Code: Realize – Future Blessings, developed by Otomate and published by Aksys Games, originally only released on the PS4 and PS Vita, is now available on the Nintendo Switch.
Acting as the sequel to Code: Realize Guardian of Rebirth, this next game tells the story of the events after the previous game’s resolution. “Tells the story” is the key wording here – because calling Code: Realize – Future Blessings a video game is hardly accurate. Code: Realize – Future Blessings is a visual novel, through and through.
By this, I mean, you spend the entire time “playing” the game endlessly clicking the “a” button to get through dialogue, scene descriptions, and minor animation sequences. There is no player agency, no input made by the player, and are no choices to make. Actually, I take back that last remark. There are two choices you get to make, in the beginning: the protagonist’s name, and which love interest you wish to continue the story with.
After that, however, the user input feast begins. For about an hour. Endless clicking, for an hour! And that is going relatively fast through the text, as I tried to get through all the possible lovers to see if anything variable came up, and by the fourth one, it was hard to not try and speed through some of the story.
The storyline of Code: Realize – Future Blessings did shift from love interest to love interest: interesting enough for me to want to be invested in the outcome, but also enough overlap with other side and minor characters for there to be cohesion even with a major shift of narrative such as a different love interest. Each storyline also began with a small recap – mostly about why the male loved the female – which also helped, as I have not played Code: Realize Guardian of Rebirth. I believe I would have been significantly more absorbed in the story had I played the previous installation, although I garnered enough information to understand the basics.
The protagonist had something happen to her so now a poison courses through her body, killing anything she encounters as a result of replacing her heart with some stone.
In each scenario, despite her being labelled as a “monster,” she somehow saved or touched the lives of a group of people – one more significantly than all the rest (again, which one this is, is up to you). In Code: Realize – Future Blessings’ different story options, the heroine (if you can call her that, she mostly just walks around and talks to people) goes on some journey with the love interest, and in the end, they live happily ever after.
Maybe this “game” is meant to be wholesome, pure, and simply happy-making. If so, mission accomplished. If it was meant to be deep, action-packed, and detail oriented, well, then it missed the mark. At least, I did not see that.
The few aspects of the world we can gleam are alluring: a steam-punk fantasy mostly taking place in London. The background paintings are beautiful and colorful, and I wish I could have seen more scenes outside of the mansion the protagonist seems attached to. Yet the world itself is not taken advantage of in Code: Realize – Future Blessings. Maybe it was in Guardian of Rebirth.
There are more stories to explore besides the main character’s romance continuation, adding to the world building if anyone desires. I did not want to, and I don’t think I would pay forty dollars to do so.
With that, I have decided to change up my valuation. For this game, I am going to give it a video game score, as well as a visual-novel score, since simply grading Code: Realize – Future Blessings on a video-game level seems unfair. For me, this game offers nothing I would want from a video game. If I was partial to visual novels (which I am not, so I am slightly biased in this regard but I will try to be fair) I would enjoy Code: Realize – Future Blessings for its artwork, interesting characters, and the different plotlines that come as a consequence of the single choice you are able to make, but find it lacking in any action, only slightly satisfied with the small adventures you go on, and the conflict between lovers predictable. Basically, Code: Realize – Future Blessings appears to be a simple, fluffy, cute conclusion to Guardian of Rebirth.
Video game score: Not Recommended
Visual novel score: 7.5/10
A look at the some of the different lovers you can take on, ranging from ex-vampire killer, Dr. Victor Frankenstein himself, a genius mechanic, to an immortal:
Check Out the Code: Realize – Future Blessings Trailer:
Visit coderealize.us for more information.
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Nintendo Switch Review
I'm Zepora, a junior at UC Berkeley studying Economics. I grew up attached to my Game Boy playing the Pokémon games, but now I turn to my consoles as break from school work when I'm not busy with lacrosse. I prefer RPG's with a some action, such as Elder Scrolls and Assassin's Creed (which is my favorite franchise) but am also known to play Super Smash Bros until 3am with my friends.
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