Remember to just have 1 waifu.
Getting more waifu will destroy your laifu.

An ex-terminally-ill Korean AI girl from the distant future used this game to emotionally blackmail me into making an actual honest-to-god IRL cake. 10/10 would recommend.

(Basically, it's the Portal 2 to Analogue's Portal. If you like actual engaging characters (instead of flat VN stereotypes), moral ambiguity, tragedy, mostly fanservice-free lesbian and gay relationships, futuristic spaceship dystopias, political maneuvering, reading other people's letters, or cake, buy this game. You won't regret it.)

This is a pretty good little conspiracy and if followed sequentially you get a taste of what's coming in day 1, get a glimpse of the end in day 2, and in day 3 you see it from the conspiracy side. It's a sad little tale where really, no one is happy and the "heroes" lose. I liked that there's not really a big event that's the cause; wheels were in motion before the logs you start reading, and you feel those wheel get a little oiling during the course of events, then turn some more. There's no magic gas or anything behind it all.

The problem is it's less of a game than Analogue. You have enough power over the three days for every log, every single one. So why make me pick? It's completely pointless, you may as well just have fed them to me in a set order. In the original you had a log percentage and you felt like you were investigating, unlocking new avenues as you passed logs to your AI companion. There's none of that there, you unlock the next six logs, read them, then repeat with the next six and so on until you run out of power. There's no reason not to read them in sequential order.

There's also a lack of variety. You had the terminal in Analogue to mix things up a little, plus the bit with the reactor added a little drama to the proceedings. Here it's just so... bland. You read logs, then shut down. Repeat for three days.

There isn't a climax to the story either. You just run out of logs. Contrast that to Analogue where you find out why the Pale Bride doesn't speak, or why everyone on the ship is dead.

It isn't helped that Hyun-ae's route is so unchallenging. There's no conflict, no drama, no tension. How can a relationship survive between someone in a screen and someone in the physical world? Won't the investigator eventually leave her? ♥♥♥♥ that, here's a message about AI bodies to completely dissolve any potential for dramatic tension. The opportunity is also completely missed to draw parallels between your relationship and that of Mute and her security lieutenants, the way she had seen them come and go. What happened when you died and Hyun-ae lived on? Nope, nothing. What about charges against her for her actions on the ship? Nope, answered, no tension. What about her being part of the contract and thus taken from you? Ignored.

Hyun-ae and the story are just completely disconnected from one another, and the new log format doesn't help. She doesn't make any substantive contributions to the narrative, just little one liners here and there, generally along the lines of "harsh" or some such.

I even felt the music wasn't as good this time around.

I hope and pray that when I do it with Mute further down the line that it will be better, because there's someone with a more personal investment in events. There's also that achievement for reading all the logs again on day 3 with her, which would suggest she reviews them in a new light.

I should be interested in the replay, but I can't get enthused. In Analogue I didn't need to re-read logs I still remembered, I could pass them straight to the AI to get the new content. You can't do that here, and I'm not sure I can face the idea of slowly... scrolling... through... every... log... again. It's a game designed to be replayed which isn't designed to be replayed. Or played at all really.

The game really only does one thing better and that's that it ties the side characters more tightly into the story. In Analogue you could know nothing about the Smiths and it wouldn't change a thing, but here all those people provide a window into how society was changing, and the impact it had on people.

I come out the end of this really disappointed. There's a good story underneath it all, but it misses every opportunity to be more.

God damn it, *Mute.

A word of warning: If you're easily depressed or heartbroken, DO NOT play this game on *Mute's route. To everyone else, enjoy, but be warned it'll be a pretty disturbing journey. I rarely recommend games, but this one is definitely worth it.

...damn it, *Mute...

Oh, *Hyun-ae, let's solve mysteries together forever~

Hate Plus is a fantastic... something between a visual novel and a kinetic novel. Both this game and it's predecessor, Analogue, aren't a tangled spiderweb mess of routes, choices, decisions, Good and Bad Ends. There aren't many branching decision points in these games (Hate Plus doesn't even really have any), which kind of removes a lot of their "gaminess." That's okay with me; the visual/kinetic novel genre exists somewhere in the digital melting pot between traditional literature, comic books and video games. That's pretty great, in my opinion.

