Hate Plus Reviews

This is a great story that hits a lot harder in 2024 than I imagine it did when it originally released. That said, while the story is superb, the execution is lacking. Having the ability to read a visual novel in essentially any order you want means that there can be no real pacing, something that is only sort of addressed with the real life time gates and later game file unlocks. After reading the last file and getting my ending dialogue, I was left with a feeling of "that's it? there's nothing else?" Still, I highly recommend this one, especially given today's political climate.

Where Analogue: A Hate Story was about investigating a disaster and slowly piecing together the truth in an organic fashion, Hate Plus is about reading a bunch of walls of text while an NPC reacts to them and tries to tell you how you're supposed to feel. It's extraordinarily lame. Oh, and cake pictures.

Incredible, emotive, and full of surprises, that's what this game is. The sequel of Analogue: A hate story, and the series last entry it's probably, the best attempt to mix real life with your own feelings towards the game. I mean, what other game makes you bake a FREAKIN' CAKE IN REAL LIFE so you can snapshot it with your waifu to get an achievement? I'm pretty sure that CoD or Battelfield doesn't. Even with the time restraint between days (You can skip it through less legal means) may seem a bother, actually makes you yearn for more. The story is top notch, every one of the AI's will make you discover different details that makes every route unique (The Harem is the most unique though). Bonus points for having Analogue: A hate Story with complete saves. This VN is a surprise, and it's worth every penny. 10/10, Needs more CG's? The soundtrack has the answer. It's catchy as hell.

Possible spoilers in this review. I will try to keep it to low-key spoilers, but be warned regardless. I'm not as impressed with this game as opposed to its predecessor. The original was a tragedy about how a regressed society can put their nail in their own coffin to seal their ultimate demise by being too rigid in their beliefs. The premise behind this game is in a similar vein; it shows how an advanced society based on future technology can regress down to pre-modern times. The story itself is pretty good. The council of the Mugunghwa has a major problem threatening to revolutionize the government aboard the ship. A movement has been gaining steam and will hit a critical mass within a year and what the council needs is a bold plan to make this movement lose steam until it becomes a non-issue. *Mute, the security AI and one of the councillors aboard the ship, has a bold plan in mind. It sounds great in theory, but there's one problem with this: The plan involves putting Councillor Ryu, Councillor of Captaincy, to the Chief Councillor seat. Why is this a bad thing? Because Ryu is the man who, seven years later, will overthrow the government and create the regressed, patriarchal society that would eventually cause the downfall of the ship. This isn't a major spoiler by any means. If you start on *Mute's route, she will make it known immediately that this is the man who became the first Emperor of the new society. The main story is how this man slowly took over the government over seven long years in order to create the perfect society of his choosing. The other main feature of this game over the predecessor is how much more emphasis it places on society outside of the primary plotline. It shows a famous actress who falls in love with a peasant girl, and eventually loses both her love and her career to the changing society. Another woman who slowly figures out why the shipwide birth rate is steadily decreasing despite everything else in her life doing its best to prevent it. A nobleman who falls in love with another man only to have his heart broken. Society and how it changes over these several years causes huge shifts in these people's lives, and the setting feels very fleshed out and deliberate as a result. This is an excellent way to use non-linear storytelling, and I have to commend Love for how this was done. So why exactly did I give this a non-recommended rating? It's simple. Outside of the logs themselves, the game is a huge step down. The AIs in the original story had very clear reasons for being there and their stories in of themselves were a big part of what made it so deep and enjoyable. The sequel... much less so. *Mute has an interesting storyline since she has no memory of anything that her former self had done in any of these logs, plus all the cultural things that don't fit what she thinks is right (having only experienced the post-government takeover) makes her a much more respectable character than she was in the original. Something happens that throws a wrench in this completely, however, and that ruins the suspence for me. Hyun-Ae... I don't even know what happened. Her personality from the first game is intact and shines through, but that's all there is here. There's nothing that stands out about her that *Mute doesn't already have except for the fact that she takes her relationship with the protagonist investigator very seriously. That by itself isn't negative, but it arises with one of my biggest pet peeves this game hits: forcing people to wait. I personally hate this design choice and I don't feel it was the optimal one here. The primary draw is the story inside the log files, but the story outside of them is still a big part of what made the original game good. Love clearly tries to have the same effect in the sequel, but the forced waiting comes off to me as trying way too hard to force it. The mandatory 12 hour wait between log sessions (of which there are 3; I'm fully aware there is a skip button, but it's very clearly meant to be played without using it) arbitrarily breaks up the story. I'm not entirely sure what kind of emotional buttons its trying to press, which is worrying when annoyance is the primary emotion I was feeling. The other big issue is the very beginning of Day 3 in Hyun-Ae's route, where she forces you to wait several minutes using the subtext of expecting you to bake a cake. It's very clear what Love was going for by having this in the game, but it's extremely awkwardly placed (come on, I started day 3 to finish reading all the logs... I have to WAIT now?) and it feels like a shallow attempt to force Hyun-Ae's route to have some meat to it. It's not conducive to good characterization in my eyes and it ruins the flow of the story more than it already has. I haven't played the harem route yet and I won't until I decide I want to go for the nine day achievement, so I will refrain from commenting on it here. All in all, this is a good sequel if you want just to know the context as to why the Mugunghwa was so far in the past in the original. Otherwise, this isn't worth the money in my eyes.

