- Joined
- Jun 27, 2014
All right, so to celebrate the site's surviving yet another apocalypse, I'm going to do something I fucking never do on this website - review a good game, and more specifically, one I think people will at least be able to enjoy my own personal take on. I assure you, this will not be a frequent occurrence; good games are hard for me to review, not because I don't have anything to say about them, but more often than not because if a game is good, it's usually self-evidently so, and more often than not, it doesn't need me sperging in the background to sing its praises. What can I even add? Thankfully, that is not the case for today's entry, which I didn't even fucking know about until it dropped into my inbox in late 2020, and since it's a good story, let's begin a trek down memory lane.
I mentioned it in an old post chatting it up with @Doc Cassidy, but starting around 2015, my circle of friends began a tradition of, periodically, flinging games at one another (via Steam) that, while not necessarily bad, are usually of questionable taste, at which point the recipient is honor-bound to play it (because only a wuss shirks from a throwdown). Most of the time this boiled down to us throwing so-bad-it's-awesome games at one another (DNF got passed around a few times in my circle of friends), but in more recent years, and with Humble Bundle apparently in on the joke, we started throwing edgelord games (this is where Hatred came from) and tiddy games at each other. However, over the last few years, something fucking surreal has started to happen - the tiddy games were, for reasons unclear, often genuinely good, to the point where if you removed the tiddy you'd still have a solidly competent game on your hands.
This at first is a confusing prospect, but it makes more sense when you look at this shit the way I do. When you play shitty games as long as I have, you inevitably will get people asking you to review things like memetic dating sims or porn games, and while every once in a while, I may grant that request, if only to amuse the irrepressible @CatParty, it's important to remember the underlying reason these games are trash - which is the same reason most of the JPATG bottom ten is trash - they don't put in effort, they think their concept alone gives them justification for them doing well, and when they do put in effort, it's never in a way where the game is better for it.
This is doubly true for smut games, since the argument can be made: "It doesn't matter if it's trash, it's designed to titillate."
Castle in the Clouds is a good example of a good game that is also an outright porn game. It also has a full SFW option, if you just want to enjoy the competent Castlevania knockoff.
Well, gentle reader, that shit may work for Ana Valens, but an increasing number of game developers are taking the exact opposite approach now. They do worldbuilding, put effort into their setting and gameplay, show actual writing chops, back it up with quality music, and go all in on making the game as good as it can be, smut be damned. We now live in a world where fucking tiddy games sometimes can and sometimes do have more soul than shit in the indie circuit or triple-A space, and that's kind of fucking amazing. That mindset, that desire to make something good even with a subgenre that normally wouldn't need that level of effort is something that should be cherished in the game industry, but really doesn't get much play. And while some individuals who currently look like the results of Divine fucking a mince-meat pie that then somehow managed to spawn will argue that such games have no right to a platform, I'm of the belief that good game design is a white whale worth chasing. All that brings us to 2020, when a Kiwi, sent me Haydee 2 asking me to review it.
The Original Haydee was an odd beast; a third-person Tomb Raider-style.... Thing with style elements that were very Portal-esque, and a ridiculously curvy robot girl protagonist. While I haven't played it myself, I did get to watch a friend stream the whole thing beginning to end, and while I wouldn't say it was anything great, I would say it certainly seems like a good time. There is a story under it, but it's wholly passable. Certainly nothing that one would consider JPATG fodder, since it looked to be well beyond any of my usual fare, so whether the Kiwi who sent me its sequel hoping I'd tear the game to pieces, or intentionally sent me a good game hoping I'd review it anyway (in which case: well-played, motherfucker), I couldn't say.
What I can tell you is that Haydee 2 is a very different beast than its predecessor.
While the core elements of the game - the gameplay loop, the general premise - are virtually identical, the game's seen a massive change in scope, setting, and level design that's completely changed the entire feel of the game. Climbing and swimming were integral parts of Haydee; Haydee 2 has neither and the game is better for it. Haydee had level design that felt like a video game; Haydee 2's environment feels lived-in, for all its twisted environmental details. You have to give thought to how the place is laid out and how it's designed, because Haydee 2 feels more like a late-gen Resident Evil game than anything else, and it leverages this to get the most out of the game's exploration elements. You see outbursts of outright fantastic game design in Haydee 2, and a developer doing a ton with very little, to the point where it's only after beating the game that you realize just how many corners they cut while still making it all work. Quality game development is making a game that is better because of the limitations you had to work with, and Haydee 2 is a rare case of this in action.
Haydee 2 is a prequel, taking place over a century before Haydee 1, and has basically nothing to do with it story-wise. In fact, that's the biggest change of all: Haydee 2 actually has a plot, and like many games, it tells it by not telling it - it's entirely up to the player whether or not you want to go piecing it together. Your lone goal is to escape the facility you wake up in (NSOLA7), but beyond that, finding out more about your character and the setting is entirely on you. Most of this can be found via datalogs found throughout the facility, and give you more information about the facility, its inhabitants, your character, and the rather fucked-up world they inhabit.
I'm going to get the obvious out of the way right out the gate: Haydee 2's overt sexualization can seem off-putting, and in many ways, it is. I'm actually going to recommend you keep the Censor option on; all it does is add pixelation to cover booba when it appears and tone down the gratuitous sexual advertisements you see on the wall in-game, but it does help ground the game a little. That said, Haydee 2 is a rare case where the actual sexualization in the game is actually a central theme to the setting, and while I will get into it more with the plot dump later in this review, it's the rare case of a game where the themes are actually supporting the overall narrative, rather than just being there, since the central themes of the game are dehumanization, exploitation, and the rediscovery of humanity where it isn't. The adult themes, while overt, are also not sugar-coated, and if you were to completely strip them out, you'd lose the main thing giving the game's narrative some actual bite.
So while it's overt, it's honestly more mature than a lot of other games I've played.
You play as HD512, one of a large number of seemingly mass-produced big booba androids. You get some customization over her, with the ability to set her hair color, hairstyle, and some clothing options. She has a bit of an uncanny valley thing going on with her facial structure; this is intentional. She is designed to look mostly human, while also being just this side of off-putting, and it gets more so when you wander around the facility and keep running into androids with the exact same facial structure; it makes identifying what she is basically effortless. One really nice touch that helps with making her slightly unsettlign is that when she faces the camera, her eyes track the Camera's position. It's a nice little detail. With no memory of how you got where you are, your only goal is to escape this facility, but to say you're in a dangerous place is a fucking understatement; NSOLA7 is a deathtrap, and you will need to fight your way out, and there's no better way to show you through this than through the game's tutorial section, because nothing gets across just how well the game is designed like this one opening area.