I won't go into the story because it would be rife with spoilers, but I'll talk some about the game itself. Hate Plus is even more linear than Analogue, which is okay. The bulk of the "gameplay" is spent reading over recovered logs from the derelict generation ship Mugunghwa. You've got the assistance of whichever AI you either choose or carry over from your Analogue clear data. Depending on the choices made in Analogue or when starting a new game, you may have a different relationship with either *Hyun-ae or *Mute.

The meat of the game's story is told through the logs and the AI's commentary on the logs. Because your ship was damaged somehow, you have a limited amount of data you can sift through every 12 hours, which forces the game to be played over a period of at least 39-ish real-time hours (though you can circumvent this, but the author will call you a "jerkface"). Every time you read through six logs or read a log that's very significant to the plot, your AI partner will want to discuss something with you. Depending on your progress, this could either be a discussion about your relationship or about the mystery of the Mugunghwa's reversion to a primitive Neo-Joseon culture. Occasionally you'll receive a message from your employer or other people, usually while you are extracting new data from the encrypted logs.

And that's pretty much the extent of the gameplay. There really isn't much "game" here; it's entirely about the narrative. And that's okay. The narrative is excellent; Christine Love is a fantastic writer. As a writer myself, she makes me jealous. The logs and your progress through them are carefully metered so you're slowly drip-fed the main story while seemingly being distracted by random bits and pieces that don't seem relevant. They become very relevant later.

The plot itself, like its predecessor, is seriously messed up stuff interspersed with little rejuvenating isles of humor and heartwarming. While I was going through the game (I was playing *Hyun-ae's route; I intend to finish *Mute's route eventually) there were many points where I desperately welcomed *Hyun-ae's insistence that we stop and chat. Some of the stories you read in the logs are soul-crushingly sad. Spending time "talking" with *Hyun-ae and her generally ridiculous levels of adorable sweetness balanced out the intense tragedy of the story from the past. I haven't completely finished *Mute's route, but her "breather episodes" seem to largely be composed of humor (and that's great, too). As the plot progressed further and further, the hopelessness of many past characters' situations started to press heavily upon me, drawing me deeper and deeper into the self-contained world and its terrible drama.

That isn't to say Hate Plus doesn't have problems. It has problems. The "real-life" time limit is my biggest personal gripe, even though you can circumvent it. As a general rule I hate it when games try to control the rate at which I play them. I can't stand turn limits, limited numbers of saves, save points, diminishing returns on experience points gain (I especially hate daily quests in MMOs, but that's a rant for another day). My second-biggest problem was the UI seemed to be very sluggish in responding to my mouse commands. Scrolling through the logs seemed to take far more "spins" of my mouse wheel than I would need to execute to scroll a web page in Chrome, for example. I was spinning the mouse wheel so much my index finger started to get a little numb! I tried lots of keyboard keys in an attempt to find some other way to scroll, but nothing seemed to work. Trying to grab the slider didn't work, either. Occasionally clicks on UI elements wouldn't register. I don't think these issues were part of the "interface screw" from the ship's low power and damage.

A lot of people seem to have another major gripe: the infamous "cake" sequence in *Hyun-ae's route. To be honest, I actually loved this part. Partly because I really did find it completely, adorably cute, and partly because it gave me a brief respite from the soul-crushingly depressing things I was reading. I happened to be playing at 3AM, but I still went in the kitchen and made a cake (it was pretty tasty, so it worked out). I understand why the developer chose to add this, and I can understand and appreciate why people would be annoyed by it, but I really loved the fact that it was in the game.

Hate Plus is a fantastic visual novel and I'd recommend it to almost anyone, especially fans of science fiction. The plot will make very little sense if you haven't played Analogue, however, so I recommend buying them both and playing them both. Don't let the poor "hours of play per dollar" ratio scare you off; there's some really great story here!

