Monsters of Little Haven Reviews

Holy shit this game is dark... If you're confused about a particular ending, the game makes it so that so you to play through each route to connect the dots. I like that aspect. Short little game, it's fucked up but presented in a story-book fashion. 6/10

Pretty solid visual novel game! Lots of puzzle pieces each ending puts together. I enjoyed it!

I bought the Missing Calm bundle and am going through all of its games in release order. This was the first. I will begin with a warning that the game is clearly translated from a different language (Russian, in this case), for I ran into several grammar errors, voice-text difference, and even a left-over Cyrillic character. That and the occasional absence of the "skip" (for played-through scenes) are glaring, mechanical errors. There are a few mini-games, but that is a generous term for how simplistic they are. Some of them are not even for important moments, making the system feel very tacked-on Now, this visual novel feels more like a storybook, which can be both a boon and bane. The style is fine, even if the character designs are lackluster, and the many breaks for narration create a slow pace that helps the game's tone. However, the backgrounds and characters themselves are static, which can make the game often feel boring. Yet, that is also arguably complementary to the game's tone, lol This game almost requires multiple playthroughs to grasp the story, and my first ending was incredibly unsatisfying. Later ones were better, so I guess that I am glad that I got the bad one out of the way. As for the story, it is good and absolutely held up by strong themes, which I dare not spoil. The plot itself is not too well-structured, even considering the branching narrative, but that is easily forgivable. All the characters' writing is good, but I felt that [spoiler]Brenda, the mother[/spoiler] was a notably weaker character who felt more of a plot object in most paths, and the character also had a verbose backstory dump in one path; this was not done nearly as well as the uncovering of [spoiler]Bram's, the father's[/spoiler] backstory in another path. I struggle to recommend the game, despite its impactful plot and themes. I originally gave the game a thumbs-up but edited my review to a thumbs-down due to my list of issues. However, I absolutely recommend getting this and other Missing Calm games through the bundle, which is certainly a steal. Despite its flaws, I think that this game will stick with me as I play through the publisher's other games.

The story is great, it is every time super sad and quite long compared to this dev's games. The achievement system doesn't work on my PC I don't know why. Overall worth the money.

I have played a lot of visual novels before, but this one is just great. I loove the story. It's just fantastic how you get more information with each ending, until you are able to piece together a small picture. Just a bit sad that some details are left in the dark, but that's the beauty of it—an open ending leaves room for wonder, for possibilities beyond what's told. Definitely recommended!