The areas of NSOLA7 are color-coded for ease of guidance; we're in Orange, which is the Engineering section. The other areas are Administration (Green), Security (Blue), Medical (Teal), Technical (Yellow), and Habitation (Red). Immediately in the opening area, we can see a door locked with a hydraulic lock, and two disabled androids - one of them a defective model, whereas the other, more sinister, looks like a repurposed torso and set of legs with the arms and head replaced by other components.
There's really only one way to go, but you can find your first datalog right in front of you, which gives you an idea of what to look for throughout the game. Through the next door, we find our very first save room, which also shows you how switches work, and has the first storage chest and save point. In the game's easier difficulty, you can save as much as you want, but on hard, you'll need data tapes. Once again, the path is linear; crouch through the air vent and you'll be in the next hall.
This hallway has a few ways to go, but one way has a locked door, and another way has these little bastards:
These are EM mines, and they are essentially a one-shot-kill if you are anywhere near ground zero when they go off. They have a proximity trigger.
We'll need to do something to deal with these obstacles, and I can almost guarantee what we'll need to do is not what you'll expect.
Note the Engineering jumpsuit.
The other way leads to a large room with an active enemy, one of two common enemy types: The Clicker. This enemy is a tank; it soaks lots of abuse, but thankfully, it's a very slow enemy, so in a few locations (including this one) you can simply avoid them. They're very dangerous though if you get cornered by one, though, especially because they can kill you in only a few hits. This room's essentially a big circle, so it's easy to jink past him and escape, but you can't go any farther even if you do right now, so back to the main hallway it is.
The only other locked door is the one at the other end of the hall, near the minefield, and this one leads into a very large room with an enemy behind a barricade. This room introduces you to the other main enemy in the game, which is one of those creepy, sickle-armed, camera-headed things you saw earlier, and they are called Slashers. Whereas the Clicker is slow-moving but tough, the Slasher is very fast-moving but fragile. This one will rush you the second you hit the button to open the central lock to the room, but when that happens, something interesting occurs:
You see, in the central lock, there was an EM mine, and when the Slasher rushes you, it gets blown the fuck up. The mines are equal-opportunity killers, which is a very important fact to know in this game. Once past the central lock, you can use the other button to open the door, and enter the next part of Engineering. Here, we see a new obstacle we can't interact with - a manual override switch - because the lockbox for it is sealed with a padlock. You will obviously need to come back for this. There's also another obstacle: A set of lasers. Don't worry - these ones can't hurt you. They do, however, activate any device connected to them, which is typically to open or shut nearby doors for security purposes. In this particular case, it shuts and locks (for now) a mesh door in the next room, as well as a locking a door behind the player.
The mesh door blocks off access to the Shotgun. You will be able to go get this weapon later, but for now it's out of reach. It's good foreshadowing, however. The way behind you is locked as well, which leaves only the path forward.
After that, we're in a small room with seemingly no way out. There's a manual override switch, and this one's open and unlocked, but there's an armed mine in front of it, and the only way out of here is a locked mesh door. We're trapped. But there's also a shiny orange item on the counter.
It's our first item of the game, the Pliers. With the Pliers, we can finally change up things a bit, and do something about all these mines - namely, disarm them.
It's a little dangerous, but you need to creep closer and use the pliers on the mines.
The good news: Doing this doesn't just disarm the mine; it makes it so you can pick them up - and then use them yourself. On the off-chance you set one down where you don't want it, you can just use the pliers to disarm it again and pick it back up, but otherwise the thing is the same indiscriminate proxy-fused explosive device it always is, so be careful with 'em. Still, this opens up tons of options, since every time you see a mine, it's a hazard, but if you approach carefully, it's also a resource - you can grab them for yourself. If you know an enemy is going to bushwhack you, setting one is a great deterrent, and they're also useful if you can clear distance against a small cluster of enemies. Clickers will sometimes survive if they are in the edge of blast, but being dead-center will one-shot them. Being anywhere in a blast is basically instantly fatal for a Slasher.
With our new prizes, we're free to head back to the main hall. But something awaits.
....Another Slasher. But this time, we have a mine of our own, so we can put our skills to the test. Set the thing, then open the lockup.
Second verse, same as the first. And with that, we're back in the original hallway. Here, we can (and are going to) use our new Pliers to disarm and acquire the two mines here. However, while you can go straight to Administration now, you really shouldn't just yet, as you still aren't properly armed. Let's do something about that.
Back in the O-shaped hallway, we can use one of our mines to permanently deal with that Clicker.
While there are other areas that are more optimal to use it, for now, we'll settle for dealing with this bastard.
Yeet. On our way to the next room.
This next room has a small supply closet with our first real weapon in it: the pistol. However, it also has a Slasher. There's a button that opens the door, but the Slasher will beeline on you to murder you if you do. What you should do next is obvious: Just like the room with the central lockup, set a mine on the only path to where you are, then open the door with the button and let Irony run its course. With this, we have our Pistol and we're now able to take on the next stage of the game.
You also find the location of a useful container you can open with the right item later.
Finally, we make our way back to where the mines were, and, now armed with our new pistol, we can go into unknown territory.
Exploring will reveal both areas you'll need to go later and hidden caches of ammo. Welcome to Administration, where the game begins proper. While I didn't get a screenshot of it until after I got one (nice going, Jaimas), I also got one of the game's many first aid kits, which fully heal you when used and have a really obvious pink box top to make them distinctive.
Anyway, now that we're past the starting area: Do you see how good the conveyance in this sequence is? The game shows you absolutely everything you need to do without a single text box, interruption, or bit of dialogue. The game goes for a hyper-minimalist approach, trusting the player to make the most of the resources it presents, and not needing to explain what everything is or what it does - the game respects the player's intelligence. This opening area does so much, it might well be usable in courses on good design: entirely through gameplay, and while it can be a bit dangerous (it is very easy to die, but you don't lose any progress for it), it teaches the player a hell of a lot:
1. Basics of movement, crawling through ducts and opening doors and using switches, as well as reading documents
2. That the area is very dangerous and won't hesitate to fucking murder the player if they aren't careful
3. There's two main enemy types to worry about, a slow, tough one, and a fast, fragile one
4. Mines can damage/kill enemies as easily as they can the player
5. Not all traps are lethal (the alarm beams)
6. Tools can be used to interact with items in-game (Pliers on Mines)
7. Getting weapons and items will take hands-on problem-solving
8. You will need to return here to get more goodies later
9. You know what save points are and what save rooms sound like
This sequence also establishes Haydee 2's core gameplay loop: Fight and puzzle your way out of NSOLA7. Good stuff. The formula isn't perfect, but it's extremely competent. There are flaws; first this game doesn't have any kind of automap (Resident Evil's would be the easiest analogue). This is due to the minimalist HUD it goes for. There are in-game maps on each floor giving you the layout for each floor and how rooms connect together, but they aren't detailed and aren't the same as having a handy map with you recording shit you've already seen. You can workshop this feature in, and it's very obvious that it was chosen to not include this because of the game being well-enough designed to not need it, but it is a thing to be worked around.