I will warn you though that if you suffer from massive testosterone poisoning, you will probably find both games to be very uncomfortable. Both can be aggressively girly, especially on *Hyun-ae's routes. For me, that's a big win. The gaming industry as a whole is completely dominated by titles that are aggressively hypermasculine. It's nice to have something that more caters to my side of things.

So, like, I was just about to write this review when, at that very moment, my doorbell rang. It was my sister. So I interrupted my review, got up, and greeted her with a calm "hello". She was just back from the shops, and had bought me a sandwich, so I stopped to eat and have a chat. Her boyfriend was getting on fine, she was enjoying her job, the usual.

After lunch, I wasn't particularly in the mood for writing, so I decided to do something else for a while. I ended up spending most of it on YouTube, where I learned great deals about Blinking and Slamming. It was quite the entertainment, and I felt a lot better afterwards. So I got back to writing this review.

...

If you thought that was a whole load of completely unnecessary prose, then this game is not for you.

Seriously, I knew going in that it wasn't as well-liked as the first one, but I absolutely wasn't expecting it to be so long and drawn out. It's not that there's unnecessary logs - although some are - it's that they're all way, way longer than they actually should be. Condensed by 50% and not lose anything.

The other big issue was that the story simply wasn't very interesting. The A-plot, the politics stuff, is fairly well written, although somewhat let down by that it's very predictable. As for the B-plots, they just don't go anywhere. While the B-plots were important in the first game for setting the tone and getting an idea of what life was like, here they're just mediocre relationship stories.

There's a lot of smaller but important issues too. The time mechanic that does absolutely nothing, that you can read entries out of order basically spoils earlier entries (and sequence breaks dialogue a little bit), there's a lot less AI chat this time, Mute route's badly written plot twist that's just there for the sake of a plot twist, and the goddam awful one-line-at-a-time scrolling.

Overall though, it's simply not a good enough story that I can recommend to anyone. I loved the first game, but this ain't it.

Initially I didn't like this game as much as Analogue, but it got much better after the 2nd playthough with *Mute's route and then even more so with the Both harem route. Hilarious. Also, if you have a completed Analogue game save, Hate Plus will *notice it* by the way.

Forced to bake chocolate cake with AI waifu 10/10

Play Analogue: A Hate Story before playing this however, as this is a direct sequel to it.
A very engaging visual novel, I wanted to keep playing until the end so I can get my happy ending. The only problem I have with this though is how real life time dictates when you can play the game on the "next day" again. I guess to add a level of realism to it.

10/10 would bake chocolate cake again.

Play it. Hate it. Love it.

The story of Hate Plus revolves around discovering what occured prior to "Year 0" on the Mugunghwa. Instead of learning about Hyun-ae's past while reading about the events, like in the first, you uncover a lot about *Mute's past from those many lost years. The quality of this game is just as good as the first, which was simply amazing.

If you have any interest in visual novels you should definitely check out Analogue: A hate story and Hate Plus.

To summarize: Wonderful characters. A Great story. Great writing. Cake. This game basically has everything!

As a side note this game has brought to my life the existence of the word "milquetoast" which now ranks right up there with defenestration, verisimilitude, and mastication for words that are way too fun for their own good to say.

Rating:
10 Filia hairball's out of 10 of Otacon's animes.

Story-wise is not as good as Analogue, but it is a sequel and it adresses one important plot hole from the first game. The music is still great.

Analogue was a pretty good visual novel, how does the sequel compare?

...ehh..?

It's alright, yeah. It's just... sterile. Poorly presented overall. None of the characters really have any weight in the story, it's all reading about things that happened in the past that neither character was there to experience, so it doesn't matter much who you pick because the end result is about the same. Why couldn't we, maybe, have a story told from *Mute's perspective leading up to the event that caused Year 0? It would make it a lot more compelling than reading through a lot of logs with an AI companion making comments on stuff. Meh.

