Hidden Protector : ROADTRIP (Preface)

It's really awesome to be back playing a game from June Studio! There's a style that runs through their games, a style that indicates straight away who you're playing a game by.

This one does certainly feel like that, although things are a bit more restricted gameplay-wise. But I think in the context of the game it works perfectly.

Taking on the role of Bobby, a human being transported to "paradise" by the quirky AI known as Mother (or MOM, if you're feeling that close to her), we make some conversation choices whilst hurtling in a very futuristic looking car towards our unknown destination.

The future world painted here is a bleak one (as is usually the way with stories set ahead of our time), and the conversations with Mother range from the seemingly banal (music tastes) to the downright concerning (terrorism and how ​to save humanity).

It's a great ride, and I highly recommend it to anyone looking for something they can sit back and watch unfold in front of them (with the chance to swerve the conversation one way or another). Good work again from this studio, always impressive!

https://youtu.be/9le7pykgMcA

I tried to be as constructive as I can and even if I criticize something, that does not mean that I am diminishing the hard work that has been done here, and that it discredits the good aspects of the game.

Main thoughts on the game:

Great visuals. Really like the futuristic setting, the atmosphere, the colors, even the rain looks better than in Cyberpunk. Superb job on the visuals and the atmosphere.

Great music. Really sells the vibe of the game. Really fits. Speaking of the music, there are some problems with the audio mixing in general. The music seems like it's mixed well, along with the sound effects, while the voice acting seems to drown in it. If you guys had a sound talent on the team with knowledge of mixing and mastering, that made the music, it's really strange that you left the rest of the game unmixed like that.

Getting back to the positives: Interesting setting. From the roads and cars, to tunnels and trains, parks or the night sky, or the sun peaking thru tall grass, the world looks like an interesting futuristic world, I would wanna explore. For example, there’s this sense of clutter in the road, I really like that. Futuristic, maybe even a little bit dystopian cluttered, noisy, I love it. Loved the vibe of this game.

It has an interesting idea for the plot, but the story feels kinda too short and sometimes, some aspects of the story, they just feel very cliché. Sometimes it feels that some themes get mentioned in the writing just to seem trendy and smart, but don’t really get fleshed out that much. But overall, I’d say, its a cool short story for a visual novel. With a fairly interesting twist, too.

Honestly, voice acting is a mixed bag of good and just OK. In terms of mic quality and some technical aspects of recording, mainly Drew's King’s voice acting has some problems, the AI (Nadia Mori) did a good job.

You guys should’ve worked extra hard to make sure that every aspect of the voices is flawless, since these voices carry the story and that makes me even more confused on how some big issues, that I will mention later, got overlooked.

Speaking of the cast, I think that the casting choices are fitting to the characters and I get what the creators had in mind when they chose these specific voices, to me the voices fit the characters well.

Personally, I wanted more cool, but subtle effects on the AI voice. Something that very gradually reinforces that underlying sense of coldness, creepiness of the AI. Makes the player feel gradually more uneasy, but not too much.

Also, I would’ve preferred if Drew had a better quality mic. His voice performance was OK, but could have been so much better, with a better mic and no audio peaking. You would think that one of the main voices of this game would at least take care of basic audio problems, mainly audio peaking :D… But no. No-one seems to care :D. No-one noticed the audio peaking during the game’s production??? Really bizarre.

Audio peaking is a major problem in Drew's recordings, that should've been solved and should not be in this game. It’s only in a couple of parts, but it is very noticeable and really, brutally takes you out of the experience. Cheapens the whole experience.

Also, in certain moments the subtitles don't match the voices. If you guys were going for a professional video game vibe, even small mistakes like that should've been fixed :D.

The clicking to advance without any explanation to do so can be annoying to some players.

The best graphic preset (cinematic) looks phenomenal, but lags the game. FPS drops from well above 60 or 80 to 19. I understand that this has something to do with UE and optimization. But if it’s hell to optimize that preset, then I guess it’s better to take it out. The second best preset, looks great. It's enough just to have two beautiful presets that work great.

Many of these issues I discussed, could be fixed and patched up and then the game would be a more polished, well rounded package, that would even be worthy of showing in some festivals and events and stuff. It’s very strange that some of these things were overlooked, given the fact that this was on Steam too, from what I know. How is something as jarring, as peaking audio levels (even if its just in a couple of parts) on the main VA get overlooked, or brushed away, is beyond my comprehension.

Despite all these issues, in general, I think, that the setting is super cool and intriguing. I wanted to experience more of this world. I wanted to learn more about Bobby and the AI, wanted more of the story. That’s a good thing, I think.

So in its current state, honestly, I can only give it a 6 out of 10.

Hey it was a cool ride & small story that you told. I know that many aren't in to the whole "Visual Novel" thing but I love them & it's always a fun ride to see what comes from them. Again cool story & product that you had. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JXmJKa07Cb8&ab_channel=ImaginedBroom18