A second problem the game has in its base gameplay loop is that it is very difficult. This game's lack of handholding means that it is very easy for someone who is not as skilled with this type of game to get discouraged. Haydee 2 will not hesitate to break your proverbial back and make you humble with these, and while there's no Moon Logic bullshit like say, a Sierra Adventure game or whatever the fuck those clowns using AGS concoct where you need a fake moustache and a spool of bubble tape to unlock a fucking door, these often require lines of thinking that won't come to a first-timer, who, cockblocked by a one-way locked door they can't open, won't generally think of other ways around the locked door that involve going to other floors and going around the obstacle once you activate it a certain way. A veteran of exploration-focused games like this won't have any trouble, but a newcomer might well find this game's lack of signposting a bit intimidating. It's also really easy to not know where to go at first, though in my experience the game's flow is flexible enough that this isn't usually a problem unless you spend ammo like tax-free candy.
There also was a problem back at launch where the game remembered enemy positions so that it was possible to get softlocked unless you had healing items, but that was fixed ages ago, and enemies will, eventually, reset position if given enough time.
The game has some nice easter eggs, with parodies of game ads and references to memes on desks.
The parody ads are actually, in-universe, a reference to ad campaigns done by NSOLA7 featuring their products (we'll get to it, I promise).
Mostly, they're just parodying existing games; I am ashamed to admit I actually did laugh at the "Mad Dad Erection" ad.
On the rare occasions you can shoot an enemy without them getting to you, consider taking it. The enemies are fucking dumb, and if they can't get to you, they'll just stand there. Every enemy killed while not able to fight back is a problem you need not deal with later. As stated, Haydee 2 will not hold your hand and will not go gentle on you, so don't go gentle back. The enemies are relatively stupid; they will only beeline on you if they are aware of you and can, indeed, get to you. In situations like the screenshot above, you're free to open fire through the reception window. The game's two main enemies you've already met; everything else in the game revolves around how and where these enemies are used, and I didn't realize until the final leg of the game that these two enemy types represented like 99% of what I fought throughout. Like I said, the game does a lot with very little, and leverages how encounters flow rather than throw tons of different enemy types. That it took me until I was hauling ass through Security during the endgame was when I realized it is testament to how well it works.
Both enemies have very distinctive reports when shot in the head, making it a bit easier to mark when you land one. There's a distinctive "plap" and a puff of blood when you land a headshot on a Clicker, and a loud clang when you headshot a Slasher. You absolutely should go for headshots; they do double damage. Which nicely segues us into the combat in this game.
Combat in the game is lethal, and most foes can kill you in only a few hits. As I explained in the preceding paragraph, the game greatly emphasizes marksmanship. HD512 also has what is inexplicably the coolest feature I've ever seen a third-person shooter protagonist have: The ability to run and even sprint while aiming. I don't know why she can do this, and it may be a bug or completely unintentional, but it's fucking awesome, and I wish to god more games had it, and I hope they never fix it if it's not intended, it helps the game flow much better.
Haydee 2 has four guns: A Pistol, Submachine Gun, Semi-Auto Rifle, and Shotgun. The pistol you've already seen; it's the game's basic weapon, a good all-rounder and has good performance overall. The SMG doesn't do much damage, and it recoils hard, but it holds a lot of ammo and fires quickly, making it good for multiple targets. The Rifle has excellent damage and range, but is hard to aim in-close and it requires headshots for ideal results. The shotgun is devastating, but close-range only, and has difficulty scoring critical hits. They're all very useful, and you can also find mod kits that will permanently upgrade your weapons. There are four types of kit to find: One that increases damage, one that boosts rate of fire, one that reduces recoil, and one that boosts magazine size. The problem is that you only find enough to fully upgrade 2 weapons, so you need to choose what you upgrade carefully: Do you want to upgrade the early-game pistol to give you an edge early on, the SMG for the midgame, or the Rifle or Shotgun for the late game? Do you distribute the upgrades evenly, so you can get the most out of them all game long, or just load up your favorites with every kit? That's for you to decide - and there are no wrong answers.
To give a good example of how combat encounters can change, and also establish the more distinctive parts of Haydee 2's environment and level design, you will frequently encounter areas where you need to think on your feet. The power is out for most of Technical, and, as such, you will need the Night Vision Visor to navigate this area safely. However, if you're an absolute chad, it is possible, though very risky, to sequence break your way into this area and rely on the (terribly limited) emergency lighting to get through, ergo allowing you to get all kinds of valuable goodies early. Other areas flat-out require specific gear; going into a certain part of Medical necessitates protective equipment, or you take damage. Most of the important items are, like your pliers, color-coded with orange handles (they are from Engineering, after all), and these will usually be used to open new areas, including a Wrench (for dealing with those hydraulic locks), Bolt Cutters (for dealing with padlocks), and Screwdriver (for removing vent covers), just to name a few. There's no Resident Evil "this item is no longer useful" system; if you don't need an item anymore, either put it in the storage box or throw it on the ground from your inventory (and remember where you left it in case you wind up needing it, silly).
The game has a crafting system for ammo lifted straight from Resident Evil 3; combine the right container with the right container, and you get bullets. Blue rounds are SMG rounds, Yellow are Rifle rounds, Green are Shotgun shells. To the best of my knowledge, pistol bullets (which are the red box, and by far the most common ammo type) cannot be acquired in this way. This room is one of the game's many save rooms, which always have save points, storage boxes, and distinctive music.
And since I mentioned the music, let's get into the game's audio for a bit.
Sound-wise, the music for this game is absolutely baller, with composer Vlad Plotnikov putting together a mix of moody, atmospheric tracks that blend electronic piano, percussion, and electric guitar. Each zone has its own music, and the main theme (You Don't Belong Here), in particular, is fucking awesome. Each zone's theme strikes a different tone while maintaining a similar feel. The Technical area has a distinctly threatening vibe with electrical crackle, while the theme for Habitation uses the piano to give this sense of mystery. This was one of those soundtracks where I wouldn't really remember much of it, then suddenly find myself whistling the main theme and seuging into the Engineering theme.
