i don't play a ton of indie games, i buy them here and there via places like limited run but i very rarely ever actually play them, it's just not my sphere of interest, but one game that did interest me basically since it was announced was this game, haven, a romance RPG that has inspirations from games like flower and is written like a YA dystopia novel? sign me right the hell up, it did take a while for me to actually play it, i waited for the LRG physical and then a while beyond that because of the additional couples update that added romances that i'd prefer, but i was very happy with the game once i did, i'm so glad i tried it.

the main thing here and the main reason to play is the romance, initially it was just a straight couple but over the years they added lesbian and gay routes to the mix and that's the way i went, male key has a liiiitle too much facial hair to be my type, as good as his art is, so i went with the lesbian route and the charm of the writing is still very much apparent, i did play some of the male key and the quality between that and the alt routes is identicle, it's clear they really did their best to try and keep parity on quality, the couple are super charming and there's a ton of dialogue here, there's easily as much dialogue as your typical otome game route and it's all really good, it's a reward for leveling up, trying new foods or for doing new things and it's so good you will want to experiment with the games systems just to unlock it, the romantic writing here is super realistic and some of the best i've seen, even comparing it to some of my favorite otome games, it's maybe not as good as those games overall, but it's very close in quality and they're just such a cute couple like god, it's good, it's also a lot more sexual than i'd have assumed going in, it never shows it but the dialogue here is horny as hell at times, though this is my one critisism with it, at least for the lesbian route they didn't consider fully that much of male keys dialogue just didn't fit a lesbian relationship and it becomes a little obvious these scenes werent fully changed to fit that, it's not a big deal but it's something i noticed and i thought it was a little weird. the story is fun too, very YA dystopic and usually when people would say that it'd be as an insult, but i grew up with those books, i was so into them and this brought me right back to that in the best way, it's charming and cute and it's really well told, it can get you emotional and though i didn't get the bad ending here watching it online had me in tears, i also think this is one way that the lesbian side actually works better, the stakes are much higher when you consider the maybe unintentional implications of the bad end being far more grim than for the male or straight yu . worldbuilding is great too, there's a ton of it in dialogue and it's interesting how much you know about these worlds and cities and people despite pretty much only being on the one planet unrelated to it all with only just the main couple bar a few video convos with other characters, it's very impressively written i think and the VA work is great too for carrying it all.

sadly the gameplay doesn't quite hold up to this, mostly. the game's split into 3 modes as it were, your hub in the nest, a little cozy ship home where you can make food and craft items and see lil cutscenes, this is a great little area and it works great as a hub, seeing it change as you find little items in ruins is nice and it's so cool to see the look of the outside change as you repair it after an early game accident. you then have the exploration once you leave, this is where the flower inspiration takes place as you go from zone to zone gliding and flying around, engaging with battles and cleaning up the islands of corruption by freeing animals from its influence and flying over patches of it, this is i think where the gameplay is at its best, it's fun to clean the islands and the movement is really fun to do, you can drift and do tricks and it's really nice, i do wish you could go a little faster though. lastly you have the actual rpg battle system stuff and this is where it kind of loses me. it's a very simple turn based affair with no random encounters, you just bump into enemies on the map and it starts the fight, though theres some hidden ones with harder to find ways of starting them. once you're in it's got 2 different kinds of attacks, long and short range and enemies are usually weak to one, you also have a shield attack and some items you can use to speed up your ATB or do damage and heal, lastly is the pacify button, this is the one thing i do love about the battle system, while it's an extra step on top of beating the enemies, it's a purification system that makes them leave the battle basically, it also means you never kill anything, it's a non-violent combat system, almost, and i like that a lot, but it's also very slow and the way turns are handled is a little confusing, i think they would have maybe been better off cutting it altogether and focusing on the movement systems instead, maybe a pokemon ranger style system would have worked better, it's hard to say, but i often dreaded battles, though considering the story this could very well be intentional! it's also co op which is cute, the whole game is so you can play with your partner which i very much imagine is the intended way to play, you even make the dialogue choices together

the game looks pretty nice as well, super pretty character art and designs and some amazing alien landscapes, it's really colourful with lots of cool green fields full of wildlife but you even have a more autumny wheatfield area,a volcano and a swamp to explore, many of which are pretty much opional if you don't want to, you actually unlock a thing in one ending that lets you leave trails of flowers behind you as you glide which i think is where the game is at its best, exploring while you make the landscape full of life again. the music i'm not super into though, it's by danger and it's good but it's one of those "this is really not for me" kind of situations, it works for the game and the low-fi electronic vibe is def for a lot of people judging by how many views those compilations get but it's just not for me at all. it's also on the much shorter end for an rpg, about 12 hours, more if you want to beat the optional bosses like i did or clear every island of corruption and it's even pretty easy, it can take a little to get the battle system and the turn orders can be rly unclear, but there's very little penalty for dying outside of trophies and fast travel is usually available for a small cost, it's nice like that and it doesn't outstay its welcome i'd say, the one little caviat here is the availability, it was only made physically via limited run and the preorder window is long since gone, thankfully it's one of the cheaper aftermarket LRG games and can still easily be gotten for around 40, but it's still more of a premium than you'd pay for a lot of games, i have it this way and it's how i played it.

the game was made by the game bakers, a cute name for a studio and they also made 2016's furi, a cool boss ruch arcadey action game that i've been meaning to play for a while now, it feels like a total passion project and the updates really helped flesh it out even more and make it so that i could easily reccomend it to basically anyone that's interested in the idea, even if the main couple don't interest you the new options really could still save the game and i'm super excited to see what the devs do next, i'd love to see them stick with the romantic games because they really killed it with this one.