Analogue: a Hate Story certainly isn't billed as a feminist game. It's creator, Christine Love, cheekily describes it as being more about transhumanism, traditional marriage, loneliness, and cosplay. Maybe that's true. All I can say is that as a man, the game struck me as unflinchingly feminist. Now, I don't mean that in a confrontational, all-men-are-♥♥♥♥♥♥-pigs straw feminist sort of way. Hell, maybe feminism is not even the right word for it, maybe it's just a game about female experiences presented matter-of-factly. Ladies, this may seem obvious to you. But to us males, this is a wholly unsettling and unexpected revelation.

The story as outlined is simple and humble enough. You, a private detective (in space!), travel to a recently discovered wreck of a space ship, which had been previously lost for thousands of years. This ship once held an entire nation of people as it traveled to a distant planet. Somewhere along the way, the ship's inhabitants died out completely. It's up to you to sift through the ship's computer data (with the help of artificial intelligence friends) to discover the fate of the lost nation.

If you're like me, that story sounds fairly pedestrian so far, right? But the ship's recovered computer logs tell a much different, much more personal story.

Over thousands of years, this isolated society has regressed in both education and culture to the whereabouts of 15th century Korea. Despite living on an impressive space-faring vessel, and being assisted by futuristic artificial intelligences, its inhabitants are mostly simple farm folk who know little of the ship, or the universe, around them. And just like in 15th century Korea, conditions for women are horrifyingly bad.

The AIs ask you personal questions throughout the game, such as who you are, where you're from, and whether or not you've visited Pyonyang. You know, getting-to-know-you stuff. The first time I played through, I was asked if I was a male or female, and I answered honestly. I played through the game, and that normally would have been the end of it. However, there's a Steam achievement for playing through a particular ending as both a male and a female, so I played the same ending again. As a female, the writing changes. In this new scene, it was all I could do to not reach through the computer monitor and slap that AI around until the smug falls out.

This AI's dialogue is fairly standard and neutral as a male, while as a female, the AI's dialogue is condescending and dismissive of everything you say. As a male, this concept that I could be disregarded so easily was a bit shocking.

Is Analogue a FUN game? By no means. In fact, there's a race-against-the-clock mission (in a visual novel!) that really should have been heavily altered. But its story is solid, and compelling enough to make you overlook its flaws. Even weeks later, the story stuck with me, haunting me, making me question every interaction I've ever had with women over the course of my life.

TL;DR - Do you like reading? Play this game. It's important.

An interesting and heartbreaking interactive fiction game. Explores some pretty deep themes - sexism, being queer - in a sci-fi colony ship. Well done.

I will start off by saying that I am a great lover of Visual Novels and games of the sort.

I will admit that coming into Analogue: A Hate Story, I was fairly skeptical and I wasn't sure what to make of it. The only real negative was that I found the game did not make it very easy to get into and I felt like the user interface was a little bit unclear in sections. A factor that I have no doubt would initially put people off.

Little did I know that later on I would come to the conclusion that this game is worth every second I invested into it. The story is incredible once you have managed to piece things together and after some time you begin to learn new things and discover new secrets. The level of depth and thought that has gone into the creation of this game is incredible and I would reccommend everybody to play it. There are some fun little additionals which are added into the game through the use of the command centre, which is a nice little addition which I haven't seen implemented in too many others.

At £6.99 it is incredibly reasonable for a visual novel and there isn't really a good excuse not to buy it.

A heartwrenching story full of mystery and discovery. Reccmended for anyone who wants a tale with feminist overtones without having to sacrifice entertainment for a message.

I wont spoil the ending, but the creators ideaology is pushed onto you as the "right" way to do things. I actually got a game over cause I refused to justify the what occurs to one of the characters. I had enjoyed it up till that point, but it really soured what had been a interesting story at the very end with this.

Years after the Mugunghwa broken down an investigator from earth had come to investigate what happened on board the Mugunghwa. This korean visual novel will entice you with its beautiful art style and very well written story that is broken down into logs and messages sent to one another on the Mugunghwa. The logs cover topics from betrayal to topics of forbidden love. All while having the same undertoned theme of hate hidden in almost every single log that you open from the first log to the last log. The multiple ending will also provide you with hours of gameplay all while being very diverse from one another.

A wonderful way to spend an evening. It has a good soundtrack, tho I wish there were a few more tracks to it. It does an excellent job of using the music to adjust your mood between scenes. It is a lot of reading.
I haven't found my way to all the endings yet, but I don't care. No matter what you do the characters really do come to life. Instead of feeling like I was reading descriptions of people's lives I felt that I was reading a well-written book and could imagine all the characters and how their daily lives looked.
I was pretty completely surprised by one turn of events that I honestly had no idea was coming and it really felt like a genuine shock rather than just observing a cut-scene in a game that just pulls you out of the moment to watch something.

