DISCLAIMERS:
Written by dne27, this is a review of the visual novel (VN) LongStory, available for the following platforms: Nintendo Switch, PC (Steam/Itch), Moblie (Android/IOS). I am reviewing the Switch edition, bought with my own money, for £8.99 with no discounts.THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR THE ENTIRETY OF LONGSTORY, READER DISCRETION IS ADVISED.
Let's just address the Turkey in the room for a second; this is a 'visual novel' and I will be addressing it as such - I am of the mindset that visual novels are not inherently video games, but that is something I will address in a later post. Also, yes, this is an LGBT+ game being reviewed by a member of the community. I am not going to tolerate any negative hatred for this game geared at this element, nor of any hatred geared towards the LGBT+ community - we're not about that here. If you don't like homosexuality, then get out of here.
Here's the tl;dr of the review: LongStory falls just short of recommendation. It's poor quality of writing, character development and forgettable design leaves me with a empty sensation and an even emptier wallet.
Well, with that out of the way, let's relax and review!
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LongStory, a queer VN.
LongStory is a visual novel set in the fictional school Weasel Heights Middle School, presumed to be in America. You play as a girl, boy, non-binary or trans student depending on your choice/preference who has moved back to their old town after spending a year abroad in Paris. The marketing of LongStory was more or less focused on the idea of it being a LGBT+ friendly dating sim, allowing you to craft the character of your choice and picking the 'cutie' that stood out to you the most. And for the most part, sure, the visual novel succeeds at this goal. You can choose out of two boys, two girls, a trans boy and believe it or not, a Turkeyhawk - yeah, I have no idea what that is and frankly it's just cringe but we'll get to cooking that question later. My problems begin in the first chapter and LongStorys' overall narrative. On your first day of school you get a vaguely threatening note in your locker that also contains a love note addressed to a mystery student known as 'Em'. Your character, who you can roleplay as a hardarse, a pussy or a complete jerk (the typical traits of middle schoolers, as we all know), can then decide if they are bothered about this mystery or whether they want to jump straight into dating the #relatable cast of characters. By that remark, I imagine that you dear reader, are now aware of my feelings towards this VN and like a horny teenager I can't contain myself any longer - I absolutely did NOT care about the characters or story whatsoever. This may come as a surprise to most, as this appears to be the opposite reaction of most internet denizens, with LongStory sitting pretty at a 7/10 on steam with 30 reviews of 'Mostly Positive'. The company's website even boasts reviews (that mysteriously feature no names attracted) claiming the game has 'changed' their lives and that it speaks to them on a deep, personal level. And don't get me wrong, if a piece of media has genuinely changed or affected you, who am I to say otherwise - but I cannot wrap my head
around the critical reception and the deep praises for LongStory.
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| (Credit: Bloom Digital Media. A good example of the awful writing) |
The story essentially breaks down into two sections; your attempt to uncover the mystery of Em and uncovering the mystery of who you'll date - told over six chapters including the epilogue. Except that's not really how it goes. Within a couple of minutes you're introduced to the cast of characters (who you'll need to give me a second, I need to google the names), the dickhead smartass Marcel, the big oaf gamer Colin, his oatcake cousin Abby, socially-awkward 'deep-past' Nora, the evil-but-not-really trio Jane, Jennifer and Hanna, a fucking mascot Turkey as well as the mysterious Em (who spoiler isn't really a mystery). There are a few background characters, such as the mindful Principal, your mom and brother but they don't really matter in the grand scheme of the plot and serve as either exposition dumps or riff-offs (imagine a sort of unnecessary side-kick). The issue with talking about the main cast is that I've already talked about them; their development can be summed into a brief description of their personality trait. To care about a character, they have to be multifaceted, there needs to be more to them than the shade of their skin or sexuality. You need to give me a reason to care about the present and future I'm going to spend with these characters - give me a reason for wanting to look into their dark past by supplying me with an interesting personality and narrative surrounding them. LongStory seems to think that by revealing a character is trans and then leaving me with nothing else will somehow give me a reason to care about them - of course I feel sympathy with their situation, but you can't say 'oh they were bullied by that character' and then either leave it there or give it next to no development. It'd be like leaving a sentence unfinished; what's gonna happen next do I need to --
Yeah, you get my point. What I'm trying to say is that LongStory fails at the most fundamental basic of any dating sim/story - the characters suck. Let's look at Horizon Zero Dawn for a second. HZD isn't an especially good game on the combat or world alone - it's Aloy's journey that pulls us in, it's her story that makes us want to play on. Or how about Bayonetta, even in a vague as all hell story that's primarily about stylishly torturing angels we learn what kind of woman Bayonetta is - a charming often aloof witch who can get serious and emotional when she wants to. When I played those two games I wanted to carry on for the sake of learning more about their stories. When I played LongStory, I wanted to carry on because I had paid for it and I might as well finish it. You see what engrosses me in a narrative driven game is the characters and their varied personalities, not having a character who wears a Turkey costume, doesn't speak and has a penitent for poetry - it's just vapid cringe that's stuck in the idea that 'lol randem' humour like Minions was ever remotely considered funny.