I use to laugh when I'd look at the message boards and I'd see all those geeky otaku making cakes for their digital girlfriends and giving them presents on special days. Even though this isn't a dating simulator, I feel as though I can finally understand what it truly means to be two-dimensionally in love. My first waifu will always be there to tease, to play with, to share her wit and insight. Kind, sweet, and only a little murderous, she'll always have a place in my heart. For her, I'd eat a cake every day. The other one, well, I'll never get tired of looking into those vivid blue eyes, appreciating that cat like grin that creeps up on her face, her elegant way of dress or how in a moment she can deal out a harsh and shunning attitude that whips my heart full of passion. The beauty of it all is that no matter how many times she may wish to die, we shall always be in the perpetual spring of marriage, for there will always be a reset, and day three, will never come again. Not now, not ever.

God damn it, *Mute. A word of warning: If you're easily depressed or heartbroken, DO NOT play this game on *Mute's route. To everyone else, enjoy, but be warned it'll be a pretty disturbing journey. I rarely recommend games, but this one is definitely worth it. ...damn it, *Mute...

Oh, *Hyun-ae, let's solve mysteries together forever~ Hate Plus is a fantastic... something between a visual novel and a kinetic novel. Both this game and it's predecessor, Analogue, aren't a tangled spiderweb mess of routes, choices, decisions, Good and Bad Ends. There aren't many branching decision points in these games (Hate Plus doesn't even really have any), which kind of removes a lot of their "gaminess." That's okay with me; the visual/kinetic novel genre exists somewhere in the digital melting pot between traditional literature, comic books and video games. That's pretty great, in my opinion. I won't go into the story because it would be rife with spoilers, but I'll talk some about the game itself. Hate Plus is even more linear than Analogue, which is okay. The bulk of the "gameplay" is spent reading over recovered logs from the derelict generation ship [i]Mugunghwa[/i]. You've got the assistance of whichever AI you either choose or carry over from your Analogue clear data. Depending on the choices made in Analogue or when starting a new game, you may have a different relationship with either *Hyun-ae or *Mute. The meat of the game's story is told through the logs and the AI's commentary on the logs. Because your ship was damaged somehow, you have a limited amount of data you can sift through every 12 hours, which forces the game to be played over a period of at least 39-ish real-time hours (though you can circumvent this, but the author will call you a "jerkface"). Every time you read through six logs or read a log that's very significant to the plot, your AI partner will want to discuss something with you. Depending on your progress, this could either be a discussion about your relationship or about the mystery of the [i]Mugunghwa[/i]'s reversion to a primitive Neo-Joseon culture. Occasionally you'll receive a message from your employer or other people, usually while you are extracting new data from the encrypted logs. And that's pretty much the extent of the gameplay. There really isn't much "game" here; it's entirely about the narrative. And that's okay. The narrative is excellent; Christine Love is a fantastic writer. As a writer myself, she makes me jealous. The logs and your progress through them are carefully