The other sounds in the game are passable. The gunfire effects are all right, the EM blasts punchy, and I have no real complaints except one: The enemies for the most part are mute. You'll hear footsteps sometimes, but neither the Slasher nor Clicker make much noise when they aren't attacking, and while this does sometimes lend itself to the game's tense atmosphere, it does strike me as off-putting at times. One thing I will give the game's audio is the cool automated messages you hear from NSOLA7's main computer, which gives PSAs that mostly just explain that the facility's fucked.
Graphically, Haydee 2 is impressive. It ran extremely well on my toaster, and on my gaming rig it runs as smoothly as teflon-painted glass, but the game has really good visual design in general, with real-time shadows, good use of light and darkness, and cool visual effects in areas. For an indie production, it's kind of outstanding how cohesive the facility is designed, and the major complaint I have, which is just as petty as when I bitched about the lack of muzzle flashes in Quake 2, is that the feedback for the game's gunfire isn't as good as it could be; rounds hitting walls need to be more impactful, and rounds hitting enemies need better indication than the little piffing squirt of red mist you see when hitting enemies, but it's hardly awful, and the fact that I had to dig this deep to find something for me to bitch about speaks volumes. The only other complaint I have visually is that I wish there more animations rather than the "Hit button, thing happen" minimalistic approach Haydee 2 has, and part of me wonders if that was a stylistic choice, so there's that.
Haydee 2's story, however, is where things get interesting. Like I said, Haydee 2's story is mostly optional and available only to those who hunt for it, but if you do, in each area, you find documents that give details about various things, sometimes puzzle keys, sometimes just inter-base communiques that suggest what was going on at NSOLA7 before everything went tits-up, and the picture it paints is quite disturbing in its own right. Some parts of it are darkly humorous (a Janitor complaining about having to remove a crate worth of items from several deactivated HD units in the gallery and complaining to management about it), others are distressing (the revelation that the head of medical was running a drug ring on his off-time and wound up being killed in an escape attempt after a roaming firefight with security).
If you want more details, head below the spoiler tag.
In essence, the game takes the time to deconstruct its own hook (the overt sexualization) and uses it to tell a story about not only dehumanization, but also rehumanization - of how someone who was turned into something inhuman can, in turn, become as human as they can be once again. The biggest draw of Haydee 2 (aside from the gameplay, exploration elements, etc) is discovering the documents and their meanings for yourself, and hunting for the documents leads you to find out more about what led to HD512's creation and even the revelation of her human identity. You're not looking at high art or anything here; this is a game where the sexualization is front-and-center - but the fact that it's head-and-shoulders above a ton of other games that are demanding to be taken seriously is equal parts surreal and hilarious.
The interesting parts of the facility's lore is there - the important shit already went down - but unlike a walking simulator like Everyone's Gone to the Rapture or Sunset, where all the cool and interesting stuff happened either is over (EGTTR) or is happening where you don't fucking interact with it (Sunset), Haydee 2's exploration and combat is in service of trying to escape this death-factory, which in most regards is just as engaging as finding out the full details of what went down here. All of this is shit that the game didn't need to have, but it wanted to flex its worldbuilding chops and actually came out with something competent. About the only complaint I have is that a lot of the documents read like a machine translation because the game creators did not speak English as a primary language, but considering how good everything else fits together, that shit can be forgiven.
One last thing I can say about the game is the Workshop, which is a mix of mundane, hilarious and insane. You have everything from quality-of-life mods (the map system mod I mentioned), to cosmetic mods like replacing HD512 with 2B from Nier Automata, to adding more costumes, to making a body modifier so you can make HD512 slimmer or into an amazon-esque musclegirl, to simply adding new areas or overhauling the interface to allow the player to have a Resident Evil style map system. I don't know who the mod that gives every character a foot-long erection is for, but if you want it, it exists apparently. The internet is a many-splendored place. Not to be outdone, the developers also flat-out give the players all the tools they might need for creating new levels, with their own proprietary level creator, EDITH, allowing for you to make your own maps or even mini-campaigns.
In the end, this is one of the now-ever-expanding list of games that prove the age-old axiom that just because a game has adult themes, that doesn't mean it doesn't have the potential to be good. If anything, the fact that I can play this game for 30+ hours, can genuinely say I had a good experience with it, and have this fucking much to say about it puts it on a plane that the candy-coated shit that dominates the JPATG bottom 10 will never fucking comprehend, let alone reach. If you want a decent game that won't hold your hand or treat you like an idiot, you won't go wrong throwing 25 bucks in this game's direction, and if nothing else, this review will serve as a calm before the storm for when I inevitably start writing down my thoughts when going through this fucking shambles while praying for the cloying embrace of the hereafter.
I mentioned it in an old post chatting it up with @Doc Cassidy, but starting around 2015, my circle of friends began a tradition of, periodically, flinging games at one another (via Steam) that, while not necessarily bad, are usually of questionable taste, at which point the recipient is honor-bound to play it (because only a wuss shirks from a throwdown). Most of the time this boiled down to us throwing so-bad-it's-awesome games at one another (DNF got passed around a few times in my circle of friends), but in more recent years, and with Humble Bundle apparently in on the joke, we started throwing edgelord games (this is where Hatred came from) and tiddy games at each other. However, over the last few years, something fucking surreal has started to happen - the tiddy games were, for reasons unclear, often genuinely good, to the point where if you removed the tiddy you'd still have a solidly competent game on your hands.
This at first is a confusing prospect, but it makes more sense when you look at this shit the way I do. When you play shitty games as long as I have, you inevitably will get people asking you to review things like memetic dating sims or porn games, and while every once in a while, I may grant that request, if only to amuse the irrepressible @CatParty, it's important to remember the underlying reason these games are trash - which is the same reason most of the JPATG bottom ten is trash - they don't put in effort, they think their concept alone gives them justification for them doing well, and when they do put in effort, it's never in a way where the game is better for it.
This is doubly true for smut games, since the argument can be made: "It doesn't matter if it's trash, it's designed to titillate."
Castle in the Clouds is a good example of a good game that is also an outright porn game. It also has a full SFW option, if you just want to enjoy the competent Castlevania knockoff.
Well, gentle reader, that shit may work for Ana Valens, but an increasing number of game developers are taking the exact opposite approach now. They do worldbuilding, put effort into their setting and gameplay, show actual writing chops, back it up with quality music, and go all in on making the game as good as it can be, smut be damned. We now live in a world where fucking tiddy games sometimes can and sometimes do have more soul than shit in the indie circuit or triple-A space, and that's kind of fucking amazing. That mindset, that desire to make something good even with a subgenre that normally wouldn't need that level of effort is something that should be cherished in the game industry, but really doesn't get much play. And while some individuals who currently look like the results of Divine fucking a mince-meat pie that then somehow managed to spawn will argue that such games have no right to a platform, I'm of the belief that good game design is a white whale worth chasing. All that brings us to 2020, when a Kiwi, sent me Haydee 2 asking me to review it.