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| (Credit: Bloom Digital Media) |
Now the developers at Bloom Digital Media state that LongStory was partially based on events that happened to them and there are those that claim the game simulated real events or mirrored their own yet the absurdity of some of the scenarios just through me out of the loop. If I'm playing a visual novel that claims to represent what they believe to be a real experience or mirrors one then give me situations and characters that do exactly that. I never felt like any of what appeared to be 'character' moments were ever deserved. The character motivations are paper thin; ranging from 'I have dyslexia' to 'I wrote a zombie comic and my teacher thought because I was nerdy and quiet I wanted to shoot up the school because the zombies were students and therefore the act of me killing the zombie students meant I wanted kill the students'. I think inherently the VN suffers due to the short amount of time. There just isn't enough time to get invested and feel like the 'developments' are worth it. It took me about 3hrs or so (according to my switch playtime) to complete Nora's route and it was just not enough time to develop both story ideas - Em's mystery and Nora's bullshit excuse for being a NEET. I'm aware because it's a multiple-playthrough type situation that you may think my complaint about the lack of character development isn't valid as there's a simple solution - just play through the other routes. Except we come to the roadblock that's inherent in VNs, the replay value simply does not exist if the story or characters are shit. And in LongStory, they are very shit. There's a beauty to video games in that I can endlessly replay some games even if the story isn't great because often the gameplay is, but with VNs often it's incredibly hard to go back to them as they're short, underdeveloped and cost the same price in some cases to triple A video games. I am not opposed to replaying a VN - if the story is good and I have done so before (Flowers, Heaven Will Be Mine etc) but I saw the basics of most characters and it is safe to say that I am not subjecting myself to playing through LongStory again on the whim that it could get better with total context. LongStory's story is just not that interesting at all and is written so poorly that I could not justify any reason why I should go through it again.
The problem with LongStory's narrative is that it attempts to tell both stories at the same time but fails to make up it's mind in how it's going to do so. Is it going to have both narratives follow alongside each other or have one service the other? Neither! Instead it opts for a awful structually confused mess of switcharoos. It's such a turn off to be introduced to a mystery, only for the story to ignore it and start suggesting you should concentrate on the romancing instead only for it then to flip the switch again back to the mystery when Em makes her inevitable return, which at that point was so far back in my mind I just didn't care about it. One example of the bad structuring can be seen in the first chapter. After what felt like getting sprayed by a MP40 equipped with character introductions your kid brother asks if you have a crush on anyone. Your character suddenly wonders if they do - leading to what I believe is the lock-in scenario where you have to decide out of the handful of characters who you like - this happened no longer than 30 minutes of me playing the FIRST chapter that I was asked who I wanted to date! I had barely gotten to know anyone including my own character beyond literally the first meeting as the 30 minutes was dedicated to both setting up the mystery and the characters. Choosing who you want to pursue is often left to the middle of the story as that way you've spend more than literally one scene with each character and have had sufficient time to decide. There are clearly other opportunities to flirt with other characters but from the way my character's inner thoughts were structuring she had clearly decided with a vague yes from me that she was going to date Nora. So when the random opportunity arises in the LAST chapter to date Hanna (a one-dimensional snobby mess), who let me remind you has bullied you constantly, when you are already dating someone for some time it just feels like a tacked on option to superficially bloat the amount of datable characters. This problem is exasperated in the epilogue of the story, which isn't even very clear as it acts like the story is just going to continue before abruptly ending, in which a character who has moved away suddenly has beef with you - except I had repeatedly ignored this character's attempts to talk to me because I didn't like his attitude and personality which resulted in a unintentionally hilarious moment where my character lamented over the departure of her friend and is desperate to fix the gap in their relationship. I had never treated this character like a friend, had never hung out with him or accepted any of his requests but the game insists that off-screen we had developed such a bond that when it's revealed that his grandfather has died you're the first person he tells. I could not have given a single shit about this character but the story wants you so desperately to love it's cast that it attempts to have these cheap heartstring-tugging moments without bothering to give you a single drop of that sweet, sweet character development it so greatly desires.
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| (Credit: Bloom Digital Media. Also, wow yes this is the Turkeyhawk. Yeah, I know.) |
I feel like this review is starting to drag a little bit so I'll keep this section short. LongStory is at least technically competent. Apart from a few grammatical errors the game never crashed, glitched etc. I only had to charge my Switch towards the end so it's a decent game for those who are concerned about battery life. The presentation of the VN (the artstyle and UI), whilst certainly not to my tastes, was serviceable. Music was completely forgettable, with looping tracks and two songs that had possibly some of the cringe-inducing lyrics that belong in a Yugioh theme song.
Despite what you may think of me from this review this feels so horrible to write mainly because I can see the passion behind LongStory; clearly everyone has poured their heart and soul into every facet and there are funny/cute moments here and there - but I can't help but want more from a visual novel that markets itself as a LGBT+ story for kids who perhaps don't know what they want or who they are etc. I would have loved something like LongStory when I was younger, a positive love story where no one cares who or what you are - no longer should kids have to read the fucking Well of Loneliness but instead play or read stories such as LongStory and I am 100% behind that idea - but I also believe that they should be well-written and much more developed than this, we deserve that much. Yet here we are with LongStory unintentionally strangling itself with it's laughable twist filled with cringy writing you'd expect of a wattpad fanfiction, filled with exaggerated characters that try so desperately not to be the typical tropes old white men have been quietly sifting into media hoping the desperate queer kids will latch on to the morsel of representation they're craving.
For an entrance fee of 8.99, LongStory falls just short of recommendation. It's poor quality of writing, character development and forgettable design leaves me with a empty sensation and an even emptier wallet.
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Important Links:
LongStory Steam page: https://store.steampowered.com/app/704010/LongStory/
LS Itch: https://bloomdigital.itch.io/longstory
LS Googleplay (You pay per chapter): https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=air.to.bloomdigital.longstorygame01&hl=en_GB
LS App Store: https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/longstory/id833958016?mt=8
LongStory homepage: http://www.longstorygame.com/
Bloom Digital Media: http://bloomdigital.to/