Fading Hearts

 PC
User Score
3.6

Generally unfavorable reviews- based on 5 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 1 out of 5
  2. Mixed: 2 out of 5
  3. Negative: 2 out of 5

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  1. Paikia
    Feb 16, 2014
    5
    To make this short - Fading Hearts is much more a visual novel than a game.
    Just so we're on the same page, as far as I'm concerned, Long Live The Queen and Magical Diary are games, as they offer plenty of interactive content, where you actually get to play, make decisions and influence what happens next. In Fading Hearts, though, the communication is mostly one-way - most of the time you    To make this short - Fading Hearts is much more a visual novel than a game.
    Just so we're on the same page, as far as I'm concerned, Long Live The Queen and Magical Diary are games, as they offer plenty of interactive content, where you actually get to play, make decisions and influence what happens next. In Fading Hearts, though, the communication is mostly one-way - most of the time you watch and read, and occasionally make a choice. It took me around 20 minutes of scrolling through animations and text boxes, until I got my first choice, and that is only to have the game throw at me more and more information.

    Obviously, I'm disappointed, as I was expecting more to do. Despite my disappointment, though, I'm not rating this game too low, since it was completely my fault, that I didn't get what I wanted. I should've done some reading before buying something I had thought was something else. I just figured I'd post something about it, so others wouldn't make that mistake. Only get this if you want to watch and read a visual novel. It's nothing like Long Live The Queen!    … Expand
  2. sicanshu
    Mar 24, 2014
    8
    I want to like this game. Hell, I want to like all visual novels. I was raised on the Choose Your Own Adventure books, and the ability to take an active role in determining the narrative was part of what drew me to gaming to begin with. That being said, like the vast majority of the genre itself, it's as a 'novel' where Fading Hearts most comes up short. Even aside from the typos (whichI want to like this game. Hell, I want to like all visual novels. I was raised on the Choose Your Own Adventure books, and the ability to take an active role in determining the narrative was part of what drew me to gaming to begin with. That being said, like the vast majority of the genre itself, it's as a 'novel' where Fading Hearts most comes up short. Even aside from the typos (which have supposedly been patched) the dialogue and anime-inspired vignettes that comprise the bulk of the game are often clunkily written and cancerous with cliches. I'm willing to forgive a fair bit if this is a translation, but the developer's webpage says they're based in Toronto, which ain't no city in Japan I ever heard of. Moreover, while the life management elements and light turn-based RPGing aren't bad, they're a long damn way from justifying the purchase. Against all odds, though, this is a game that is significantly more than the sum of its parts. It succeeds as an exercise in, for lack of a better term, weirdness. All its awkwardness and mediocrity can't quite manage to obscure the sense it conveys that there's something seriously strange, even fey, going on here, just under the surface of the painfully normal lives of its characters. Don't ask me how, but despite (or maybe because of?) its ineptness, Fading Hearts manages to sneakily touch that part of the imagination that not only can conceive, but desperately wants to believe in the existence of (to misquote e.e. cummings) a hell of a good universe next door. For that reason alone, I'd say it's worth a shot (but maybe wait for it to go on sale).… Expand

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  1. Softpedia
    Sep 11, 2014
    75
    Fading Hearts is certainly a good visual novel game, managing to innovate in the genre by adding some big choices and by allowing characters to be more than just 2D people. The fact that they lie and most of them have fleshed out backgrounds makes you care about them even more.
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