HIVESWAP: ACT 2 Reviews

also fun

Honestly, the amount of content and replayability factor coupled with a ton of hidden achievements made this game super worthwhile, especially if you already love homestuck and want to be more immersed in the world of Alternia. You can really tell the love that's been put into this game as it has so much attention to detail that I don't think could be uncovered with just one playthrough. Especially the Jade-Tealblood Trial cause I surely was not expecting a full on Ace Attorney sequence in the game.

Absolute must-play for devoted Homestuck fans. An incredibly charming journey through Alternia meeting many trolls up close and personal, this definitely scratches that Homestuck prose/dialogue style itch that fans may have if it's been a while since they last read the comic itself. Cannot wait for act 3; I've been on the edge of my seat waiting for it for years and I know whenever it gets finished it will be a delight. If I had anything negative to say, it would be that despite being a huge Ace Attorney fan myself, the AA homage section of this game maybe runs a bit too long. But that also very well may just be an issue with my personal attention span. It's very well executed, just maybe should've been cut down for pacing a little bit. Not a massive downside, and certainly not enough to stop me ever picking up the game again.

This review contains spoilers of the story sections seen in the game. While it's a bumpy ride to say the least, Hiveswap Act 2 is where I feel that the Hiveswap series finally finds its footing. Act 1 was a nice novelty and Friendsim was a mixed bag with highs and lows, Act 2 just really gets to what I would want out of a game based off of Homestuck. The majority of Act 2 takes place on a train as you move up through train cars that coincide with the blood castes. This immediately puts an interesting spin on the story as Joey and Xefros are continually set further and further out of their element while dealing with the upper rungs of trollian society. The first few sections play similar to Act 1 where you progress through the game in typical point & click fashion and just comes across as alright. However it's around halfway through the train that you reach one of the major sections, featuring the teal and jade caste who also so happen to have the most interesting characters from Friendsim. The bulk of Act 2 is spent in a trial where the player has to try to put together evidence, and while I feel the case itself wasn't the best put together, engaging each character and finding different dialogue trees led to me being invested all the way through the end. The train car after the trial is the lowpoint of the game for me, it just sort of drags on. While there's a few interesting moments, it sort of loses the momentum for me that the trial was building. However the final stretch of the train took the game to a whole different level that really raised the stakes of the story and had me actually concerned and caring, a sign that the story is building its characters well. Fantastic ending that makes me all on board for Act 3 when that comes around. I give Act 2 a respectable recommendation, it's really rough around the edges but was a wild ride through the end. I'm fully on board Hiveswap now as a spin-off series.