#this all started bc of a conversation about a certain reality tv contest

[alice-malice-wonderland]

another day of me having to restrain all of my fucking opinions bc people will start to call me negative and overly concerned the morals of everyday life

[siodium]

REVIEW: BURIED STARS ☆

came across this korean mystery vn and i knew i had to get it bc someone commented that it had a similar feel to danganronpa/zero escape O: seems like i have a type

i usually don’t prefer to get digital copies of games but there was really no choice... i heard the physical copy is sold out in korea and resales are going for 200 USD ain’t nobody got money for that

i don’t think anyone i know is gonna purchase this game and play for themselves and i can’t share the game either bc it’s a digital copy sooo i’m gonna write a review~ please enjoy!!

basically the plot goes as such: the survival reality tv show Buried Stars was about to commence the finals of its current season with the remaining five contestants when the building suddenly collapses. most of the audience and staff members were safely evacuated except for seven ppl (the five contestants and two staff members) who are trapped in the wreckage with just their smartwatches that connects them to the outside world via calls (problematic bc they can only call a restricted number of ppl and the signal inside is shit) and phater (bootleg twitter). after trying to make some calls, everyone was then told that the rescue team would take around six hours to break into the collapsed building to get them out.

ok so they just have to wait it out... in an unstable building that can come down at any moment. cool.

then!!! they find the producer’s dead body, seemingly a victim to the falling debris!! they’re down to six survivors now.

despite the circumstances, voting is still ongoing and some rando on phater claims that the contestant in the last place will die as if the atmosphere wasn’t bad enough.

this is your smartwatch interface!! most of the functions are pretty useless with regards to the actual gameplay but it’s just fun to play around with them i guess

for e.g. you can change the background and ringtone but they don’t affect anything

there’s this feature that keeps track of changes that occur when you pick certain conversation topics during communication rounds and it’s really useful for replays!! too bad it doesn’t keep track of sanity changes in mc

this is the mc!! even though he looks like he would be a tsundere punk he’s actually very soft?? kinda like saihara but with a bit more spine

AND THIS IS MY BEST BOI GYU-HYUK

i lowkey ship them bc of their interactions alsjdkasjs jUST LOOK AT THIS

i was expecting there to be a lot of mysteries but given the circumstances i guess it makes sense to not have that many... there’s no murder mystery if it happened in an accident site and looked like an accident you see

a lot of conversation topics focus on the character’s backstory and stuff so you get to learn more about the characters while waiting for rescue (one of the goals of this game is actually to collect characters’ profiles!)

bonding through a shared traumatic experience sounds reasonable

did i mention that the cutscenes are fully voiced (either in korean or japanese depending on your preference)?? i played it in korean for my first gameplay for ~Optimal Experience~ but i switched to japanese in subsequent plays bc i wanted to be able to understand what the characters were saying without reading the text

the only thing that throws me off is that characters are given japanese names in the japanese dub but the in-game text still uses their korean names??? why

my boi gyu-hyuk is voiced by takuya eguchi and hyesung is voiced by shimono hiro (i actually doubted my ears at first bc hyesung sounds angry 24/7 and i only know shimono’s derpy zenitsu and troll ouma voices sweats;;) wOW 👍👍👍

the first ending is the same for everyone even if you picked the best options

they call it a “normal end” but tbh it’s a bad end bc everyone dies and nothing is resolved

after you clear the game for the first time you will get to replay from the start but your options will change so you can proceed towards other routes!! yay

oh yeah in case anyone is wondering this game is rated T and bodies are shown in the form of a silhouette with non-explicit close-ups during investigation so if you can’t handle graphic stuff it’s not too bad

warning: from here on there will be spoilers for the true ending and other endings!! stop scrolling if you have even the slightest intention to play the game

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collected all the endings after 30ish hours of gameplay!! i wanted to strive for 100% completion in achievements but i’m not sure how to get some stuff... might go back and try other options in the future

in the true route you receive help from this random phater user plughole aND I JUST LOVE THE INTERACTIONS BETWEEN HIM AND DO-YOON LMAO

idk if anyone tried to guess who the real culprit is but it turned out to be

my boi gyu-hyuk......

he had his reasons (not trying to say he did no wrong) and it’s just unfortunate that things turned out this way

while playing, i thought to myself... if there was one person i would glue do-yoon to throughout the entire game it would be gyu-hyuk... bc i was certain he wouldn’t hurt do-yoon

i was right tho... even in some routes where do-yoon catches him in the act, gyu-hyuk didn’t try to silence him

CRYING

i don’t know much about korean law but he has THREE murder charges on him whicH SOUNDS LIKE DEATH SENTENCE

i’m sad bc there’s no way to save my boi even in his best ending

plughole visits you in the hospital in the true ending!! he is also a troll irl it seems

he was kinda sus in the beginning but i really hoped that he was a Good Guy to keep do-yoon sane in the wreckage

and i’m glad he was

do-yoon looks super baby in his hospital clothes

he was not kidding when he said that his actions were bc of his sister (who is a hardcore fan of do-yoon) lmao

aaa the girls are doing great after their treatment!! they visit do-yoon too!!

yeah i also want to know why do-yoon is the only one still hospitalised with all those bandages when everyone else is fine but i guess maybe he got injured when he protected gyu-hyuk from falling debris at the start of the game

...

if you don’t find out the true culprit of the murders gyu-hyuk goes free and he visits you every day in the hospital aND SAYS STUFF LIKE THIS

ugh it hurts me

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there’s also a joke ending (when you pick the “i’m the attacker” option lmao) which i appreciate a lot!! something to lighten the tense mood is what i crave for in games like this

somehow i feel like it’s even scarier than the usual atmosphere bc of how ooc everyone acts

BUT YOU WANT TO KNOW WHAT’S REALLY SCARY?

there’s a horror route that you can enter by using the “laboratory” conversation topic on everyone and expressing how much it creeps you out

and the entire game shifts in genre to actual horror (like with paranormal activities)

IT WAS REALLY SCARY AND THERE WERE HANDS EVERYWHERE AND EVERYONE WAS ACTING WEIRD ASLJELKASJ i had my eyes closed half the time and i regret playing on my monitor

i didn’t take many screenshots bc as i mentioned my eyes were not looking at the screen for most part but i hope that you can kinda understand where i’m coming from with these two screenshots

...

the game is actually split into two major routes (A and B) which differ in who gets saved and who dies

you can only start on the B route after you get the true ending which is in the A route

unfortunately there is no route where everyone (even if you exclude the producer bc she dies before do-yoon regains consciousness at the start of the game) survives TT

if hyesung and seil survive then gyu-hyuk kills himself and leaves a note but do-yoon tears it up so we don’t know what he wrote

overall a solid mystery vn with beautiful graphics and enough routes to keep you occupied for many hours!! i highly recommend following a walkthrough bc it’s not an easy game if you want to collect all the possible endings and achievements

cuz there are minor changes to the epilogue depending on how close you are with the characters

i actually don’t play a lot of VNs but i feel like all VNs need the route map thingy in AI: the somnium files

my only gripe about this game is prob the derpy translations which usually isn’t a big issue (imo at least) but for a game priced this high?? i expected better

anyway that’s all from me!! thanks for reading til the end hahah i wanted to write a srs review but i just ended up simping for gyu-hyuk