The story itself is alright, there's a lot of characters to keep track of and they all have names that are kind of hard to remember but there's a few characters than stand out as more important, so I guess it's fine. Nothing ever really gets resolved in the side-plots though. I mean there are implications given the nature of what comes next, but... ehh. The central story is pretty decent though, a lot of politics but not without a point, and the characters are pretty strong even without any direct interaction between them and the player.

The forced wait between days is also possibly for the better as I don't know if I could stomach just reading through logs for too long, I'd probably be waiting anyways. It's not a game for long sittings anyways, unlike Analogue which could easily and most likely would be completed in one sitting. But that had a variety of gameplay elements, reading over (shorter) logs, interacting with the console, interacting with the AI... that's the thing, there's not much to interact with here, compared to Analogue. I don't know why that's the case.

Overall I'm left just feeling very meh about this. It feels haphazardly thrown together because the author wanted to continue the story but didn't have any ideas for a game. I'd give it a slight recommendation if you've read Analogue already but otherwise there's no reason to get this one.

First one was about *Hyun-ae, this one focuses on *Mute and her past self.
The atmosphere isn't as oppressive as in Analogue, since you're just chilling in your spacecraft during a flight instead of negotiating with strange AIs on a derelict space colony ship that's about to explode. The interface is the same, and while the hyperlinks, portraits and summaries are really helpful, the most substantial feature is the story, again fragmented into log messages.

So, what is this? This is the sequel/addon to Analogue: A Hate Story, and, just like a sequel normally does, continues the story from its prequel. After rescuing *Hyun-ae or/and *Mute, you can use your savestate of Analogue and start your journey back to earth with all your gathered information and new waifu. But - because you're a handsome space investigator - you do not slack off during your travel home; no, you go further into investigating instead (and bake a cake).

In Hate Plus you get to know what happened on the Mugungwha before the year 0; what exactly happened that society got so old-fashioned; the missing piece in the story of Analogue. I won't write how exactly the story goes, in order to not spoil it for anyone who hasn't played it yet. But I'm willing to say that the story is awesome and matches perfectly with the story of the prequel. Everything fits, though you have to be prepared that this story offers a quite different atmosphere, since society hasn't regressed yet; it feels a bit more modern. You may also need to be interested in at least a little bit of politics, since you will read a lot about it here; if you're not, this game may not be as easy to read for you - it could (and possibly will) get a bit boring then.

The soundtrack is - just as in its prequel - good, absolutely fitting and decent. If you liked the soundtrack of Analogue, you will like this one too, and it's totally worth its money. (Though, Analouge's soundtrack was way catchier)

I strongly recommend this game to everyone who played Analogue and liked *Hyun-ae or *Mute. Though, you have to keep in mind that this is an addon. It's not really a standalone game, it's an addon. I say this, because sometimes I get the feeling that it's just not as good as Analogue was; so if you ever get this feeling too, just remember: it's basically just an addon. So, everything's fine. Besides, there's no point in playing Hate Plus, if you didn't play Analogue. But I feel like I'm starting to ramble here, am I not?
So, if you liked Analogue, get this game in your cart already and continue investigating!

Played, and finished it, then I saw other people's screenshots.
Funny to see how much I missed in a single playthrough

On a side note, it's not as good as the first game (for me), but there're many little stuff that makes it enjoyable
(Loved the spoiler achievement)

Good sequel for Analogue. I personally enjoyed this game more than the first one simply because I get to piece together the puzzle without pressure from time.

I'd recommend this for people who like of dating sims or text adventures.

Hate Plus is a different kind of game, and that's not a bad thing if you are looking for something new to try. Instead of being a puzzle, adventure, or action title, it is literally an interactive novel. The only "puzzle," if you will, is attempting to piece together what happened to space vessle Mugunghwa before the events of the previous game, Analogue: A Hate Story. Because there are some concepts originally introduced in that game, it's helpful to have played it before diving into Hate Plus, but it's not essential.

