Like their Spanish counterpart Ratalaika Games, publisher Sometimes You are known for porting a wide range of indie PC games to various consoles. They’ve released a wide range of games over the years including one of my all time favourite visual novels, A Winter’s Daydream. Now their attention turns to the puzzle genre, with the strangely titled Girlfriend From Hell…
Revenge Is A Dish Best Served Cold
Girlfriend From Hell is a 2D cartoon-styled puzzle game and as the title implies, it’s a story of revenge. You play the lead character, Miya who has been in a long term relationship with her boyfriend Haruto. After waiting for what felt like an eternity for him to propose to her, she finally decided to take the plunge herself… only to be rejected! Despite being together, Haruto felt that gaming was a more important part of his life than Miya was so marriage wasn’t for him!
Understandably upset – and angry – Miya sets off on a plan of revenge to make her (still) boyfriend’s life a living hell. Setting traps, pranks and anything possible around the house.
Playing Girlfriend From Hell
Playing is straightforward enough and to ease you into the game, the first level starts off as a tutorial. The house is viewed from the side and uses a point-and-click interface. Using an on-screen pointer you can move Miya around the house, pick up objects and then use them as traps, hazards or to interact with other objects.
Only a few items can be picked up and used on each level so the challenges lie in finding them and the figuring out what to do with them. You have to hurry though, as each level is played against a time limit and to add even more pressure, Haruto is wandering around the house so you need to stay out of his way or you’ll get caught and it’s game over!
Epic Plot Fail
Before I carry on, while this isn’t meant to be a serious game (clearly demonstrated from the art style and puzzles) the game defies all logic just with its very existence. I know I shouldn’t try to read too much into the story for the game, but as the entire plot of Girlfriend From Hell revolves around revenge it’s hard to ignore.
But here we have what was a happy couple and now Miyu seems determined to destroy what remains of their relationship. There are countless couples whose relationships thrive without the need to be married, so this doesn’t seem to be a logical reason to then see a need to attack – violently at times – your partner. The way Haruto acts when he catches Miyu – even nowhere near any traps – is as if she’s not welcome in the house, yet his somewhat lewd behaviour at points in the game shows her presence is more than welcome. What relationhip is/isn’t there defies all logic. Truthfully, Miyu should have just moved on and Haruto would be a) safer without her and b) is too creepy to deserve any relationship!
Yeah, I know I’ve been thinking about that part of the game for far too long…
Losing Control
Where Girlfriend From Hell really falls apart is the control system. The game was originally released for the PC and frankly it shows. The use of the left analogue stick to move the screen, the right stick to move the pointer, shoulder buttons to select items from your inventory then different buttons to walk/pick up objects and another to use them makes the game incredibly clunky. It’s very as a player to want to do something but to find that the controls just get in the way of you being able to – or at least quickly and easily.
And that’s really the game’s biggest problem. If it played at a more relaxed pace it wouldn’t necessarily be an issue, but with such a tight time limit on each level and the need to avoid your boyfriend at the same time it makes it almost completely unplayable.
Toilet Humour
One of the key selling points of the game is meant to be the humour. But instead of finding any of the pranks funny, they were the complete opposite. There was nothing particularly clever about the traps or revenge plots concocted by Miyu and frankly they were juvenile at best. These are characters who are meant to be adults in a long-term relationship, but are acting like children.
The animation showing the effects from successful pranks is over-the-top but not in a funny Looney Tunes manner, but excessive cringeworthy way. Right from the start in the tutorial, Haruto is given a large dose of laxative and then spends a large amount of time flying around the screen leaving a trail behind.
And speaking of Haruto, his behaviour throughout is quite worrying and reveals a somewhat seedy nature to his character and the less said about that the better…
Presentation
I’m still not too sure about the art style of Girlfriend From Hell if I’m completely honest. The look of the house on screen reminds me of the old Commodore 64 classic Little Computer People, but the grating sound effects and animation really don’t fit for a point and click puzzle game. You really need something with precise visuals so you can get pixel perfect positioning for your character throughout and I never got that impression at any point.
Unfortunately, that was the least of my concerns. At the very start you’re presented with a single screen comic strip setting the scene with the game’s plot that I’ve mentioned earlier. Displayed in the same art style of the game, the layout is bizarre with the strip reading from top to bottom in two columns. You don’t need to be a comic writer or artist to understand how a comic strip flows so starting the game off like this really doesn’t give a particularly good impression to the player.
Things don’t get any better though. Once you start playing, a large portion of the screen is taken up with a status panel at the bottom containing the timer, your inventory and other information. And at the top is a text window giving hints and information and at the beginning the game starts with a message from the developer telling players that this is their first game. Unnecessary and I wonder if this was included because they weren’t confident about the quality and wanted players to be more forgiving of it?
Overall
I know I’ve come across as being rather harsh on Girlfriend From Hell, and it’s something I generally don’t like doing. I really do try to find something positive with every game I play and I do appreciate that no developer ever sets out to write a bad game. Sadly the game has too many issues to be an enjoyable experience. Seeing walkthrough videos of the PC version, players have commented about how tight they found the time limits to be, but on console it’s frustrating to a point of making the game unplayable.
Baffling story aside, I found it almost impossible to warm to any of the characters either. You need to be able to cheer on the hero or at least dislike the antagonist, but when both are unlikeable it’s hard to have an incentive to interact with either of them. Sadly this is one that should have been left on the PC.
Leave a Reply