"Analogue: A Hate Story" is a fantastic spiritual successor (& juxtaposed title) to "Digital: A Love Story" (& to a smaller extent; "don't take this personally, babe, it just aint your story"). Like Digital, the entire game is presented on a computer screen, though Analogue is a lot more futuristic while Digital is set on a retro 1980s computer.
You learn about what happened on the Mugunghwa, a lost colony ship in space, through reading various logs from a dystopian era - its last days. Parallel to uncovering these details, you interact with the two remaining AIs on the ship who help you discover more logs, add commentary & befriend you.
A very well made game - it even has a reference list, showing that a lot of research was done on the Korean Joseon era. It touches upon themes like Transhumanism (humans living with & relying upon technology as a necessity), Traditional Marriage (concubines & polygamy), Loneliness, Interpersonal Relationships & (in one set of logs) Gay/Lesbian issues.
If you liked "Digital: A Love Story" (& optionally; "don't take this persoanlly, babe, it just aint your story") then you'll most likely like this game too. It presents a setting & a centuries-old era that you learn about through two forms of interaction (reading logs & interacting with AIs) whereas Digital was more about trying out the internet for the first time & getting involved in a hacking-conflict-love-story. If you haven't played Digital, this game will still hold up with its fascinating story.

Heavy on the novel and light on the visual: Hate Story is ostensibly a quest for the truth about what happened to the generation ship Mugunghwa, but the ship itself is simply the setting for more singular tragedies. The real goal of Hate Story is to understand the two AIs left on the Mugunghwa and the people who shaped their lives.

Dark in some places, saccharine in others, the tone shifts throughout the game but I never found myself experiencing whiplash... And for a detective story - a mystery, which means you should be kept guessing most of the arc - Hate Story's plot is telegraphed early on. But that you can see the answers coming is not necessarily a negative; not all stories are measured by their plots, instead by how they make the player feel, and Hate Story managed to engage my gooey center. I empathized with not just the AIs but also many of the background characters mentioned in the log files the AIs provide you with.

At the end of the day, whether you would enjoy Hate Story or not has more to do with you than the game itself. It’s a polished experience, but if you don’t enjoy reading for hours at a time or hard science fiction blended with a westerner’s anime aesthetic, than their are other visual novel games out there for you.

I’ll put it another way: Hate Story is about people’s stories, the player is almost an observer for most of the game. You ultimately decide the two AIs fate, but there’s little leeway in the endings, which Hate Story boasts five of them... Except the differences in those endings are shallow and not very rewarding, so you’re playing this game to take in a story and not so much to play an rpg (Don’t expect a paragon or renegade meter to pop up.)

I would recommend Analogue: A Hate Story with the caveat that it’s not a romance simulator (although there is some of that); it’s not an action game (hope you’re not turned off by terminal windows, because_get_use *to-this, and entering commands are as close as it gets to combat); and it’s going to, at the max, last you four to five hours - that’s how long it took me to 100% the game and get all the achievements, and I’m not someone who makes a habit of speed clearing games.

I could say more, specifically about the story, but spoilers are the suck.

peace

Analogue: A Hate Story is a visual novel where you play an explorer/salvager working your way through database logs on an abandoned starship, attempting to figure out how all its inhabitants passed away.

As visual novels are all about the story, it's difficult to say much more about the game without reducing the experience of the player. The majority of interaction takes place speaking with sentient AI on the ship, with communication limited to a few binary (yes/no) prompts and sharing specific information. The story is told via the ships' logs being revealed from this communication with the AI. In addition, there is a small amount of (sometimes timed) interaction via a terminal interface, akin to DOS/UNIX operating systems.

The story is decently told and interesting, if containing a bit of distracting and extraneous detail at times. I will admit to some personal dissatisfaction at the ending/final revelation, which has left me a little uncertain as to how I feel about the game. Ultimately, I think the experience is worth a look if you're into and enjoy visual novels, but this probably wouldn't make for the best visual novel for someone to experience.

This game was very Intense

It's Dark and Emotional plot has more than once had my Blood Boiling from certain aspects, Deeply Sympathetic from others.
This was my first Visual Novel and never usually Pick something like this as a first pick, However my fears that i had starting it up, were quickly replaced with a desire to explore more of the Visual novel.

The plot itself left me Pondering if such an event could of been Salvaged further than it has been so. The Political aspects were very Intense in how they were carried out. The thought of this being a valid possibilty has struck me more than once during my run through it. Yet i enjoyed the Story itself, despite what has happened.

Regarding the two Characters you see throughout the story, they are too Life-like to be regarded as just AI (One having more reason to be more so than another). From the Refined and Pleasent Persona of *Hyun-ae, To the Feisty but yet Proud *Mute, these two "AI" are two girls that are able to relate to a wide Audience for many different reasons.

I could talk alot more about this game, from the Intense Curveball that is thrown at you, to being forced to pick between two sides.

All in all, This VN Deserves more Attention than it gets in my Opinion.

Would i recommend it?

Y.E.S

Final Score 9.8/10

An evocative tale with a very well composed soundtrack. The writing's top notch, though it may get a little difficult to keep track of names and stories-- there are mechanisms in-game to make up for this. Not everyone's cup of tea; if you don't like reading through layers and layers of documents to get the gist of a tale, this is probably not a game you'd enjoy. The two AIs, Hyun-ae* and Mute*, are developed well (though I personally tired of the attempts the limited dialogue trees made towards pairing one of the AIs romantically with the player.)

