are distinct.
-Type of magic you get depends on your personality. Fire, water, earth, air.
-Long story.
-Good replay value, if you pick a different personality.

Cons: (all starting in chapter 3)
-Walls of text and far fewer choices.
-The success of your choices is tied to your personality. BUT it's difficult to know what personality trait the author thinks is tied to the choice. Feels like you're fighting the author, rather than enjoying the story.
-So the ending.... No decision or skill check required, you win. Whaaaa? How?
-There's also a relationship ending, but it's terriblely generic and bare bones. "you live happily ever after"
-No idea how reknown works or what it does.
-You're told how you're suppose to feel about the characters. You especially have sympathy for ones who have wronged you.
-Story contradicts itself sometimes. Your goal is money, you didn't get any, but are praised anyway.

Overall:
-After the abrupt change in chapter 3 I found myself losing interest. Interesting decisions are taken out of your hands, usually with time jumps. "Yeah you didn't really do much or have any feelings after that horrible life changing tradegy". This could have been a fun adventure story, but instead it just sucks all the fun out of your decisions. Not worth playin.

I'm afraid I can't recommend this product. As the author of Fatehaven seems to have missed the point of interactive novels, namely the part where they're interactive. I will admit that I haven't finished the whole game, as I'm hoping to get a refund, but judging by the first four chapters, the story flows more like a novel, and, to be fair, is well written and enjoyable. But that's undermined by the fact that the 'decisions' you make in this story have little consequence outside of choosing the gender, sexuality and name of the MC.

Otherwise, all choices lead to the same conclusion, with a little varying dialogue beng the only real difference between them. Entire pages will pass by without a single decision at all during the "serious" moments of the story. Your characters personality is also set in stone, with them constantly being a pervert (which can get kind of annoying) or automatically having certain opinions on things.

But the biggest example of how linear this game this would have to be the inclusion of the "corruption" stat. As the name implies, it determines how evil your character is, starting at zero, but steadily rising the more you kill people, or the more people die. There's only one small problem, as listed above, none of your decisions matter, so the corruption stat will simply raise automatically, independant of any choices you make. No really, mine rose from 0 to 20 during one of the earlier mentioned moments where pages pass without there being any decisions from you.

Worse yet, is the illusion of free will they try to create in the game. For example, in battle, you have two choices, kill the opponent with X, or kill the opponent with Y, that's it (Either choice raises your corruption level, btw). Why not have an option to knock them out or restrain them? Especially if you're going to have this "corruption" stat be a part of the game, you could have choosing a non-lethal option lower it instead of raise it. But no, that's too much interaction for this interactive novel.

Final verdict: 3.5/10

I usually like the Choice of Games/Hosted Games style of choose-your-own-adventure games, but I could barely bring myself into the second chapter of this one. It's a painfully generic fantasy world piled high with cliches and irritating characters. The dialogue is uninteresting at best, and the "what gender are you" choice is rendered as a question about whether you just got smacked in the balls or the breasts (and I'm relatively sure the game actually does describe a female MC as having "sensitive teats" which is a really weird thing to read). The writing switches between being dull and uncomfortable, and in the end I was tasked with deciding whether I should try to tough it out to the end, or write this review and uninstall a half-finished game.
I think I made the right choice.

This is one of the best CYOA stories I have ever read. That being said, I have some mixed feelings about it. It is one of the CYOAs that seem to change more of the flavor of the writing and a few details, with regard to your choices. While trying to not spoil anything about the story, I'll try to give some indications of how this story goes about things.

The story seems to have little side stories, or certain pages that only happen like that with the influence of some choice you have made. While this may be a common feature of CYOA stories, it is the main consequence of choosing your own adventure with this one. One way of trying to go through it is by constructing a base character in your mind and trying to immerse yourself intot he story by how they would react to a given situation. This CYOA can seem somewhat limited in this respect, with how certain choices you make can influence (or be influenced) by things that don't always seem to be fit to the mentality that you have with your character. Thankfully there was only one situation that I encountered where you could really "fail".