metered so you're slowly drip-fed the main story while seemingly being distracted by random bits and pieces that don't seem relevant. They become very relevant later. The plot itself, like its predecessor, is [i]seriously messed up stuff[/i] interspersed with little rejuvenating isles of humor and heartwarming. While I was going through the game (I was playing *Hyun-ae's route; I intend to finish *Mute's route eventually) there were many points where I desperately welcomed *Hyun-ae's insistence that we stop and chat. Some of the stories you read in the logs are soul-crushingly sad. Spending time "talking" with *Hyun-ae and her generally ridiculous levels of adorable sweetness balanced out the intense tragedy of the story from the past. I haven't completely finished *Mute's route, but her "breather episodes" seem to largely be composed of humor (and that's great, too). As the plot progressed further and further, the hopelessness of many past characters' situations started to press heavily upon me, drawing me deeper and deeper into the self-contained world and its terrible drama. That isn't to say Hate Plus doesn't have problems. It has problems. The "real-life" time limit is my biggest personal gripe, even though you [i]can[/i] circumvent it. As a general rule I hate it when games try to control the rate at which I play them. I can't stand turn limits, limited numbers of saves, save points, diminishing returns on experience points gain (I especially hate daily quests in MMOs, but that's a rant for another day). My second-biggest problem was the UI seemed to be very sluggish in responding to my mouse commands. Scrolling through the logs seemed to take far more "spins" of my mouse wheel than I would need to execute to scroll a web page in Chrome, for example. I was spinning the mouse wheel so much my index finger started to get a little numb! I tried lots of keyboard keys in an attempt to find some other way to scroll, but nothing seemed to work. Trying to grab the slider didn't work, either. Occasionally clicks on UI elements wouldn't register. I don't think these issues were part of the "interface screw" from the ship's low power and damage. A lot of people seem to have another major gripe: the infamous "cake" sequence in *Hyun-ae's route. To be honest, I actually loved this part. Partly because I really did find it completely, adorably cute, and partly because it gave me a brief respite from the [i]soul-crushingly depressing things I was reading[/i]. I happened to be playing at 3AM, but I still went in the kitchen and made a cake (it was pretty tasty, so it worked out). I understand why the developer chose to add this, and I can understand and appreciate why people would be annoyed by it, but I really loved the fact that it was in the game. Hate Plus is a fantastic visual novel and I'd recommend it to almost anyone, especially fans of science fiction. The plot will make very little sense if you haven't played Analogue, however, so I recommend buying them both and playing them both. Don't let the poor "hours of play per dollar" ratio scare you off; there's some really great story here! I will warn you though that if you suffer from massive testosterone poisoning, you will probably find both games to be very uncomfortable. Both can be [i]aggressively girly[/i], especially on *Hyun-ae's routes. For me, that's a big win. The gaming industry as a whole is completely dominated by titles that are aggressively hypermasculine. It's nice to have something that more caters to my side of things.

