Neighboring Islands Reviews

This game was either written by someone for whom English is a second language, or it has been translated by a machine/internet programme. Some really nice artwork. A good idea; but the reality is that it isn't a pleasant experience, due to the abysmal prose.

Hey Dudes... i recommand this games for people who likes : - pirates - boobs - cruelty !!!

I couldn't finish this. After watching the Black Sails tv show I kind of got into pirates but the graphics feel like they're making up for the story, which is kind of simple.

I wanted to like this game. It seemed like it had an interesting story line, decent graphics for a choose-your-own-path type of story, initially interesting characters. Admittedly, was enticed due to the clear gore shown in the thumbnails on the store page; again, you don't usually see that sort of touch in these games, not to that extent. Once I started playing, however, the cracks in the ceiling started to show, so to speak. Chapter 1 wasn't horrible, but started the clearly repetitive nature of the game mechanics---that is, you pick a choice, and if it isn't the right one, you die. There isn't a lot of leeway as far as that goes. This applies to basically every chapter, mind you. Wrong choice? Nope, sorry, you died, and rather quickly. Another issue I have is with the laziness of the use of story-panels in telling the story. Oh, hey, look, it's the same picture of people traveling through the jungle as the last two days, but trust me, this situation is different! The chicken is cooked, but it looks just as raw as when the scene started! Little details like that wouldn't have been impossible to add, and even subtle differences would have been nice. Speaking of repetitive, holy #%($ing same 3 bars of music, Batman. But getting back to the story (warning, possible spoiler alerts), it felt like it had so much promise, before devolving into the same-old, same-old, "HERE'S A RANDOM WHITE DUDE WHO WILL SURELY SAVE US ALL!"-schtick. I mean, the game is pretty sexist and racist (could be argued against, for "historical accuracy" reasons or whatever bullcrap), but even in a 'city' where the majority of the population is black, they're talked about as inferior and mindless natives. Women are only in the story as sexual interests and bumbling idiots who start out as seemingly knowing what they're doing---until our favorite White Savior shows up, and shows the silly wench how things work! I mean, he's new here, he's only been on this island for a few days, but he's definitely so much smarter about this place he KNOWS NOTHING ABOUT----vs the woman who has lived here, and been leader #1's right-hand for years, who somehow 'just gets lost.' The warriors who have lived here and fought the various fauna of the island? No idea how to fight or deal with the creatures they have supposedly dealt with for years---better hope White Savior can save them with his incredible tactical prowess, before they go mindlessly fighting to their deaths! Listen, I get that some games are still going to have a male protagonist, and there's nothing wrong with that. It's just, it's 2019. You can make more substantial black and/or female characters with more depth than this. Heck, you could bother to give ALL of the characters more depth, instead of using outdated and tired stereotypes that everyone has seen before. I don't care that a female isn't there to save the day, cool, whatever----but does EVERY SINGLE FEMALE CHARACTER need to only be focused on for sex? The BBF, the skinnier BF, the slave BF, they're all essentially blow-up sex dolls, with about as much personality. The chef is just a stereotypical horny Frenchman. Vikings apparently exist here, historically-non-existent, stereotypical horned-helmets and all. I mean, come on, put SOME effort into researching the people and cultures you're representing here. This game seemed to have real potential, but just sorta feels like it fell flat due to laziness and heavy reliance on old tropes. (edit: Yes, I get this game is a few years old. That's still no excuse.) Granted, I only paid $.82 for this game. Honestly, I'm glad I didn't spend anything more on it. As much as I paid for it, it feels like that's about as much effort as the devs put into writing this story. So... I guess that's fair? I mean in all seriousness, I would pay the full game price just so I wouldn't have to hear the brain-torture that is the musical score playing in my head for the next few hours.....especially since, despite exiting the game, the background music has yet to stop. X_X

I really tried to play this game and like it, but all you do is read text. Occasionally, every three or four pages of this e-book, you are to click a choice; followed by another 3 pages to read. It´s well written, though, but in case I want to read, I take a book, not a video game. So... well... it´s a book, a narration mostly, accompanied by depictions of the story.

Did I pay for this? I hope not, because for a text based adventure, the writing is poor. Maybe it's translated from another language, but it's about as bad as leaving a color blind person in charge of graphics for a game. I had to click next for almost 3 minutes to finally get to a point where I got to make a choice. Not very exciting. It's filled with bad stereotypes, cliche writing, and honestly feels like a game that came out in 1987 that got a new face-lift. Well, maybe a homebrew game from 1987. Publishers tended to have a better handle on game they released than this crap monster.

This might, at least, have been a dramatic choose-your-own-adventure type romp if it were not for the horrendous English translations. Or what I can only hope are translations, as no native English speaker should use syntax so badly. On the upside, the graphics and music are decent, on the downside...everything else...

The game is obviously incomplete, but what's there is pretty good. A 70/100 effort. [u]The good[/u] Huge and convoluted for a Ren'Py game Bright and crisp visuals Entertaining, deep story Lots of gruesome ways to die (yes, this is a good thing in a game like this) [u]The bad[/u] Game is incomplete Some translation and phrasing issues Calling an overweight African woman "Mambo" is probably not on in 2018

A pirate-themed Visual Novel! Now that’s something you don’t see everyday, on Steam. In the game The Neighboring Islands, you not only lead a whole ship and piaratms, but also the whole game. The game conveys all the colors in the events, which you must direct in the right direction, in order to achieve a pleasant ending.

"Please Note- Review was written when the game was just realesed and several things which are mentioned below might have been added/changed, such as the story being fleshed out with more of it added to this game!" With a CYOA style of choices that moves the story forward or present you with a game over, I would say that this game is something you should keep at some lenghts. This is due to it being a not yet fully finished story, the game ends after one final decision that has two endings. You are either choosing to die, or to move the story onward which isn't yet part of the game. You get a To Be Continued ending. So at this time, I wouldn't recommend it if you expect a complete CYOA adventure. Because it isn't a complete CYOA adventure, yet. The translation is spotty at best, with some small mistakes here and there, *including a complete sentence in russian out of the blue which I don't think is supposed to be there.* Some words were either missing or perhaps the author missed them during the translation. The text and dialouge is translated to english from what I belive is russian and it shows when you read it. The artstyle and what I would like to describe as assets aren't horrible to look at but it doesn't show life. I saw people set out in a 'scene' (for example a ship) with dialouge being the only thing that moved for most of the time. No gesture changes or changes to the character's stance did I see as I read through one scene where the characters could have been animated much better. Moved or made to show that they expressed what they said. Not being statues for so much of the time. I honestly would like to see more, but at this stage, with such little story it has I don't think it is worth buying. Unless they add more of the story which is what the game is about. Wait some time on this one! Please note! According to the developer the next part is being worked on and will be released to the game as free DLC! *The untranslated text has been fixed by the developer!