The writing mainly differs in the changing of the flavor of how your character thinks, speaks, and acts. This can be the difference of some sentences, paragraphs, or pages. Certain scenes will only develop if certain choices are made, though a lot of the story is predetermined. These may be limitations that may seem odd in a CYOA "game." But if you are looking for a well written story to become immersed in, with your mind visualizing every scene where you come to love, hate, or experience any other shade of feeling for the characters, this is a great read. The writing is some of the best I've ever seen. And if you want to merely have a story that is worth some good laughs (without the more serious parts taken in too much), then it is still worth a read. The writer manages to paint scenes with relatively few words (the only other author I've read that does it to such an extent is H.P. Lovecraft (genres not withstanding)). This seems to be done with excellent word choice, and giving certain details about scenes that help convey the overall mood that is set.

Of course, the story is not without its faults. Though I think that many of them would have been resolved if the story had simply been longer, perhaps with a sequal (I am reading the triology that the author is working on, and so far, Fatehaven really seems to be far more worthy of additional writing). There are quite a questions that the author never really fully answers. While some are addressed at least partially enough (and with a few particular hints) to where some good guesses or assumptions can be made, others are left with blanks to only be filled in with some relatively reckless speculation. This is particularly apparent with some of the characters in the story. While not all of them may be main characters, some still have enough development to make you have attachements to them. This leads you to wanting to know more about them, but the story doesn't really allow for that.
The biggest disappointment regarding this whole thing. . . is the ending. While I want to avoid any spoilers, or too much of telling people of how they should feel to any particular part of the story, the ending was my least favorite part. I was downright disappointed, crestfallen even. This is a wonderful journey that is let down by where you end up getting. I really feel like it would have been a great deal better if the story had been expanded on, such as some additional chapters or a whole sequal.

With some last words, I do plan on going through the story at least one more time. I might change this review to some extent at least, though what I experienced with the initial reading will still hold true to my opinion of it (even if it gets a few tweaks to it). This story is a journey, and one worth taking. The destination, however, is lackluster and makes you want to get back on the road, this road or another. And I authentically wish that I could have experienced more of this world, and gotten to better know the people in it.

It's something for those who like fantasy novels that are light-hearted right up until they aren't. If you liked The Stanley Parable, you might like this.

To start with the positives:

I'm someone who enjoys psychological evaluations done in games, and in this game, your magical powers are based upon personality profiling. Be indirect and gracious, and you come up a water-elementalist. Be hotheaded and brash, and you're a fire-elementalist. Etc.

The story, when it starts to actually unfold, displays a good deal of time spent world-building to make it distinct from generic fantasyville, although even with that said, I always wind up hungry for more world building. It's a fantasy world of peacefully coexisting humans, elves, orcs, dwarves, and gnomes plunked down "because it's fantasy"... and I'd really like to hear some more about how these races are meaningfully integrated into the world. But I guess the JRPG-like church consipiracy backstory will have to do...

Also, this game actually tells you what choices up what stats, and when stat checks occur, so that you know when and why you fail at a task. Why don't more of these games do that?!

But as someone who enjoys this kind of fiction, I can't help but have gripes...

The writing style is decently clever, but unfortunately, the author tries a little too hard to be more clever than they actually are. Suspension-of-Disbelief-shattering anachronistic references mar otherwise serious moments in the narrative, undercutting the drama and ability to relate to the characters, which is the lifeblood of a story like this. In the balancing act of taking itself too seriously versus taking nothing seriously, this game is in the "laughs at its own jokes" territory. You get a "Watchu talkin' bout?" as part of a serious narrative. This also applies to how everything is described sexually - your would-be knight friend is referenced as always wanting to play with her sword, or smack things with her sword... HER sword in this case, because the character's gender is determined by your own choices, but the text was obviously not written to take account of this fact. Likewise, you must be a real horn-dog. At least, that's what the text assumes, because even the tiniest bit of innuendo is always presumed in its most sexual light.

