Supposedly "You Can Save Everyone", but you and this game cannot save my sanity. This game is absolutely the most frustrating game that I have ever played.

Intro
You take control of a person who is suddenly (supposedly?) in some unknown facility room with only a computer terminal and some weird unlocking mechanism puzzle. On the terminal you are contacted by someone named Noire who talks about helping them get out of there by unlocking the doors that are blocking them from getting out. You are then asked to use the mechanism in a puzzle-like way to do the unlocking.

Gameplay
As the player, you have to match the symbols(?) to complete one of the steps to unlock. You use your keyboard (WASD) or controller (D-pad or left thumb-stick) to match. This was the most infuriating part of the game that I just couldn't get used to. Especially with the amount of times you have to do so. It was not as smooth and simple as it looks like on the Steam store page. I don't know if it's just a skill issue on my end or what, but I struggled so much with getting the ball to move around the area. If the ball wouldn't automatically go back to the middle, I think this would be much easier to accomplish. Trying to move it to the left, and then down and then right, while trying to hold on to multiple ways so it doesn't snap back to the middle was just too difficult for me. It made me feel like I was doing something wrong, but nothing I did would change.

There's a similar mechanic for unlocking info on the computer. You have to move the cursor around to input letters/numbers and then press a button to input and I couldn't get it to input 8 even though I was doing it the correct way. I had quit the game in frustration the first time when playing with the keyboard, thinking I needed a controller to make it easier. I charged my controller for a day, came back the next day with the controller and still struggled. It was then that I learned that it doesn't save in the middle of the level. You can only start from the beginning of the level, so that was extremely frustrating as well as I had to go through the annoying bits that I had the previous day.

The controls are also extremely weird and there's nowhere that really states what those are. On my Xbox controller, to press enter, it's "x" and not "a" with the other buttons being the 2 middle buttons. The game also starts on "Extreme" settings, even if you last closed it on a different setting. This does not run smoothly on a Microsoft Surface, even on super low settings.

Final Thoughts
It seems with the story that essentially each level is just passing the puzzles to help the person stuck there get out and get an energy core to you that lights up the room you're in some more. The next level has a new person and you help them and so forth. At least that's what it appears like after you help Noire on the first level and then meet Joy on the second. I wish I could at least comment on the story, but the game-play is just not worth my time to see if the story is even interesting. I barely got anywhere with the story, as I only finished the first level and made it to the next and after spending some time trying to get through the puzzles, I just quit (both times in the same spot).

If there was a way to either make the puzzles more manageable with controls or even to skip them to see the story, I'd probably do so. There's a button that says you can skip the current level as well, but it didn't work when I tried it.
I will be putting this game on my "abandoned" list and won't be touching it again, unless something is done in regards to the game-play, because even putting my keyboard to the side for a controller (which is recommended by the way), it's just not possible for me.

Key was provided by the developer to Otome Lovers for review purposes.

Review originally posted on Steam

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