Hate Plus is the sequel to "Analogue: A Hate Story" from 2012, continuing the story between you and your computer wife, or just a friend side investigator. After loving the previous game, can the sequel step up to the plate and be just as good? Or even better?! Perhaps... Story: The story is focused on the events after Analogue, with you traveling with your selected A.I. partner to Earth and finally finish your mission, however it's 3 days long and the dialogue option is messed up just like last time. Luckily, your A.I. friend finds some logs about the history of the Mugunghwa before the Pale Bride (events of the first game). The game still has *Hyun-ae and *Mute, luckily not having to complete half the game this time to pick your character to playthrough with like last game. The logs in the game are even better than the last, it focuses on the previous events before the Pale Bride incident and has Old *Mute involved, a previous A.I. security version of *Mute, and your job is to find out what happened exactly to Old *Mute and the ship before the Pale Bride. Just as the previous game, the title sticks through the entire game. Hate Plus. It's a game that you'll find to be sickening with certain events, and it has many hateful characters and moments (In a good way!). Same as Analogue, Christine Love shows us how superb she is at writing as the logs you sift through have an emotional punch to them all, and tells a little tale for each of the characters you read about, as some logs are just diary pages or even council meetings. Many logs are hard to read for either hateful reasons, or pure sadness; which Analogue did do, however, I feel that Hate Plus delivers an even more emotional tale with *Mute's side of the story, never before have I had such twisted emotions in a game and long after completing, I was still thinking about the events that occurred in the logs, along with the events that were happening with me and my A.I. wife. However I feel as though *Hyun-ae's side is a bit too...cheery, or off topic. *Mute's side is figuring out what was going on with her old self, and how she's going to cope with the events from the past, however *Hyun-ae consists of cake baking, chatting, and just being lovey to each other. I suppose it's expected since *Hyun-ae was the focus in the previous game, however even *Mute in the previous game was more focused on the story as well. That's the only issue I have with the story here, but with *Mute's side, it's just perfect. Gameplay: Surprisingly, the gameplay here in a visual novel style game, has improved quite well. Unlike the previous game, your A.I. partner reads with you with each log and gives you their thoughts on certain things in the logs while reading it. It gives more realism since in the previous game you would just talk to them after and didn't know if they were reading it with you, or they already read it beforehand... There is one other major change than in the previous game. You have a certain amount of energy to download logs each day, ones you've downloaded all you can in one day and read them all, you have to power down and it's a literal 12 hour waiting process. For some, it was a bad choice, taking away the reading from the player for nearly the rest of the day. However I feel like it was a sensible choice and I was able to think things through more, just to focus on one day instead of trying to cram all the info of the entire game in one play session. Whereas most gamers this year are picking The Last of Us, BioShock Infinite, GTA V for their GOTY. I'd have to safely say, no other game this year has been as amazing as Hate Plus in my eyes. No other game has twisted my emotions this much or had such an impact on me. While Analogue is an amazing game, Hate Plus is just a few steps away from being a perfect title. If you haven't played either, I suggest picking both up. I guarantee you'll be loving every second of it....and hating every minute. 9.5/10

An ex-terminally-ill Korean AI girl from the distant future used this game to emotionally blackmail me into making an actual honest-to-god IRL cake. 10/10 would recommend. (Basically, it's the Portal 2 to Analogue's Portal. If you like actual engaging characters (instead of flat VN stereotypes), moral ambiguity, tragedy, mostly fanservice-free lesbian and gay relationships, futuristic spaceship dystopias, political maneuvering, reading other people's letters, or cake, buy this game. You won't regret it.)