The game also suffers from a bit of the problem of "Everyone is Protagasexual"; if you play as a gay character, it magically means that every character becomes gay the instant they consider you, even if every other relationship is straight. If you're playing as a lesbian, the game comments on how the girls all wanted to flirt with you, while your magic lesbian awareness field keeps straight men from ever trying to ask you out. (And vice-versa if a gay man.) For a world that occasionally tries to be the 14th century (said directly in the text) with occasionally realistic depictions of medieval life, it's also surprisingly casual about homosexuality even while it says that young women who cannot produce children aren't valued. Must be the effect of all the elves they live with! Any character that you're supposed to have anything remotely like an attraction to will have their gender set by your preference (no bisexual players!) decided at the start of the game, and every single one of them tends to be described with passages about how you're instantly enchanted by their looks, in spite of the actual description of their appearance, short of eye and hair color, being quite scant. Also, one of your romantic options is a furry catboy/girl. Plus anyone remotely magical changes eye colors constantly, even within the same paragraph, and your character gets a grey hair stripe like Rogue from X-Men. (Even though you never set your own hair color to start with.) Maybe it's for the best there wasn't more description, or we'd be dealing with a bad Harry Potter fanfic...

It also asks you to make most of your choices that determine what sort of character you are, and how you view other entities like, say, the church, before you even know a thing about what the local religion even is. This practically begs you to just insert your own opinion of your own locally dominant real-life religion, when, you know, the fact that this religion is not any real-world religion, and doesn't operate on the same principles might have SOME impact on how you react to it...

Also, as is always the flaw of these sorts of stories, there's basically one path forward up until the very end, and all that changes are your stats. Stats are used pass/fail, but different builds basically use different stats to accomplish the same thing. (I.E. Talk someone down rather than force them to relent with force.) This ultimately runs into the same problem other games like Versus has (or for that matter, BioWare games with good/evil meters), where once you pick one stat, you might as well min/max it, because each time you pick it, that stat gets better (and its opposing stat gets worse), and makes it more likely to succeed next time, as well. This turns the story not into deciding what you would do in the moment so much as guessing which choice powers up your build. At least, unlike Versus, this game does have checks without choices, where you just need to have a certain amount of "vigilant" to succeed, that actually give the choice of a build some sense that you missed out on some things. These are usually inconsequential, because they can't really meaningfully punish players for a choice when they would later punish the opposite choice, since there isn't the sort of inventory or health system of a real RPG, but it's still at least a token effort that gives some sense of meaning to choices. Other choices give you "renown", which is basically just "right answer score" - you can't really fail most of the game's choices, so you just get renown when you pick the right answer for your build, and the game progresses, regardless.

And while this may be part of the "not as clever as they think they are" gripe, the story as a whole is just WAY too meta to really get entirely into. It starts off pretending to be a swashbuckling tale of heroism, and your character is an Action Survivor that gets carried over the finish line in spite of their abilities by their companions at every turn. M Night Shyamalan may as well have guest written the ending.

So... bottom line, expect less Errol Flynn and more Hideo Kojima. Fun for those who enjoy getting their chain yanked.

During my first playthrough, I was thinking I'd come here and give a recommended review for sure. The story was pretty good, even if you are constantly assumed to be a pervert... but playing through it a second time made this an easy not recommended review unfortunately. I play Choose Your Own Adventure style games like this because I like to have the choices and see the different ways everything can resolve. Sadly, most of the 'choices' in my second playthrough (Where I was choosing the opposite of what I did in the first playthrough of course) quickly turned in, "You realize that's a bad idea and do the other thing." That kind of illusion of choice then forcing me to do what I didn't choose really annoys me.

So, if you only play the game once, I'd consider it. If you're like me and play it through many times to see all the different endings, don't bother.

This was a truely amazing story. Leaving you with the desire to play it again just to see how different things could have been. By far one my most enjoyed choice adventures by Devon Connell. Without a question if you enjoy choice games you'll enjoy this one.

