LifeisXbox’s NETABOKU -A Robot Girl Changes My Life As A Bedridden Boy review | Today, we will be reviewing a visual novel named NETABOKU -A Robot Girl Changes My Life As A Bedridden Boy. Netaboku is developed and published by Atelier ATIC and has a beautiful sci-fi romance story: Most of the story you can understand from the title, Kanto, the main character in the story, has been unable to move since his birth. He lives in a residential facility for people with physical disabilities. One day he meets Kanata, who turns out to be a robot and changes his life completely. If this sounds as awesome to you as it did to me, I recommend continuing to read this review. Let’s go!
We played Netaboku for 5 hours on PC. This game is only available on Steam.
What we liked!
- Story | As mentioned above, I loved the idea of the story, and I still do. I loved that the writer of this novel made something impossible possible by using a kind of VR. * spoilers * In Netaboku, Kanto, the main character, has been unable to move by himself since he was born and lives in a residential facility for people with physical disabilities, where he gets all the help he would ever need. One day Kanto goes out with his friend and caretaker, it’s the anniversary of his parent’s death, and he goes by their graves to pay respect and grieve. After that, he has to wait outside for his caretaker to buy some stuff and a cute girl helps him when his blanket drifts away by the wind. Suddenly everything goes black in front of his eyes, Kanto didn’t know what happened, but something hefty is laying on him. It turns out this was Kanata who fell on him, and by falling, she scanned Kanto’s eyes with a scanner in her chest, making him her new master. (Kanto has no idea of this at this time though.) After her fall, Kanata suffers from memory loss, and Kanto proposes she comes with them back to his facility to get help.
Kanata rests a bit and ends up helping the staff with many tasks in the facility, like making beds and cleaning. Then some big guy comes in, he is from the mafia and asks the facility owner for a hell of a lot of money, which she can’t pay. They start to destroy stuff, and Kanto’s caretaker tries to fight them but fails. But then Kanata gets back from shopping and kicks all their asses easily. This is also the first time Kanata calls Kanto master, which makes Kanto really confused because she looks perfectly human to everyone. But is, in fact, a battle robot. Kanata then gives Kanto special glasses where he can take over her body, making it possible for Kanto to walk for the first time in his life. I found this emotional, just imagining you haven’t been able to, ever, and then suddenly, without expecting it, someone helping you with it. With this awesome feature in this story, it gets so much more interesting and sometimes funny. Imagine a guy being in a hot girl’s body; I’m sure you can all imagine what awkward things can happen, haha. It is a beautiful story, and I will put it in my favorites to continue later. - Music | The music in Netabuko is very well done, in my opinion. First, I thought I would need to mute all sounds ’cause I can’t read with music normally. But in this game, the music is so chill I didn’t have any problems with it! It was actually really well done, and when shit hits the fan, the background music goes nuts. It’s so funny! Because it will make you automatically read faster! The hype is real!
- Extras | First time there was suddenly a knock on the door in the game, I almost fell out of my chair, I didn’t expect it at all, but after that, I loved all the extra sounds of Netaboku. Just someone knocking on the door, hearing someone run, hearing a doorbell, it all adds so much to the experience, and I loved it.
Somewhere between
- Art | First of all, let me say that all characters are beautifully drawn. And most backgrounds are as well. But if you look at the first screenshot I put in this review and compare them to all the rest. In my opinion, it doesn’t match. I found it a hideous one, but I haven’t had this happen anymore after. However, I honestly think they could have added more emotions to their drawings. So like when someone is sad, we will see that with a new drawing. Now it was a lot of the same drawings reused over and over again.
What we disliked
- English | In Netaboku, the story is beautiful, but you need to do some puzzling to know what people are talking about most of the time. Some characters have been called he, she, and it, for example, making it really hard to understand who is talking and what gender people are. Other times sentences don’t make sense when you read them, and you have to reread them until you understand what is going on. It sometimes just seemed like Netaboku is directly translated with google translate. This really bothered me initially, but I must say that the beautiful story made up for it.
CONCLUSION
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