If you completed Analogue, however, you have the choice of either importing data from your save files or starting clean. How the story progresses and the interaction with your on-screen sidekick is completely dependent on which of the two AIs from the previous game you are partnered with--or if you are partnered with both. *Hyun-Ae is an adorable and somewhat naive girl with a big heart and an extremely tortured history (see Analogue for the whole story); *Mute is a security AI who is much more abrasive and sometimes struggles to fit in but interesting in her own right.

The "game" aspects of Hate Plus are minimal, even more so than in Analogue. The only things you do are choose from a series of log files to read, address your AI when she wants your attention, and generally read along with your sidekick. I'm not a person who likes to read books anymore, but presented in this format, the reading is engaging and fun. But don't take this to suggest that this is a PG story for anyone to read as there are many mature themes and outright NSFW topics discussed within some of the logs.

But perhaps the most fun is with interacting with your chosen AI. She will ask you to click on her from time to time to ask a question or discuss something with you; often, you'll be presented with a wheel of possible responses. There's no right or wrong, but how you answer definitely can influence her perception of you. If *Hyun-Ae is your sidekick, you'll even have the opportunity to bake an actual CAKE for an achievement. (Unlike Portal, this cake is NOT a lie.) And if both *Hyun-Ae and *Mute are along for the ride, their banter together is really funny at times.

In a game like this, presentation is everything, and Hate Plus does not disappoint, with charming graphics for the two AI's, a nice, clean interface serving as the ship's computer console, and an excellent soundtrack by Isaac Schankler, who also composed the music for Analogue. My favorite song of the soundtrack is called "Vision," which is heavily played during the playthrough with *Hyun-Ae. It's a beautiful song, one I find myself listening to quite frequently OUTSIDE of the game. I've heard very few video game songs that I can listen to in that way (the theme "Icarus" from Deus Ex: Human Revolution being one of the only others). It's hard to imagine a better interface or a more listenable soundtrack for the content of the game.

I did find a few minor faults with the game, however. One is the fact that after you download so many logs, you have to save your progress and quit. This is a mechanism built into the game design; the number of logs you can pull is directly linked to the power remaining in your character's ship, and when it drops to 1%, you have to end the game, thus giving the batteries time to recharge for the next session. This takes 12 real-time hours; there IS a way to circumvent this if you want. It's an interesting mechanic and not entirely artificial as it's linked to the story, but it would be nice to not have to use what amounts to a cheat to bypass it if you want to spend more time reading through the story. Additionally, I found control non-responsive more than in Analogue; I'm not sure if this is a problem or if it's another mechanic linked to the whole low-power-on-the-ship aspect of the story, but it's a minor irritation, though not one that I would consider off-putting.

And then there's the possible red herring of an achievement: Level Four Revive Materia. To this day, it appears NOBODY has been able to unlock it based on Steam's global stats (I checked this again before writing this). I've researched this on-line along with a number of other players, and it appears this achievement is not actually possible. However, there has been no word from creator Christine Love about this that I am aware of. I don't consider myself an achievement snob, but for anyone who would like to 100% this game on an achievements level, this may be off-putting until a way to unlock it becomes more clear. In that regard, anyone who considers achievements to be an important part of the experience should approach with a degree of caution.

UPDATE AND SPOILER ALERT, 7-29-2014: A new article on Kotaku confirms that this achievement is 100% IMPOSSIBLE to obtain: http://kotaku.com/the-steam-achievement-that-nobody-unlocked-1610073943

Another possible turn-off for some is the straight story aspect of the game. Even Analogue presented one fairly frantic and involving puzzle around the middle of the game in which you used that game's console to enter a series of commands to stop a nuclear meltdown. Hate Plus does not include any true puzzles at all, with the possible exception of a sequence between you and the two AIs if both are accompanying you; I can't say more without revealing a MAJOR spoiler. But those looking even for minor brain-teasers or anything other than straight reading and interacting with your AI(s) may not enjoy Hate Plus as much.

