izigame.me

Recommending this game probably isn't the... Word I would use. But it's the closest option it's giving me out of the two, I suppose...
I felt obligated to finally play HB as a veteran of VNs and a lover of the absurd. However, this may be the first game that's left me thinking that these are 11 hours I won't ever get back.
Um. I don't think I... Regret playing it?
I was impressed by how committed to its own narrative it was, by the complete end.
The first half of the game certainly feels more like a parody piece. I worry that the majority of people who feel "bored" by this game are a majority of which who haven't gone deeper with this game and seen what it really has to offer; I could still understand feeling that way.
I was a middle grounder as a participant; I had several points of giggles. Although I easily lost count to what I kept saying to myself, 'what the flap am I flapping even playing!?'
I'm glad I chose to play this during Christmas. I will happily declare this to be a Christmas game, and I hope you play enough to find out what I mean about that - there's a tasty treat for those who do find out what I mean!
Honestly to be blunt with my beak, I struggled working through its system due to it being birds with proper Japanese family names. On my first few organic endings to see who I got I based it on purely by the birds I found easier to remember or identify, and I did enjoy those.
After those for a good 1/3rd of my birdtime I had to take notes to aviate some other endings, just because I really couldn't connect with some of the birds/narrative properly - I think it was worth it, but it's feather ruffling, and the game has a pretty sudden punishment system for narrative errors. That easily removes a couple seeds from me
I kept on enjoying some mental considerations between how I would typically treat these games when you have them truly as humans by design VS the birbs. Especially for the truer endings I found myself compartmentalising the situation better if I just mentally pictured this as a more human experience - although sometimes it was also beneficial the other way around. I appreciate it for giving me this interesting exercise
My least favourite thing most of all however was the interface of this game. Simple features like settings for dialogue or even choosing text were really badly designed and limited. I couldn't even access some of my saves. This was also the first VN that has ever crashed on my gaming PC -more than once- - which to me is actually impressive.
I've seen other birds complain about this also. I've played some really, really small budget VNs that are either free or pennies that have a better interface. It made me quite frustrated at several points that it has a price tag that doesn't budge but suffers from this really basic issue.
Most importantly however, no birds were harmed in the making of this game!