Разработчик: Studio Élan
Описание
Born as a fox in the forest of Korea, Miho carries with her the memory of a traveler who showed her kindness and spoke of home. Now more human than fox, Miho has spent a long, long time searching for her person. She arrives by airship to Wellington, one of the jewels of the floating island of New Zealand.
Despite her years spent observing humans, she still has a lot to learn about their culture and society. She's made a living so far as a thief, her heightened senses allowing her to easily take advantage of people. She's also seen a lot of the worst of what mankind has to offer.
It's only after meeting Juliet, the owner of a small library, and Aspen, an aspiring novelist, that Miho starts to understand what kindness is, and that there's more than just the bad stuff when it comes to people.
Miho's earliest memories are of her time as a fox, and the kind human she met back then. Now more than just a fox, she's spent her life searching for that person. Her journey has brought her to a new life in Wellington, New Zealand.
She changes her name every time she goes to a new country. Her previous names include Gumi, Migu, and Mimi.
CV: Dottovu
Aspen is a human girl in love with words and stories. A barista at the Bellhouse Café, she dreams of being a popular author someday. She tries to take a little inspiration from every person that she meets.
She has an hour long phone call with her mom every weekend.
CV: Anna Chloe Moorey
As a vampire, Juliet is one of Wellington's oldest residents. She's made the treasures of her life open to all in the form of a library. Aside from books, she also provides wisdom, kindness, and shelter to those who need it.
She dislikes having to resort to echolocation to find her reading glasses.
CV: Shara Kirby
- Over 220,000 words
- Character designs and CG's by Kobuta, with additional art by adirosa
- 2 different routes with 2 happy endings each
- Full English voice acting
- A brand new original soundtrack by Sarah Mancuso
Поддерживаемые языки: english
Системные требования
Windows
- Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system
- OS *: Windows 7 SP1 or higher
- Processor: Any 64-bit Intel, AMD, or ARM / Apple Silicon CPU (※ Intel and AMD CPUs must support SSE2. x86_64 translation is required on ARM/Apple Silicon.)
- Memory: 1 GB RAM
- Graphics: Any GPU that supports at least Vulkan, DirectX 10, or OpenGL 3.2
- DirectX: Version 10
- Storage: 2 GB available space
- Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system
Mac
- OS: macOS / OS X 10.13 High Sierra or higher
- Processor: Any 64-bit Intel, AMD, or ARM / Apple Silicon CPU (※ Intel and AMD CPUs must support SSE2.)
- Memory: 1 GB RAM
- Graphics: Any GPU that supports at least Metal or OpenGL 3.2
- Storage: 2 GB available space
Linux
- OS: Any reasonably modern Linux distribution (※ Roughly equivalent to Ubuntu 16.04 or above.)
- Processor: Any 64-bit Intel, AMD, or ARM / Apple Silicon CPU (※ Intel and AMD CPUs must support SSE2. x86_64 translation is required on ARM/Apple Silicon.)
- Memory: 1 GB RAM
- Graphics: Any GPU that supports at least Vulkan or OpenGL 3.2
- Storage: 2 GB available space
Отзывы пользователей
Great native english visual novel. Aspen is lovely.
<3
The combination of story telling, visuals and sound design is amazing. Easily one of my favorite v-novels. Would recommend 10/10
The best lesbian fox simulator I've ever played.
The main character Miho has always been super relatable to me. It's very wholesome. It's set in a fictional version of Wellington, New Zealand. Back when Miho was still just a fox she met a traveler who was kind to her and showed her that not all humans are bad. After getting her powers she began to look all over for her person and has suffered some of the not so nice things that humanity has to offer. She meets Aspen, a bookish girl who works at a café called the bellhouse. And Juliet, a vampire who is a librarian. It isn't until then that she finally learns not only what it means to have friends but also how to be human. It is a story that has resonated with me so much. It's very queer and parts of it have always felt so poly coded. The representation of neurodiversity is also so nice. The music is so calming to listen to and is one of my favorite osts ever! This story makes me feel so seen in like the best way possible. I would definitely recommend it to anyone that loves yuri! 10/10
This is quite good.
Studio Élan (and former Studio Coattails) is a fusion of amazing writers and voice actors and other fantastic talents, producing unique quality works of magical worlds, endearing characters and wholesome romance, getting better and better with every iteration. Heart of the Woods immediately became one of my all-time favourite VNs, and I can safely say that Please Be Happy easily beats it. Can we also take a moment to appreciate that absoutely insane (at this time of writing, not counting this review) 99.3% positive reviews rating, quite possibly the highest I've ever seen on Steam and beating every other game in the all-time top charts!
In my opinion, great people have stood on each other's shoulders for a decade and refined storytelling & VN strengths to create increasingly better and more fluent, touching, wholesome titles with great characters and ambience, and this is just the beginning.
Gameplay
Mechanically a fairly simple VN engine with modern quality of life. Save slots sufficient for frequent use. It offers easy access to specific scenes for revisiting, full time travel logging for jumping backwards during scenes, runs as borderless fullscreen, shows OST titles as they play, customised voice settings for all characters and cute audio excerpts for menu buttons, unlockable extras for images/music and credits.
Furthermore, the menu is structured as navigating an open book complete with adequate bookmark text summaries for every new scene, completely fitting both the narrative and overall theme (though occasionally providing accidental spoilers if you happen to open the menu at the beginning of a scene).
