Plot is not quite as good as the first one but it has a lot of cool extra stuff. I highly recommend playing Hate Story before this, even your save gets imported to Hate Plus.

I use to laugh when I'd look at the message boards and I'd see all those geeky otaku making cakes for their digital girlfriends and giving them presents on special days. Even though this isn't a dating simulator, I feel as though I can finally understand what it truly means to be two-dimensionally in love. My first waifu will always be there to tease, to play with, to share her wit and insight. Kind, sweet, and only a little murderous, she'll always have a place in my heart. For her, I'd eat a cake every day.

The other one, well, I'll never get tired of looking into those vivid blue eyes, appreciating that cat like grin that creeps up on her face, her elegant way of dress or how in a moment she can deal out a harsh and shunning attitude that whips my heart full of passion. The beauty of it all is that no matter how many times she may wish to die, we shall always be in the perpetual spring of marriage, for there will always be a reset, and day three, will never come again. Not now, not ever.

Step in the role of a space investigator who likes to solve mysteries and seduce cute (underage) anime girls with dialogue wheel.

While I don't hate this game, I find that it's much weaker than the first game. There's a three day gimmick while interesting the first time around, is just a weird barrier that ultimately doesn't mean anything, since you can just skip through it by holding space down in the main menu. On the one route I've played, I played along with the gimmick, and it just felt bizarre having to wait, though I will admit that there was quite a bit of anticipation between the second and third day, so if that was the objective, then I suppose it was done well enough.

There are a few quirks that are quite annoying - for instance, for some reason you're unable to just smoothly scroll down a page, it has to pause every few seconds. I'm unsure if this was an intentional design decision or not, but relative to the first game where everything felt a lot more smooth and responsive, it's quite annoying. Another thing I disliked is how you obtain the data this time around. Instead of talking with your AI companions and having them slowly reveal the story to you, you instead just select and choose which entries you want to read. Furthermore, the AI companions aren't essential to the plot of this game, and feel more like side kicks than anything else.

That being said, the AI sidekicks in this game aren't bad, and in fact, it's interesting to hear their thoughts on the going-ons of what occurred on the ship a few hundred years ago. They inject a bit of light heartedness into what is ultimately a tragic story, though *Mute's route definitely has some even darker themes on the third day. I can't speak for Hyun-ae's route, since I never did get around to doing her route, but I'm positive the third day with her won't have nearly the same impact that Mute's did.

And that is one of my big problems - this is subjective of course, others may loved it - but the ending to Mute's route is quite dark, as mentioned before. It deals with some really serious issues, and while it was quite effective, and it hit me like a bus, I didn't particularly care for it.

Overall, only buy this if you're a HUGE fan of the original like I was, but make sure to avoid Mute's route until you finished Hyun-ae's, otherwise it'll probably sour your experience.

Bake Waifu Cakeing Simulator 2014.

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