Kabaret Reviews

have not finished it yet but i like it

The storytelling, theme, and art are all amazing. The story is quite dark and depressing. A good visual novel game with an authentic unique touch of South East Asia.

Scales, Meat, Tea, Oh My! Honestly everything I could want in a game and more. Very interesting and very cool, this funky hotel will be living in my head for quite a while.

---{ Graphics }--- ☐ You forget what reality is ☑ Beautiful ☐ Good ☐ Decent ☐ Bad ☐ Don‘t look too long at it ☐ MS-DOS ---{ Gameplay }--- ☐ Very good ☑ Good ☐ It's just gameplay ☐ Mehh ☐ Watch paint dry instead ☐ Just don't ---{ Audio }--- ☑ Eargasm ☐ Very good ☐ Good ☐ Not too bad ☐ Bad ☐ I'm now deaf ---{ Audience }--- ☑ Kids ☑ Teens ☑ Adults ☑ Grandma ---{ PC Requirements }--- ☐ Check if you can run paint ☑ Potato ☐ Decent ☐ Fast ☐ Rich boi ☐ Ask NASA if they have a spare computer ---{ Difficulty }--- ☑ Just press 'W' ☐ Easy ☐ Easy to learn / Hard to master ☐ Significant brain usage ☐ Difficult ☐ Dark Souls ---{ Grind }--- ☑ Nothing to grind ☐ Only if u care about leaderboards/ranks ☐ Isn't necessary to progress ☐ Average grind level ☐ Too much grind ☐ You'll need a second life for grinding ---{ Story }--- ☐ No Story ☐ Some lore ☐ Average ☐ Good ☑ Lovely ☐ It'll replace your life ---{ Game Time }--- ☐ Long enough for a cup of coffee ☐ Short ☑ Average ☐ Long ☐ To infinity and beyond ---{ Price }--- ☐ It's free! ☑ Worth the price ☐ If it's on sale ☐ If u have some spare money left ☐ Not recommended ☐ You could also just burn your money ---{ Bugs }--- ☐ Never heard of ☑ Minor bugs ☐ Can get annoying ☐ ARK: Survival Evolved ☐ The game itself is a big terrarium for bugs ---{ ? / 10 }--- ☐ 1 ☐ 2 ☐ 3 ☐ 4 ☐ 5 ☐ 6 ☐ 7 ☑ 8 ☐ 9 ☐ 10

This is going to have to go thumbs down because the question is whether I could recommend this game and I wouldn't. That doesn't mean it wasn't a beautiful piece of art in may ways... Pros: + Gorgeous style. Loved the artwork of the characters. The interpretations of the minor monsters mentioned after reading what they were, very fun. + The atmosphere and music of the Kabaret itself is mysterious and intriguing and had nice areas. + And I do like a dark VN. I love the obvious danger to the scenario for the main character. If your decisions mattered more this would've been a great place for further consequences... maybe even routes to character death? Still, I liked the ones he faced. + Please more south asian folklore cause yes. I recognized a few creatures, met a few new ones I liked. + Loved this style of implementing Malaysian words. I've seen other small studios try and fail with this but the hover-text and dictionary was a clever way to do this. + Fun mini games. + While I had issues with events/saving, the pacing was steady and dialogue not too overwhelming. + Some very intriguing story scenarios informing the plot. Cons: + I need not mention what others have on manual save points and other missing VN mechanics. This could've been minor, but stands out with the other cons. + Not sure the point of pacifist and slyness routes when you approach some scenes with blunt violence and humiliation anyway. + Wish the effort to get perfect game scores or receive items was more rewarding than a few extra lines in a scene. + Plot holes and unexplained intrigues. Also easy to accidentally convince people to leave. + I liked the character ideas, but they often show little depth. Female friend characters are just there to flirt with /spoiler [spoiler] and then all get murdered which felt shallow.[/spoiler] Some of the most interesting friends, you hear their story and then barely speak again. + I wish some of the filler dialogue (with filler NPCS) was optional. Being forced to talk to everyone to progress was a chore, particularly when a lot of NPCs told you nothing of interest or inform. This got real bumpy near the end without the minigames to break things up. + I didn't like the opening... I like an unsettling story but I just didn't get how a lot of the occurrences fit the point. It just felt bad/heavy to witness without serving the story much other than a few key fixations. [spoiler]And yet another dead woman.[/spoiler] + You have to follow a main character who is hard to connect with. His 'bad personality' in the opening made it hard to care for his fate. And while he changes a little to suit his circumstances he doesn't grow. Instead he claims to be trying for the better while whip-lashing in moods to no satisfaction. It was lacking focus and hard to follow. It's frustrating since this game has all the right tools and ideas for a really good ride and kinda crashes and burns in its execution. Adding in the alleged studio harassment (sadly common in game studios) this just doesn't seem the game worth trying. I definitely hope to see more games like it though.

Reminder Persona Theory Games has experience of sexual violence and a poor working environment https://virtualseasia.com/toxic-workplace-behavior-sexual-harassment-persona-theory-games/

Very nice art style, music and theme songs. I also love the mythology behind it. But sadly the story is weak. It's ok to have a pre-set character in visual novels, but in Kabaret the main character is not quite likeable. Maybe the story try to deliver certain moral through the character, but I can hardly link to him. About the machanism, no manual save, no skip, no fast-forward..... What's the point for a visual novel to not have these functions. I feel like I was forced to watch a slow and bad writting film. Sadly the beautiful graphics and music can't counterbalance the flaws.

Back when I was a preteen (ca. 15 years ago), visual novel games already had functions for skipping, returning, making several saves, and auto-reading. This game lacks all of these mechanics. No big deal, at least the story is good, right? Right, yeah, no. There is little depth to the story, and it is difficult to get attached to the characters; your choices matter little as well. What I absolutely loved is the art style, but really, I would have rather bought some pretty print to hang on my wall than this game.

At this point, I've played and seen both endings (pro and anti) for Garuda and Caretaker. Sadly, this game lacks of VN thingy; no skip dialogue, no manual save, no fast-forward or auto button too 😅 penat klik satu satu. Autosave is not enough for me to explore the game casually. Hence, replayability is almost none for me (but hey, I managed to finish my 2nd playthrough!) I do enjoyed the stories in early chapters but there are plotholes here and there towards the ending. What makes me okay with the game is the visual, very stunning and beautiful. And their theme songs, waloweh~ they are great too! But, that's all this game can offer. So, maybe I'm 50-50 on recommending this game to others. If you still want to play Kabaret casually, just take the risk 😉 Update: Started my 3rd playthru to see Minister's endings, gave up halfway sebab penat 😅 aaaa sorry!

Played this game, found the art style and setting quite compelling as a someone who is born and grew up in Southeast Asia myself. However the story had a weird vibe and does not compel me to return to the game after a few hours of play. Decided to leave a review though in recent light of allegations of sexual harassment from the studio. As someone who had worked in game dev myself, this is a shame. I personally cannot recommend this game to anyone, do not support dev studios who turn a blind eye to sexual harassment.