My thanks on such an epic story and adventure. A+++

King of Everything brings up a good point about the need for the main character to have quotation marks to indicate when they are speaking, and when they are thinking. It would make things easier to understand at a glance.

Over all, this was a very fun CYOA. I would definitely recommend it, especially at this price.

I'm just really hoping there will be a sequel. The ending was ultimately disappointing, because while there is enough information to draw some fairly sound conclusions, there is no concrete explanations to some things, and over all, I was left wanting for answers, and for more in general.

Besides that, it's a giant cliffhanger.

The best way to explain this little gem would be: The Closest to the Dragon Age (The good ones) saga you can see in text form.
I won't lie. The amount of choices, the backstories and many of the events that happen in this game are the ones you could expect from a Bioware Game with little Bethesda touches. And the best part, is that it's good. Really good.
Choices are abundant and every situation must be tackled obeying your strenghts.
Even the realationships follow the same system that Bioware does.
In short: it's amazing, and can entertain you for a looooooooooooooong time.
That, if you like to read and know how to use your imagination.
Well spent money.

Okay, so the game/story is interesting and all that, however I can NOT enjoy it... simply because... the way it's written, you never know if the MC is talking or thinking! Should add some god damn quotation marks for the MC!

Easily my favorite of the Hosted Games, probably my second favorite of everything COG has on Steam only after Choice of Robots. This author writes great characters and has an entertaining and easy to read writing style.
In particular I like the author's use of the COG engine's stats system, it's probably the best I've seen in any of the games using the engine. Beginning choices are used to establish a personality, which after a certain point stops changing, and from that point on consistency in your choices is rewarded instead. The other thing I really like about this is that the stat checks are used to determine how some scenes play out. I really really like this method of using the stats as it rewards role-playing and adds flavor and replayability. This is the same system that is used in the author's “Samurai of Hyuga” series, but I feel like it put to much better use here.
As a side note, I thought the magic system was a really cool touch. After your “personality” is established, you are assigned a type of magic that fits that personality and that is what is used through the rest of the story. This also means that several scenes are significantly different and adds to replayability.
Overall I VERY strongly recommend this one, it's the closest I've seen to a perfect COG style game.

Though it is near perfection and I absolutely recommend this game, I do have a few small suggestions for the author.
1) Please hire a professional editor. The weird autocorrected typos and malapropisms do not ruin the game by any means, but they can still be very distracting.
2) The ending could have been forshadowed more. Again, very small complaint and doesn't ruin anything, but it is something that I personally thought could be improved.
3) It would be nice to have more information about what a choice entails. In particular, I may not always understand or agree on the interpretation of a given choice, so added detail, and in particular making the consequences of a choice clear before the choice is made, would help a lot.

at first the game didnt really catch my interest, but i said "meh, why not?"
but golly, was it a ride with this one, not only is the price cheap, you get really into the story, the writting is amazing, the characters are interesting, and the story is really well made, i really recommend it if youre into fantasy and interactive novels

unexpected feel trip, i didnt even pack up my lunch 10/10

A Hidden Gem

I have only read the story up to fifth chapter and I can already tell this will be well worth the money.

The writing is witty and interesting, combat is well described and.. so far, I haven't skipped a word written, which is borderline a miracle considering I always skip segments when I read, even on " masterpiece" books and story games ( like planescape).

I even had to stop reading for about minute when I couldn't stop lauhing at certain insult scene, something I don't remember doing due a written story for a long while.

Only reason I write this review early ( just hour or so reading) is because someone labeled the ( so far) best written text/story adventure book ( I have read) a negative review just because he didn't read the shop description and was dissapointed due lack of graphics.

This interactive novel doesn't deserve that label, stuff like that hurts an author that has put out a genuinely fun to read story at ridiculously cheap price considering the amount of re-readability it has.

Update : The story milds down bit in the end and there are lot less meaningful choises I had hoped, some events that can seem shocking ( start from beginning level shocking), are scripted and can't be avoided, which is bit dissapointing.

Overal I still recommend it, worth the price.