S4U: CITYPUNK 2011 AND LOVE PUNCH [review]
S4U: CITYPUNK 2011 AND LOVE PUNCH is an atmospheric game that captures the essence of an urban society deep in the grasp of late stage capitalism. Unemployment is high in the city of Castor Yard, a place where dreams go to die. Our main character is making it work though. Sort of. Miki is underpaid and underappreciated at their current job, and starts the game off announcing their intent to save up enough money to quit their main gig as an architect.
From there, Miki goes to work at her second job, called an online mouthpiece. She masks herself as her client online, and has conversations for people that they do not want to have themselves.The game begins with our hero helping a girl navigate a boss who is sexually harassing her.
S4U works as an interactive visual novel, played mostly from Miki's desktop. There are multiple programs such as the chat client Miki uses to talk with others, social media feeds, and many others. Players make choices using the chat program's keyboard. These selections alter the course of the conversation, ranging from getting the client fired to successfully putting a stop to their boss's unwanted advances.
The game is driven by choices, with the Steam page boasting 20 unique characters and more than 300 decisions to make. That's nothing to sneeze at considering a single playthrough is about six hours long. While the core story appears to be the same through each playthrough, the number of choices provide variety in smaller events and dialogue. There’s even a multitude of different people for Miki to fall in love with.
Thanks to Miki's many programs the player will often need to multitask, and things can get frantic!. Juggling multiple conversations is common, and taking too long to respond to any single character may cause things to turn sour. I do appreciate what the game devs were going for here, but I found the controls to manage multiple tasks a little clumsy and unintuitive.The main thing bothered me was switching between choices. The buttons I would naturally reach for to cycle through not answers did not match up with what the devs chose for the task, which gave the overall feeling of being clunky.
I found myself falling in love with the world of S4U and Castor Yard.The presentation is also fantastic, with gorgeous pixel art and a fitting soundtrack I very much enjoyed. Helping Miki navigate her slice of modern-day life is compelling. The story has a bit of a science fiction focus with a lot of dealing with beings who exist on the internet called Cyber Lives. They’re virtual entities that live in online societies and have stirred up much controversy. S4U: CITYPUNK 2011 and Love Punch focuses on the universal conflict of these cyber lives taking away jobs from real people.
While there is despair in Castor Yard,I found there were tiny pockets of joy and hope in the day to day moments. I resonated with this theme, and found it gives the game an emotional punch that I liked.
However, there is one thing holding S4U back despite its many positive qualities, and it could be make or break for many players. The translation is, while passable, is subpar. Spelling and grammar errors fill the dialogue and it can be a struggle to figure out what the heck the game is trying to say. It almost reads like a rough draft was used instead of the finalized script.
The translation is a glaring issue but it's really the game's only flaw. I wholeheartedly give everything else about it a thumbs up but definitely try a demo before buying. For those who can look past it though, there's definitely something special here.
PROS:
- Atmospheric original slice of life story set on an alternate Earth
- Engaging interactive game play
- Beautiful art and soundtrack
CONS:
-translation is awkward and poorly edited
-Managing multiple activities may be overwhelming for some players
Overall: 7/10