Overall? Text-heavy, though it's all very readable, and the tale that unfolds is worth giving this a try.

|RATING: 9/10|

Analogue: A Hate Story is short, but it has been one of the most satisfying visual novels that I have ever played. Considering the game's length, it is easy to pick up and finish in one sitting. You'll be hooked regardless, so there is no need to worry. There is some basic puzzle solving and you most certainly must have the ability to read in order to fully enjoy this game. The themes are rather mature, so I would not recommend that younger audiences play this game. Now with this out of the way, let us delve into it. Let us delve into the past.

You are a simple pilot investigator flying in space when you come across a ship. The ship has no life on it; however, you decide to connect to a computer terminal where you meet an artificial (yet cute) inteligence named *Hyun-ae. She greets you with much respect seeing as she hasn't had contact with anyone for over six-hundred years. The game works as a series of log files that are shown to you by *Hyun-ae, and you simply read them and talk to the artificial inteligence to listen to their responses. The AI will ask you a few questions and you'll have the ability to modify values in the terminal in order to change your story path accordingly. The concept may seem simple and boring; however, it is far more interactive than it seems. What really makes this game special is the content itself, which for emphasis, I will add, is what really takes the cake.

If you're a fan of seeing characters develop, you are most certainly looking in the right place. What really stands out though is this game's reoccuring theme regarding sexism, sexuality, and sex. The game itself portrays these themes in very unique ways, but I would just recommend playing it since there isn't much else I can say about the game's story. The themes displayed in the game are even more than just that, though. The game explains much more and will require your experiences to interpret them. There are multiple endings that allow for the players to experience each theme in a different light and perspective. Analogue: A Hate Story does not disappoint, and I highly recommend that even people who are not fond of visual novels pick up the game.

Honestly, this one is a life changer.

Analogue: A Hate Story is a visual novel in which you try to uncover what happened to a lost spaceship and more importantly, it's crew. The story is presented via numerous documents and two A.I.s who also serve as pursuable love interests, all the while trying to influence the player's decisions. The experience is quite short-lived, which feels weird, considering that the story is clearly trying to emotionally influence you and centers around some fairly dark themes. More often than not though, these are presented in a pretty hamfisted way and the addition of extremely stylized characters makes for quite a mixed-bag overall.

Apart from an input-based sequence I encountered right at the end, there really is not any gameplay to speak of. The soundtrack served it's purpose as background music for you to read notes too but that's it. And finally, there are several different endings and achivements to obtain.

Most of this should not be news to any Visual Novel aficionado out there but rather maybe serve as a warning to anyone looking for a different experience. So for anyone interested in a decent enough VN, I would recommend getting this game on sale because even considering possible replayability-incentives, it's a very short-lived tale. Overall though, I will not recommend this game to a general audience which is most likely looking for more game and less novel.

If you like visual novels and interactive fiction, Analogue: A Hate Story is an absolute gem. A compelling mystery, great story, great pacing - a little light on replay value and can be a little tedious at times, but I'm always out to support visual novels on Steam and you should too! It makes a change from the standard Free-to-Play and multiplayer that everyone keeps harping about.

At first, I was pretty bored, the text and names blurring together (it didn't help that I just stopped playing Super Hexagon), but after a little bit, I was absolutely engrossed and played for a couple hours straight. It's very innovative and I'm so glad I bought this, despite the criticisms I've heard. I'm a casual fan of visual novels and I've never been as compelled by one.

Not only compelling, but a very educational retelling of a morally abhorrent era.

Awesome game! YES, it has a lot of stuff to read, YES, there's a lot of names/family names, BUT, the way you get to know the history of the characters it's one of the best I've ever seen. Also, *Hyun-ae = best girl.

I really didn't know what to make of this at first. Mostly I got it because the bundle was in sale and I vaguely recalled hearing an acquaintance mention that they'd played it. I generally enjoy visual novels, though, so I figured I may as well snag it while it was on sale.

Anyway, I'm not sure what I was expecting, but this really wasn't it. The odd and disjointed storytelling was a little off-putting at first, but curiosity about the Mugunghwa and what happened kept reeling me back in. The plot is pretty dark, and some of the log files are a little difficult to read. The resolution of the mystery is honestly pretty heartbreaking, but I couldn't help but keep reading.

Overall, it was super enjoyable, and I definitely recommend getting the soundtrack.

An absolutely lovely and engaging story, filled with really good moments and well developed characters. It makes you pause to think, and progresses in a very pleasing way. The soundtrack is great, which is one of the things I always notice about a game. Would absolutely reccomend this to anyone who enjoys graphic novel style games with a strong narrative that doesn't focus on sex or romance specifically. It's a joy to play when you want to just sit and unravel a good story, and I look forward to unlocking the other endings.

Maybe the Metacritic rating is the real Hate Story here. Zing.

Seriously, I enjoyed this (and the sequel) personally and don't get the low score, but I know these are not for everyone. Subject material gets pretty dark You'll probalby like it if you're into most visual novels or have played any of the author's other games. She has some available free on here site if you're not sure.