Branching is mainly done through two major splits for the latter two chapters as well as a very minor subpath for each of these, governed by a very limited amount of choices throughout the entire game (about five in total). Other than that, there are three cute side stories to be unlocked parallel to the main plot, of which two are obtainable per playthrough. These are handled by a map system where you choose destinations during free time. However, this system feels disappointingly like an afterthought as it mostly makes it blindingly obvious where to go or contains weak filler, which is a shame considering its potential.
Story
Please Be Happy is a heartwarming urban fairytale with casually interwoven fantasy elements, set in a modern society with a subpopulation of naturally integrated mythological, mostly human creatures, supplying a backstory to a fictional world closely resembling our own. I would love to see more stories taking place in this setting! This allows for various magic to aid the plot and for protagonists with more vivid backgrounds.
The characters are introduced in natural ways slowly uncovering their quirks, personality and flaws through a first person perspective, gradually progressing the story at a pace that manages to constantly add just a little more curiosity and warmth to the interactions to keep the reader going, elevating seemingly mundane conversations to meaningful levels of trying to decipher each character's actions and behaviour, throwing in vital drama and plot points at the right moments. The depth of the story from the onset shows that despite marketed as a yuri novel, it shines foremost as a wholesome slice-of-life "coming-of-age/new adult" (my research shows these terms are hotly contested) fantasy with romance sprinkled on top, with a lot of familial love in the mix as well.
Despite its mixed execution in terms of branching mechanics as mentioned earlier, it deserves great praise for its consistency across paths. Whereas most VNs resort to almost twisting reality based on player choices, decisions in Please Be Happy actually feel like they are only affecting what they should, and creating long-term consequences only through clear chains of causality. Though a bunch of minor cliffhangers are left unresolved, there are no apparent plot holes.
So how good is the story, then? It's so good that I'm getting moved multiple times in between subplots. It's so good that it makes me realize uncomfortably well how bad my own life is, yet provides a tiny message of positivity, care and hope. It's so good that I knew I would feel a hole in my heart when I inevitably finished it, delaying my final plays and taking breaks between scenes to make the experience last longer. It's quite good.
Graphics
Super solid across the board. The use of predominantly bright colours adds to the overall theme of positivity, bringing the scenery to life both in the sprawling urban streets, the main interior buildings, and the hills, forests, parks and waterfront surrounding the city. The amount of backgrounds are largely unique.
The characters are beautifully drawn in high resolution with modern animation for natural speech, expressions, blinking and common poses. Every single character (with just one exception) is voiced and has multiple sprites to go with them.
Cutscene drawings mix up multiple different drawing styles by presumably a variety of different artists, which promotes diversity at the cost of some drawing consistency.
Media
If story is the heart of the VN, then the audio is the soul. With beautifully composed OST by Sarah Mancuso synchronised with the plot beats and strong theme melodies for the protagonists, there's feeling in every step of the journey.
I really easily admire all of the talented voice actors in the industry, and this title just proves it further! Characters are powerfully brought to life; protagonists are provided with unique quirks in their manner of speech and accents, and even the occasional hiccups (intentional?) sound perfectly natural. Side characters all get plenty of love and having this completeness is just so important in bringing the whole world to life.
Finally, I must praise the main voice more - this is the first time I've encountered Dottovu and I'm already fanboying over here and tracking down more upcoming works. She not only adds to adorably tugging the heartstrings throughout the game, but plays an entire melody - namely, singing the icing on the cake, the ending theme, which you'll have the pleasure of hearing at least four times during playthroughs (unless you skip... but why would you?!) Like in classics such as the To The Moon series, I consider a powerful, reflective song an amazing finale to an already great story.
Overall
At first glance, Please Be Happy seems like your above average run-of-the-mill yuri romance novel, but don't be fooled! This is a potent all-time masterpiece with storytelling in focus, and I will without hesitation recommend it not just to people who enjoy yuri content, but to everyone that appreciates an amazing, wholesome, heartfelt fairytale, which also happens to have ladies falling in love and kissing (and nothing beyond that).
As previously mentioned, I believe this is only the beginning for great works to come for Studio Élan, and I will be stalwartly following them.
So get out there and immerse yourselves in the company of the lovely cast and the main character, who... is very pleasant... but for some reason, I'm having trouble recalling their name and appearance...
Oh well, another playthrough should probably fix that!!
[table]
[tr]
[th]Pros[/th]
[th]Cons[/th]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]Storytelling masterpiece[/td]
[td]Slightly slow paced[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]Amazing voice acting[/td]
[td]Some branching and gameplay filler[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]Deep characters and personal growth[/td]
[td]Some inconsistent art and scenery[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]Strong themes of positivity, caring, belonging, hope - wholesome![/td]
[td][/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]Great soundtrack and ending theme song[/td]
[td][/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]Beautiful artwork and strong VN engine[/td]
[td][/td]
[/tr]
[/table]
Gameplay: N/A
Story: 9/10
Graphics: 9/10
Media: 10/10
Overall: 9/10
This yuri visual novel is a masterpiece.
It looks and sounds amazing, but the story telling and character development is just as impressive. It takes place in a fascinating urban fantasy world that you're going to want to see more of, and the character arcs for the MC and the two love interests are masterfully crafted. Even the three side stories are really good!
extremely touching and cute story, I really enjoyed slowly reading this story over a few weeks! the VA is fantastic, the little character facial animations really step up the quality of this VN from others I've read, and across the board the quality is super good!!
this is my comfort game
Дополнительная информация
| Разработчик | Studio Élan |
| Платформы | Windows, Mac, Linux |
| Ограничение возраста | Нет |
| Дата релиза | 23.12.2024 |
| Отзывы пользователей | 100% положительных (225) |