The Original Haydee was an odd beast; a third-person Tomb Raider-style.... Thing with style elements that were very Portal-esque, and a ridiculously curvy robot girl protagonist. While I haven't played it myself, I did get to watch a friend stream the whole thing beginning to end, and while I wouldn't say it was anything great, I would say it certainly seems like a good time. There is a story under it, but it's wholly passable. Certainly nothing that one would consider JPATG fodder, since it looked to be well beyond any of my usual fare, so whether the Kiwi who sent me its sequel hoping I'd tear the game to pieces, or intentionally sent me a good game hoping I'd review it anyway (in which case: well-played, motherfucker), I couldn't say.
What I can tell you is that Haydee 2 is a very different beast than its predecessor.
While the core elements of the game - the gameplay loop, the general premise - are virtually identical, the game's seen a massive change in scope, setting, and level design that's completely changed the entire feel of the game. Climbing and swimming were integral parts of Haydee; Haydee 2 has neither and the game is better for it. Haydee had level design that felt like a video game; Haydee 2's environment feels lived-in, for all its twisted environmental details. You have to give thought to how the place is laid out and how it's designed, because Haydee 2 feels more like a late-gen Resident Evil game than anything else, and it leverages this to get the most out of the game's exploration elements. You see outbursts of outright fantastic game design in Haydee 2, and a developer doing a ton with very little, to the point where it's only after beating the game that you realize just how many corners they cut while still making it all work. Quality game development is making a game that is better because of the limitations you had to work with, and Haydee 2 is a rare case of this in action.
Haydee 2 is a prequel, taking place over a century before Haydee 1, and has basically nothing to do with it story-wise. In fact, that's the biggest change of all: Haydee 2 actually has a plot, and like many games, it tells it by not telling it - it's entirely up to the player whether or not you want to go piecing it together. Your lone goal is to escape the facility you wake up in (NSOLA7), but beyond that, finding out more about your character and the setting is entirely on you. Most of this can be found via datalogs found throughout the facility, and give you more information about the facility, its inhabitants, your character, and the rather fucked-up world they inhabit.
I'm going to get the obvious out of the way right out the gate: Haydee 2's overt sexualization can seem off-putting, and in many ways, it is. I'm actually going to recommend you keep the Censor option on; all it does is add pixelation to cover booba when it appears and tone down the gratuitous sexual advertisements you see on the wall in-game, but it does help ground the game a little. That said, Haydee 2 is a rare case where the actual sexualization in the game is actually a central theme to the setting, and while I will get into it more with the plot dump later in this review, it's the rare case of a game where the themes are actually supporting the overall narrative, rather than just being there, since the central themes of the game are dehumanization, exploitation, and the rediscovery of humanity where it isn't. The adult themes, while overt, are also not sugar-coated, and if you were to completely strip them out, you'd lose the main thing giving the game's narrative some actual bite.
So while it's overt, it's honestly more mature than a lot of other games I've played.
You play as HD512, one of a large number of seemingly mass-produced big booba androids. You get some customization over her, with the ability to set her hair color, hairstyle, and some clothing options. She has a bit of an uncanny valley thing going on with her facial structure; this is intentional. She is designed to look mostly human, while also being just this side of off-putting, and it gets more so when you wander around the facility and keep running into androids with the exact same facial structure; it makes identifying what she is basically effortless. One really nice touch that helps with making her slightly unsettlign is that when she faces the camera, her eyes track the Camera's position. It's a nice little detail. With no memory of how you got where you are, your only goal is to escape this facility, but to say you're in a dangerous place is a fucking understatement; NSOLA7 is a deathtrap, and you will need to fight your way out, and there's no better way to show you through this than through the game's tutorial section, because nothing gets across just how well the game is designed like this one opening area.
The areas of NSOLA7 are color-coded for ease of guidance; we're in Orange, which is the Engineering section. The other areas are Administration (Green), Security (Blue), Medical (Teal), Technical (Yellow), and Habitation (Red). Immediately in the opening area, we can see a door locked with a hydraulic lock, and two disabled androids - one of them a defective model, whereas the other, more sinister, looks like a repurposed torso and set of legs with the arms and head replaced by other components.
There's really only one way to go, but you can find your first datalog right in front of you, which gives you an idea of what to look for throughout the game. Through the next door, we find our very first save room, which also shows you how switches work, and has the first storage chest and save point. In the game's easier difficulty, you can save as much as you want, but on hard, you'll need data tapes. Once again, the path is linear; crouch through the air vent and you'll be in the next hall.
This hallway has a few ways to go, but one way has a locked door, and another way has these little bastards:
These are EM mines, and they are essentially a one-shot-kill if you are anywhere near ground zero when they go off. They have a proximity trigger.
We'll need to do something to deal with these obstacles, and I can almost guarantee what we'll need to do is not what you'll expect.
Note the Engineering jumpsuit.
The other way leads to a large room with an active enemy, one of two common enemy types: The Clicker. This enemy is a tank; it soaks lots of abuse, but thankfully, it's a very slow enemy, so in a few locations (including this one) you can simply avoid them. They're very dangerous though if you get cornered by one, though, especially because they can kill you in only a few hits. This room's essentially a big circle, so it's easy to jink past him and escape, but you can't go any farther even if you do right now, so back to the main hallway it is.
The only other locked door is the one at the other end of the hall, near the minefield, and this one leads into a very large room with an enemy behind a barricade. This room introduces you to the other main enemy in the game, which is one of those creepy, sickle-armed, camera-headed things you saw earlier, and they are called Slashers. Whereas the Clicker is slow-moving but tough, the Slasher is very fast-moving but fragile. This one will rush you the second you hit the button to open the central lock to the room, but when that happens, something interesting occurs:
You see, in the central lock, there was an EM mine, and when the Slasher rushes you, it gets blown the fuck up. The mines are equal-opportunity killers, which is a very important fact to know in this game. Once past the central lock, you can use the other button to open the door, and enter the next part of Engineering. Here, we see a new obstacle we can't interact with - a manual override switch - because the lockbox for it is sealed with a padlock. You will obviously need to come back for this. There's also another obstacle: A set of lasers. Don't worry - these ones can't hurt you. They do, however, activate any device connected to them, which is typically to open or shut nearby doors for security purposes. In this particular case, it shuts and locks (for now) a mesh door in the next room, as well as a locking a door behind the player.
The mesh door blocks off access to the Shotgun. You will be able to go get this weapon later, but for now it's out of reach. It's good foreshadowing, however. The way behind you is locked as well, which leaves only the path forward.
