Planet Stronghold

($24.99 - Free Demo - From Winter Wolves)

Play as a new recruit assigned to the most well-known human outpost in the galaxy: Planet Stronghold. In this game you can play as either Lisa or Joshua Nelson. Will you fight the aliens? Will you befriend them? Will you romance a comrade? It's all up to you in this sci-fi RPG style game.

Okay, while this isn't a straight-up otome game, there are enough romances (as subplots) that I am adding it here anyway.

I liked the basis for the game - stereotypical as it is. You play as a newly arrived Nelson (either Lisa or Joshua - choosing between a male and a female having no bearing on the game except who you can romance) and soon find yourself leading a team of cadets in an effort to either help the king or help overthrow the king. For me, the choice of whose side to join was one of the best things about this game. Though the artwork wasn't shabby either.

The RPG system was a lot of fun and you could customize the characters quite a bit, actually. While I didn't like the battle system as much as Loren's (from the same creator) it wasn't distracting. I will admit, I loved the artwork for this game. It has kind of a mid-nineties feel to it.

For me, the weak point in this game is usually what is the most important for me: the writing. Now, considering the fact that this game was close to a one man production and the writer is not a native English speaker, it wasn't bad. Even not taking all that into consideration, it wasn't bad writing - just rather uninspired.

The romances were rather brief and I never felt a real emotional connection to most of the people - and the writing failed to connect with me.

Now, I must say that, even though I totally recommend this game to anyone that is intrigued (or at least the demo) I will say that you shouldn't expect a lot out of the writing. (I also must quantify that I would recommend pretty much everything by Winter Wolves.)

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