Hello there! Back again with me, the sole writer of this blog. In the midst of countless activities in the 2nd semester(which aren't actually that many XD), again I'm here with another game review. As for now, I'm bringing to you another game review, this time its a review of Tasokare Hotel.
Tasokare Hotel can be considered as one of the best interactive visual novel games I've played as of this year. This game was released in the Play Store back in 2019 after their first project, that being The Prison Boys. Tasokare Hotel was developed and published by ESC-APE by SEEC. The name surely does sound familiar as it's the same developer of Alice's Spiritual Judge, that was released in the following three months. It's by far one of their biggest game I've played so far, with the size of more than 300MB, which kinda makes me hesitant to play but oh boy! How wrong I was, despite the relatively enormous size of it, this game offers an exciting and immersive experience! Let's get into it, now!
The Story
At the start of the game, we found our character lying on the ground bleeding, after that scene we will find ourselves on a seashore. With no recollection whatsoever, we stroll around the vicinity until we come across the sole building there, a hotel. Later on we will be welcomed by the manager of the installation, who reveals to us that we are at the Tasokare Hotel, a hotel between life and death, where souls who don't know whether they are alive or dead and until they know the answer they will reside there. This hotel also serves as a means for the people to gather the infos about themselves, as the room we are given will somewhat resemble aspects of their lives. After some searching around, we finally find our character identity, her name is Neko Tsukahara.
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| Arrival on Tasokare Hotel |
Unfortunately, we still do not know whether she's alive or dead. So until we uncover that fact, we decided to work there along other occupants to kill time and hey, by some luck, to get the fact itself. As we work there, we'll get to know some of our peers, from a 28 years old man to a junior high school girl, who just like us, has yet to figure out their fate. We will also come meet the new comers of the hotel, the people you'll help in their search of their past life and perhaps some of their entanglement in your fate. The plot has some similarity with that of Bear's Restaurant from OdenCat, but it also diverges later down road, stirring away from it.
The Gameplay
The gameplay Tasokare Hotel offers are quite variative. Here we can see some mechanisms seen in their previous games, like the search(where you'll look for items in certain area) and interrogate(where you'll interrogate certain character by showing evidence and pointing out facts) which can be seen in Alice's Spiritual Judge and The Prison Boys. Tasokare Hotel apparently inherit The Prison Boys play system where it's based on tickets. Every day we are given 5 tickets, leaving out tickets we can sometimes obtain from the daily login and gacha. Once we're out of ticket, you can either wait until tomorrow(it will be replenished at 5 A.M), test your luck at the gacha, or you can just buy the tickets. I found this mechanism somewhat acceptable, more because how intrigued I was by the story so I just accept the wait, although this system makes the game take too long to finish. Calculating the amount of chapters(for a complete gameplay), it would take more than a month to finish it for free, but I also figure that it's their way of keeping our excitement to continue Neko's journey.
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| The stages |
The game also has branched endings, aside from the usual dead ends we may get(dead ends: ending you get when you died/failed somewhere in the game), we are offered many endings in each chapter, not to mention the multiple endings in the final chapter. If The Prison Boys only has two main endings(endings you get at the end of the games), they really went extra miles with Tasokare Hotel, as I mentioned before, with giving it more 3 endings. The game also has some minigames, the first one being the gacha machine(you can play it around 9 times a day) and the my room minigame where you will be gathering points to continue certain chapters. As complicated the game may seem, the truth is that its not. Upon finishing the game, we can also see the character profiles where artworks of the characters, their voices, even the developer's notes can be seen! I find these things to be super neat. Oh and almost forget, the games also present the character with various facial expressions and even voices. Not to mention countless splash arts that would describe certain scenes in the games and the soundtracks that can be viewed later.
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| The Minigames |
As for the themes/BGM of the game, I really enjoy them all! From the main theme of the game, the one that you hear upon opening the game to a full song playing in the game! Meitei inebriety, the title of the song, really fits in well with the theme of the chapter that contains the song, and boy, even before playing the game, you should help yourself by listening to it XD.
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| The Splash Arts |
I also found some things that I consider as bugs in the games. In certain chapters, we may neeed to repeat some steps, as in a puzzle, or else you won't make any advance through the level. Some puzzles in a stage, can also be skipped to get to finish it. For example, you need to open a door, unlock the cupboard, open a safe, and finally completing the puzzle. But here, you can just skip the "open a safe", although its not much to talk about as it only appears once in the game.
Final Thought
My overall thought of this game is surely obvious that I truly love and enjoy this game! Yes, regardless of its downs as in the long completion, I still hold to what I said before. The story, the themes/BGM, and the artworks really help in lifting the atmosphere and making the game more immersive. This is the exact quality I'm expecting from ESC-APE by SEEC, trully wonderful! All in all, I would give this game a solid 9 out 10. A score I believe suits one of their most ambitious game. So kudos to the devs and everyone involved in this game and as for you all, go install this game and experience it for yourself!
So yeah, that's all I have to show now! Thanks for stopping by and I'll see you in my next post(whenever it is)!
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