After that, we're in a small room with seemingly no way out. There's a manual override switch, and this one's open and unlocked, but there's an armed mine in front of it, and the only way out of here is a locked mesh door. We're trapped. But there's also a shiny orange item on the counter.
It's our first item of the game, the Pliers. With the Pliers, we can finally change up things a bit, and do something about all these mines - namely, disarm them.
It's a little dangerous, but you need to creep closer and use the pliers on the mines.
The good news: Doing this doesn't just disarm the mine; it makes it so you can pick them up - and then use them yourself. On the off-chance you set one down where you don't want it, you can just use the pliers to disarm it again and pick it back up, but otherwise the thing is the same indiscriminate proxy-fused explosive device it always is, so be careful with 'em. Still, this opens up tons of options, since every time you see a mine, it's a hazard, but if you approach carefully, it's also a resource - you can grab them for yourself. If you know an enemy is going to bushwhack you, setting one is a great deterrent, and they're also useful if you can clear distance against a small cluster of enemies. Clickers will sometimes survive if they are in the edge of blast, but being dead-center will one-shot them. Being anywhere in a blast is basically instantly fatal for a Slasher.
With our new prizes, we're free to head back to the main hall. But something awaits.
....Another Slasher. But this time, we have a mine of our own, so we can put our skills to the test. Set the thing, then open the lockup.
Second verse, same as the first. And with that, we're back in the original hallway. Here, we can (and are going to) use our new Pliers to disarm and acquire the two mines here. However, while you can go straight to Administration now, you really shouldn't just yet, as you still aren't properly armed. Let's do something about that.
Back in the O-shaped hallway, we can use one of our mines to permanently deal with that Clicker.
While there are other areas that are more optimal to use it, for now, we'll settle for dealing with this bastard.
Yeet. On our way to the next room.
This next room has a small supply closet with our first real weapon in it: the pistol. However, it also has a Slasher. There's a button that opens the door, but the Slasher will beeline on you to murder you if you do. What you should do next is obvious: Just like the room with the central lockup, set a mine on the only path to where you are, then open the door with the button and let Irony run its course. With this, we have our Pistol and we're now able to take on the next stage of the game.
You also find the location of a useful container you can open with the right item later.
Finally, we make our way back to where the mines were, and, now armed with our new pistol, we can go into unknown territory.
Exploring will reveal both areas you'll need to go later and hidden caches of ammo. Welcome to Administration, where the game begins proper. While I didn't get a screenshot of it until after I got one (nice going, Jaimas), I also got one of the game's many first aid kits, which fully heal you when used and have a really obvious pink box top to make them distinctive.
Anyway, now that we're past the starting area: Do you see how good the conveyance in this sequence is? The game shows you absolutely everything you need to do without a single text box, interruption, or bit of dialogue. The game goes for a hyper-minimalist approach, trusting the player to make the most of the resources it presents, and not needing to explain what everything is or what it does - the game respects the player's intelligence. This opening area does so much, it might well be usable in courses on good design: entirely through gameplay, and while it can be a bit dangerous (it is very easy to die, but you don't lose any progress for it), it teaches the player a hell of a lot:
1. Basics of movement, crawling through ducts and opening doors and using switches, as well as reading documents
2. That the area is very dangerous and won't hesitate to fucking murder the player if they aren't careful
3. There's two main enemy types to worry about, a slow, tough one, and a fast, fragile one
4. Mines can damage/kill enemies as easily as they can the player
5. Not all traps are lethal (the alarm beams)
6. Tools can be used to interact with items in-game (Pliers on Mines)
7. Getting weapons and items will take hands-on problem-solving
8. You will need to return here to get more goodies later
9. You know what save points are and what save rooms sound like
This sequence also establishes Haydee 2's core gameplay loop: Fight and puzzle your way out of NSOLA7. Good stuff. The formula isn't perfect, but it's extremely competent. There are flaws; first this game doesn't have any kind of automap (Resident Evil's would be the easiest analogue). This is due to the minimalist HUD it goes for. There are in-game maps on each floor giving you the layout for each floor and how rooms connect together, but they aren't detailed and aren't the same as having a handy map with you recording shit you've already seen. You can workshop this feature in, and it's very obvious that it was chosen to not include this because of the game being well-enough designed to not need it, but it is a thing to be worked around.
A second problem the game has in its base gameplay loop is that it is very difficult. This game's lack of handholding means that it is very easy for someone who is not as skilled with this type of game to get discouraged. Haydee 2 will not hesitate to break your proverbial back and make you humble with these, and while there's no Moon Logic bullshit like say, a Sierra Adventure game or whatever the fuck those clowns using AGS concoct where you need a fake moustache and a spool of bubble tape to unlock a fucking door, these often require lines of thinking that won't come to a first-timer, who, cockblocked by a one-way locked door they can't open, won't generally think of other ways around the locked door that involve going to other floors and going around the obstacle once you activate it a certain way. A veteran of exploration-focused games like this won't have any trouble, but a newcomer might well find this game's lack of signposting a bit intimidating. It's also really easy to not know where to go at first, though in my experience the game's flow is flexible enough that this isn't usually a problem unless you spend ammo like tax-free candy.
There also was a problem back at launch where the game remembered enemy positions so that it was possible to get softlocked unless you had healing items, but that was fixed ages ago, and enemies will, eventually, reset position if given enough time.
The game has some nice easter eggs, with parodies of game ads and references to memes on desks.
The parody ads are actually, in-universe, a reference to ad campaigns done by NSOLA7 featuring their products (we'll get to it, I promise).
Mostly, they're just parodying existing games; I am ashamed to admit I actually did laugh at the "Mad Dad Erection" ad.
On the rare occasions you can shoot an enemy without them getting to you, consider taking it. The enemies are fucking dumb, and if they can't get to you, they'll just stand there. Every enemy killed while not able to fight back is a problem you need not deal with later. As stated, Haydee 2 will not hold your hand and will not go gentle on you, so don't go gentle back. The enemies are relatively stupid; they will only beeline on you if they are aware of you and can, indeed, get to you. In situations like the screenshot above, you're free to open fire through the reception window. The game's two main enemies you've already met; everything else in the game revolves around how and where these enemies are used, and I didn't realize until the final leg of the game that these two enemy types represented like 99% of what I fought throughout. Like I said, the game does a lot with very little, and leverages how encounters flow rather than throw tons of different enemy types. That it took me until I was hauling ass through Security during the endgame was when I realized it is testament to how well it works.
Both enemies have very distinctive reports when shot in the head, making it a bit easier to mark when you land one. There's a distinctive "plap" and a puff of blood when you land a headshot on a Clicker, and a loud clang when you headshot a Slasher. You absolutely should go for headshots; they do double damage. Which nicely segues us into the combat in this game.