Hate Plus is a different kind of game, and that's not a bad thing if you are looking for something new to try. Instead of being a puzzle, adventure, or action title, it is literally an interactive novel. The only "puzzle," if you will, is attempting to piece together what happened to space vessle Mugunghwa before the events of the previous game, Analogue: A Hate Story. Because there are some concepts originally introduced in that game, it's helpful to have played it before diving into Hate Plus, but it's not essential. If you completed Analogue, however, you have the choice of either importing data from your save files or starting clean. How the story progresses and the interaction with your on-screen sidekick is completely dependent on which of the two AIs from the previous game you are partnered with--or if you are partnered with both. *Hyun-Ae is an adorable and somewhat naive girl with a big heart and an extremely tortured history (see Analogue for the whole story); *Mute is a security AI who is much more abrasive and sometimes struggles to fit in but interesting in her own right. The "game" aspects of Hate Plus are minimal, even more so than in Analogue. The only things you do are choose from a series of log files to read, address your AI when she wants your attention, and generally read along with your sidekick. I'm not a person who likes to read books anymore, but presented in this format, the reading is engaging and fun. But don't take this to suggest that this is a PG story for anyone to read as there are many mature themes and outright NSFW topics discussed within some of the logs. But perhaps the most fun is with interacting with your chosen AI. She will ask you to click on her from time to time to ask a question or discuss something with you; often, you'll be presented with a wheel of possible responses. There's no right or wrong, but how you answer definitely can influence her perception of you. If *Hyun-Ae is your sidekick, you'll even have the opportunity to bake an actual CAKE for an achievement. (Unlike Portal, this cake is NOT a lie.) And if both *Hyun-Ae and *Mute are along for the ride, their banter together is really funny at times. In a game like this, presentation is everything, and Hate Plus does not disappoint, with charming graphics for the two AI's, a nice, clean interface serving as the ship's computer console, and an excellent soundtrack by Isaac Schankler, who also composed the music for Analogue. My favorite song of the soundtrack is called "Vision," which is heavily played during the playthrough with *Hyun-Ae. It's a beautiful song, one I find myself listening to quite frequently OUTSIDE of the game. I've heard very few video game songs that I can listen to in that way (the theme "Icarus" from Deus Ex: Human Revolution being one of the only others). It's hard to imagine a better interface or a more listenable soundtrack for the content of the game. I did find a few minor faults with the game, however. One is the fact that after you download so many logs, you have to save your progress and quit. This is a mechanism built into the game design; the number of logs you can pull is directly linked to the power remaining in your character's ship, and when it drops to 1%, you have to end the game, thus giving the batteries time to recharge for the next session. This takes 12 real-time hours; there IS a way to circumvent this if you want. It's an interesting mechanic and not entirely artificial as it's linked to the story, but it would be nice to not have to use what amounts to a cheat to bypass it if you want to spend more time reading through the story. Additionally, I found control non-responsive more than in Analogue; I'm not sure if this is a problem or if it's another mechanic linked to the whole low-power-on-the-ship aspect of the story, but it's a minor irritation, though not one that I would consider off-putting. And then there's the possible red herring of an achievement: Level Four Revive Materia. To this day, it appears NOBODY has been able to unlock it based on Steam's global stats (I checked this again before writing this). I've researched this on-line along with a number of other players, and it appears this achievement is not actually possible. However, there has been no word from creator Christine Love about this that I am aware of. I don't consider myself an achievement snob, but for anyone who would like to 100% this game on an achievements level, this may be off-putting until a way to unlock it becomes more clear. In that regard, anyone who considers achievements to be an important part of the experience should approach with a degree of caution. UPDATE AND SPOILER ALERT, 7-29-2014: A new article on Kotaku confirms that this achievement is 100% IMPOSSIBLE to obtain: http://kotaku.com/the-steam-achievement-that-nobody-unlocked-1610073943 Another possible turn-off for some is the straight story aspect of the game. Even Analogue presented one fairly frantic and involving puzzle around the middle of the game in which you used that game's console to enter a series of commands to stop a nuclear meltdown. Hate Plus does not include any true puzzles at all, with the possible exception of a sequence between you and the two AIs if both are accompanying you; I can't say more without revealing a MAJOR spoiler. But those looking even for minor brain-teasers or anything other than straight reading and interacting with your AI(s) may not enjoy Hate Plus as much. But for anyone willing to approach with an open mind and take a chance on a relatively new gaming concept, there's a lot to love about Hate Plus. Put it this way: Analogue and Hate Plus are just about the ONLY games on Steam I have paid full price for without waiting for a sale, and the demo for Analogue hooked me on the idea almost immediately. Granted, the games are not expensive to start with, but the fact that I was willing to pay the release price is a testament to how much I like Love's ability to craft this type of video game. I'm looking forward to more such games from her in the future. Hate Plus is definitely a winner. 8.0 out of 10