Virago: Herstory

The amount of energy put into this game is incredible. How Willow’s story is told, it’s enough to make me feel horribly bad for Willow and what she’s going through. The amount of freaks/pervs in this game disgusts me, and lets me know that they exist (which is a good thing), and how her mother turns abusive because a lot of boys in the town are freaks/pervs, it’s just so fascinating and makes me want to do something about it like Victoria/The tall woman. It also taught me “Not everything is as it seems” but better, like the spikes not actually hurting me, and one normal space doing so, and how the crocodile rose up from the ground, and that there’s a little light in everyone (the mother most definitely not, and more like Victoria), and she finds her light in the end by getting adopted by the town hero, Victoria. This game is absolutely amazing and I hope more people find out about this game ❤️, the only problem I had was Season 2 Episode 2 was more hard than I expected, but that’s probably just me. Hope you guys see this, and have a wonderful day/night 🙂.

This game has a very nice message, and visually is very unique and compelling. But it has its problems. People have already mentioned that episode 3 has a bug that makes it very difficult to get through, I managed it though through trial and error. I also feel like the whole thing is a bit unpolished. The sound effects have little variation and the running away from stalkers section is, i feel, unnecessarily difficult at times. It’s also repeated a lot, I feel like there is more to be done to show the extent of problems with sexual harassment and the like. Additionally, I feel like there should be some male victims in the story as they’re often overlooked. I also feel like each level should be longer. At the time of writing this it says there’s going to be new levels every week, that feels a bit too soon. Maybe every month would allow for longer, more polished levels. Finally, the “craft mode.” I know it’s probably an innocent attempt to give the game more replayability, but to me it seems redundant at least (you can already play levels over again) and downright insulting at worst. A minecraft mode? Where the protagonist is Steve? Really? Not the time or place… Perhaps an “unlimited mode” if you’re going for replayability, with some extra dialogue that’s not in story mode to make it more enticing to play. You could even get more creative, with bonus levels that are nightmares the protagonist has. Overall I feel this game is a bit scuffed, but is sincere in its message and has a compelling story. Definitely worth a play.

I’ve been following the development of this game for years, and I was even a play tester around 9 months ago but the game is not what I expected. I was very excited to see a feminist action game being created but it failed to live up to expectations. Firstly, the game mechanics are lackluster. They have 3 buttons you can press, A which makes you jump, B which makes you run, and C which makes you hug. I feel like C is very unnecessary, you just give anyone who helps you a hug, even though it adds nothing to the story. I wish they got rid of the button altogether, and used a choice system when replying to a text bubble, where you could either hug or say goodbye. A and B are fine but that’s all you do. Which brings me to my second point. All you do in this game is run and jump!!! Every chapter, someone starts chasing you, you might occasionally shine a flashlight at them or go into a dream but that’s it. It gets very boring very quickly. I think they could’ve added so much more than just jumping over 3 trashcans. Now I know that this an indie game but instead of making 2 others, they could’ve just focused on this one. Unless the one they charge for is the real game so if that’s true, I hope it’s more fleshed out that this, but my point still stands. I don’t get the point of having 3 mediocre versions of the same game when you could have just 1 really good one. Lastly, the text is not that great. The punctuation is off, things are often misspelled, and multiple sentences just don’t make sense. Now, I did enjoy the game. I wanted to complete it, it was challenging but not impossible like some reviews say. The character designs work for the game aesthetics, and I still love the game’s message. Overall, I hope the next game ends up better.