Combat in the game is lethal, and most foes can kill you in only a few hits. As I explained in the preceding paragraph, the game greatly emphasizes marksmanship. HD512 also has what is inexplicably the coolest feature I've ever seen a third-person shooter protagonist have: The ability to run and even sprint while aiming. I don't know why she can do this, and it may be a bug or completely unintentional, but it's fucking awesome, and I wish to god more games had it, and I hope they never fix it if it's not intended, it helps the game flow much better.
Haydee 2 has four guns: A Pistol, Submachine Gun, Semi-Auto Rifle, and Shotgun. The pistol you've already seen; it's the game's basic weapon, a good all-rounder and has good performance overall. The SMG doesn't do much damage, and it recoils hard, but it holds a lot of ammo and fires quickly, making it good for multiple targets. The Rifle has excellent damage and range, but is hard to aim in-close and it requires headshots for ideal results. The shotgun is devastating, but close-range only, and has difficulty scoring critical hits. They're all very useful, and you can also find mod kits that will permanently upgrade your weapons. There are four types of kit to find: One that increases damage, one that boosts rate of fire, one that reduces recoil, and one that boosts magazine size. The problem is that you only find enough to fully upgrade 2 weapons, so you need to choose what you upgrade carefully: Do you want to upgrade the early-game pistol to give you an edge early on, the SMG for the midgame, or the Rifle or Shotgun for the late game? Do you distribute the upgrades evenly, so you can get the most out of them all game long, or just load up your favorites with every kit? That's for you to decide - and there are no wrong answers.
To give a good example of how combat encounters can change, and also establish the more distinctive parts of Haydee 2's environment and level design, you will frequently encounter areas where you need to think on your feet. The power is out for most of Technical, and, as such, you will need the Night Vision Visor to navigate this area safely. However, if you're an absolute chad, it is possible, though very risky, to sequence break your way into this area and rely on the (terribly limited) emergency lighting to get through, ergo allowing you to get all kinds of valuable goodies early. Other areas flat-out require specific gear; going into a certain part of Medical necessitates protective equipment, or you take damage. Most of the important items are, like your pliers, color-coded with orange handles (they are from Engineering, after all), and these will usually be used to open new areas, including a Wrench (for dealing with those hydraulic locks), Bolt Cutters (for dealing with padlocks), and Screwdriver (for removing vent covers), just to name a few. There's no Resident Evil "this item is no longer useful" system; if you don't need an item anymore, either put it in the storage box or throw it on the ground from your inventory (and remember where you left it in case you wind up needing it, silly).
The game has a crafting system for ammo lifted straight from Resident Evil 3; combine the right container with the right container, and you get bullets. Blue rounds are SMG rounds, Yellow are Rifle rounds, Green are Shotgun shells. To the best of my knowledge, pistol bullets (which are the red box, and by far the most common ammo type) cannot be acquired in this way. This room is one of the game's many save rooms, which always have save points, storage boxes, and distinctive music.
And since I mentioned the music, let's get into the game's audio for a bit.
Sound-wise, the music for this game is absolutely baller, with composer Vlad Plotnikov putting together a mix of moody, atmospheric tracks that blend electronic piano, percussion, and electric guitar. Each zone has its own music, and the main theme (You Don't Belong Here), in particular, is fucking awesome. Each zone's theme strikes a different tone while maintaining a similar feel. The Technical area has a distinctly threatening vibe with electrical crackle, while the theme for Habitation uses the piano to give this sense of mystery. This was one of those soundtracks where I wouldn't really remember much of it, then suddenly find myself whistling the main theme and seuging into the Engineering theme.
The other sounds in the game are passable. The gunfire effects are all right, the EM blasts punchy, and I have no real complaints except one: The enemies for the most part are mute. You'll hear footsteps sometimes, but neither the Slasher nor Clicker make much noise when they aren't attacking, and while this does sometimes lend itself to the game's tense atmosphere, it does strike me as off-putting at times. One thing I will give the game's audio is the cool automated messages you hear from NSOLA7's main computer, which gives PSAs that mostly just explain that the facility's fucked.
Graphically, Haydee 2 is impressive. It ran extremely well on my toaster, and on my gaming rig it runs as smoothly as teflon-painted glass, but the game has really good visual design in general, with real-time shadows, good use of light and darkness, and cool visual effects in areas. For an indie production, it's kind of outstanding how cohesive the facility is designed, and the major complaint I have, which is just as petty as when I bitched about the lack of muzzle flashes in Quake 2, is that the feedback for the game's gunfire isn't as good as it could be; rounds hitting walls need to be more impactful, and rounds hitting enemies need better indication than the little piffing squirt of red mist you see when hitting enemies, but it's hardly awful, and the fact that I had to dig this deep to find something for me to bitch about speaks volumes. The only other complaint I have visually is that I wish there more animations rather than the "Hit button, thing happen" minimalistic approach Haydee 2 has, and part of me wonders if that was a stylistic choice, so there's that.
Haydee 2's story, however, is where things get interesting. Like I said, Haydee 2's story is mostly optional and available only to those who hunt for it, but if you do, in each area, you find documents that give details about various things, sometimes puzzle keys, sometimes just inter-base communiques that suggest what was going on at NSOLA7 before everything went tits-up, and the picture it paints is quite disturbing in its own right. Some parts of it are darkly humorous (a Janitor complaining about having to remove a crate worth of items from several deactivated HD units in the gallery and complaining to management about it), others are distressing (the revelation that the head of medical was running a drug ring on his off-time and wound up being killed in an escape attempt after a roaming firefight with security).
If you want more details, head below the spoiler tag.
NSOLA7 is a facility that abducts young women and turns them into androids for commercial use. It looks specifically for girls who have desirable physical appearances and who won't be missed by nosy relatives or influential figures. The process effectively involves extensive cybernetic/robotic replacement and personality subversion. By the time the process is done, they all look exactly alike and are ready to go. NSOLA7 then boxes them up and ships them out for sale as fashion models, sexbots, and civilian sector companion units. Units that aren't quite up to code either are sent to the Private Zone (for use as whores), or more commonly, get repurposed into Operbots or Slashers (security units), by having their heads/arms/feet replaced, giving some appropriate body horror.
It's made very clear that as a whole, the HD units are not treated well, and for the most part the staff treats them as objects to be used, referring to them as "items" with all the care of someone describing a toaster they're selling. You also learn that the staff are ridiculously unstable in general. You can see signs of further sick-fuckery in Habitat with a few offline battered and smashed up HD units in some of the private rooms, further extenuating the evidence that NSOLA7 is staffed by fucking loons.