But for anyone willing to approach with an open mind and take a chance on a relatively new gaming concept, there's a lot to love about Hate Plus. Put it this way: Analogue and Hate Plus are just about the ONLY games on Steam I have paid full price for without waiting for a sale, and the demo for Analogue hooked me on the idea almost immediately. Granted, the games are not expensive to start with, but the fact that I was willing to pay the release price is a testament to how much I like Love's ability to craft this type of video game. I'm looking forward to more such games from her in the future. Hate Plus is definitely a winner.

8.0 out of 10

Hate Plus is the only game I've ever played - the only piece of media I have ever consumed, actually - that has made me willingly wake up at 8:00 AM on a day off, shower, shave, get dressed, get in my car, drive to the supermarket, buy ingredients for a chocolate cake, drive home, bake the aforementioned cake, take a picture of me eating said cake with a digital 3000-year-old 640-year-old teenager, and email said picture to a Canadian woman with pink hair.

(By the by, playing Analogue first isn't necessary, but it helps.)

Cake Baking for Waifu Simulator 4989

Hate Plus is the sequel to "Analogue: A Hate Story" from 2012, continuing the story between you and your computer wife, or just a friend side investigator. After loving the previous game, can the sequel step up to the plate and be just as good? Or even better?! Perhaps...

Story: The story is focused on the events after Analogue, with you traveling with your selected A.I. partner to Earth and finally finish your mission, however it's 3 days long and the dialogue option is messed up just like last time. Luckily, your A.I. friend finds some logs about the history of the Mugunghwa before the Pale Bride (events of the first game). The game still has *Hyun-ae and *Mute, luckily not having to complete half the game this time to pick your character to playthrough with like last game. The logs in the game are even better than the last, it focuses on the previous events before the Pale Bride incident and has Old *Mute involved, a previous A.I. security version of *Mute, and your job is to find out what happened exactly to Old *Mute and the ship before the Pale Bride. Just as the previous game, the title sticks through the entire game. Hate Plus. It's a game that you'll find to be sickening with certain events, and it has many hateful characters and moments (In a good way!).
Same as Analogue, Christine Love shows us how superb she is at writing as the logs you sift through have an emotional punch to them all, and tells a little tale for each of the characters you read about, as some logs are just diary pages or even council meetings. Many logs are hard to read for either hateful reasons, or pure sadness; which Analogue did do, however, I feel that Hate Plus delivers an even more emotional tale with *Mute's side of the story, never before have I had such twisted emotions in a game and long after completing, I was still thinking about the events that occurred in the logs, along with the events that were happening with me and my A.I. wife.

However I feel as though *Hyun-ae's side is a bit too...cheery, or off topic. *Mute's side is figuring out what was going on with her old self, and how she's going to cope with the events from the past, however *Hyun-ae consists of cake baking, chatting, and just being lovey to each other. I suppose it's expected since *Hyun-ae was the focus in the previous game, however even *Mute in the previous game was more focused on the story as well. That's the only issue I have with the story here, but with *Mute's side, it's just perfect.

Gameplay: Surprisingly, the gameplay here in a visual novel style game, has improved quite well. Unlike the previous game, your A.I. partner reads with you with each log and gives you their thoughts on certain things in the logs while reading it. It gives more realism since in the previous game you would just talk to them after and didn't know if they were reading it with you, or they already read it beforehand...

There is one other major change than in the previous game. You have a certain amount of energy to download logs each day, ones you've downloaded all you can in one day and read them all, you have to power down and it's a literal 12 hour waiting process. For some, it was a bad choice, taking away the reading from the player for nearly the rest of the day. However I feel like it was a sensible choice and I was able to think things through more, just to focus on one day instead of trying to cram all the info of the entire game in one play session.

Whereas most gamers this year are picking The Last of Us, BioShock Infinite, GTA V for their GOTY. I'd have to safely say, no other game this year has been as amazing as Hate Plus in my eyes. No other game has twisted my emotions this much or had such an impact on me. While Analogue is an amazing game, Hate Plus is just a few steps away from being a perfect title. If you haven't played either, I suggest picking both up. I guarantee you'll be loving every second of it....and hating every minute.

9.5/10