HD512, the player unit, is a unit that appeared to have a malfunction - a learning difficulty, and an inability to express artificial emotion (something engineering refers to as a "poker face"). She was sent to the Private Zone, but as luck should have it, Strauss, the head migration engineer of NSOLA7, took an interest in her, and, since no one really gave a shit about her, did some investigations into her, and discovered that her issues stemmed from the fact that she had developed an isolated cognitive loop. In addition to preventing her from generally expressing emotion, this essentially means she is regaining self-awareness. In studying her, he gradually took a shining to HD512, and realizes the potential she has - as well as how much deep shit NSOLA7 may be in if this isn't a unique occurrence - if other units develop cognitive loops, the results could utterly destroy the company. At the same time, however, NSOLA7 is already being targeted by a rival company via a saboteur somewhere within the facility. He eventually grows quite fond of her, and gets disciplined after giving her a haircut (at her request). Realizing she's in danger of being scrapped after Security threatens HD512, he attempts to help her escape, but he is caught, and security, suspecting he's the saboteur behind a spree of major problems (including a shuttle crash), gets too enthusiastic with interrogating him and accidentally kills him. HD512 is recaptured, and sent to Engineering for analysis and possible disposal.
During this time, Strauss' understudies are having severe problems keeping up with demand, since they aren't as experienced, and the chief technician learns that not only is HD512's loop not unique, but that it's been found in several of the newly-migrated units. Worse, Strauss was not the saboteur - a few days later, the main power supply for the facility, the Entropic Anchor, is offlined by explosives, flooding the facility with deadly radiation. Everyone in the facility is either killed or mutated into Clickers via entropomutation, and the facility goes dark. As part of an emergency protocol, the NSOLA7 facility AI wakes up all existing HD units to try to aid with an evacuation that isn't fucking happening. One of those units woken up is HD512, and that's where the game starts.
It's made very clear that as a whole, the HD units are not treated well, and for the most part the staff treats them as objects to be used, referring to them as "items" with all the care of someone describing a toaster they're selling. You also learn that the staff are ridiculously unstable in general. You can see signs of further sick-fuckery in Habitat with a few offline battered and smashed up HD units in some of the private rooms, further extenuating the evidence that NSOLA7 is staffed by fucking loons.
HD512, the player unit, is a unit that appeared to have a malfunction - a learning difficulty, and an inability to express artificial emotion (something engineering refers to as a "poker face"). She was sent to the Private Zone, but as luck should have it, Strauss, the head migration engineer of NSOLA7, took an interest in her, and, since no one really gave a shit about her, did some investigations into her, and discovered that her issues stemmed from the fact that she had developed an isolated cognitive loop. In addition to preventing her from generally expressing emotion, this essentially means she is regaining self-awareness. In studying her, he gradually took a shining to HD512, and realizes the potential she has - as well as how much deep shit NSOLA7 may be in if this isn't a unique occurrence - if other units develop cognitive loops, the results could utterly destroy the company. At the same time, however, NSOLA7 is already being targeted by a rival company via a saboteur somewhere within the facility. He eventually grows quite fond of her, and gets disciplined after giving her a haircut (at her request). Realizing she's in danger of being scrapped after Security threatens HD512, he attempts to help her escape, but he is caught, and security, suspecting he's the saboteur behind a spree of major problems (including a shuttle crash), gets too enthusiastic with interrogating him and accidentally kills him. HD512 is recaptured, and sent to Engineering for analysis and possible disposal.
During this time, Strauss' understudies are having severe problems keeping up with demand, since they aren't as experienced, and the chief technician learns that not only is HD512's loop not unique, but that it's been found in several of the newly-migrated units. Worse, Strauss was not the saboteur - a few days later, the main power supply for the facility, the Entropic Anchor, is offlined by explosives, flooding the facility with deadly radiation. Everyone in the facility is either killed or mutated into Clickers via entropomutation, and the facility goes dark. As part of an emergency protocol, the NSOLA7 facility AI wakes up all existing HD units to try to aid with an evacuation that isn't fucking happening. One of those units woken up is HD512, and that's where the game starts.
In essence, the game takes the time to deconstruct its own hook (the overt sexualization) and uses it to tell a story about not only dehumanization, but also rehumanization - of how someone who was turned into something inhuman can, in turn, become as human as they can be once again. The biggest draw of Haydee 2 (aside from the gameplay, exploration elements, etc) is discovering the documents and their meanings for yourself, and hunting for the documents leads you to find out more about what led to HD512's creation and even the revelation of her human identity. You're not looking at high art or anything here; this is a game where the sexualization is front-and-center - but the fact that it's head-and-shoulders above a ton of other games that are demanding to be taken seriously is equal parts surreal and hilarious.
The interesting parts of the facility's lore is there - the important shit already went down - but unlike a walking simulator like Everyone's Gone to the Rapture or Sunset, where all the cool and interesting stuff happened either is over (EGTTR) or is happening where you don't fucking interact with it (Sunset), Haydee 2's exploration and combat is in service of trying to escape this death-factory, which in most regards is just as engaging as finding out the full details of what went down here. All of this is shit that the game didn't need to have, but it wanted to flex its worldbuilding chops and actually came out with something competent. About the only complaint I have is that a lot of the documents read like a machine translation because the game creators did not speak English as a primary language, but considering how good everything else fits together, that shit can be forgiven.
One last thing I can say about the game is the Workshop, which is a mix of mundane, hilarious and insane. You have everything from quality-of-life mods (the map system mod I mentioned), to cosmetic mods like replacing HD512 with 2B from Nier Automata, to adding more costumes, to making a body modifier so you can make HD512 slimmer or into an amazon-esque musclegirl, to simply adding new areas or overhauling the interface to allow the player to have a Resident Evil style map system. I don't know who the mod that gives every character a foot-long erection is for, but if you want it, it exists apparently. The internet is a many-splendored place. Not to be outdone, the developers also flat-out give the players all the tools they might need for creating new levels, with their own proprietary level creator, EDITH, allowing for you to make your own maps or even mini-campaigns.
In the end, this is one of the now-ever-expanding list of games that prove the age-old axiom that just because a game has adult themes, that doesn't mean it doesn't have the potential to be good. If anything, the fact that I can play this game for 30+ hours, can genuinely say I had a good experience with it, and have this fucking much to say about it puts it on a plane that the candy-coated shit that dominates the JPATG bottom 10 will never fucking comprehend, let alone reach. If you want a decent game that won't hold your hand or treat you like an idiot, you won't go wrong throwing 25 bucks in this game's direction, and if nothing else, this review will serve as a calm before the storm for when I inevitably start writing down my thoughts when going through this fucking shambles while praying for the cloying embrace of the hereafter.
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