As we all know by now, I have a love/hate relationship with Ratalaika games. They tend to be on the upper portion of video game releases, but they seem to lack a sort of final quality to them. Some of them are hits, some of them are misses. Roommates, tends towards the misses kind of games coming from them. Created by Winter Wolves, this real-life simulator/visual novel puts you in the shoes of Max. This is the male protagonist of the game. You also have the choice of playing as a female character. But that doesn’t really seem to change the game by a whole lot.
When you start your visual novel adventure, it gives you its entire synopsis at the get go, you are introduced to the whole cast in the first half minute of the game. Which is pretty cookie cutter basic stuff. You, a freshman at college, start off in a college dorm. It is your task to make it through the year, while chasing your dreams, and ofcourse… Fall in love, as is the theme of basically every visual novel (that I have played). Visually the art-style is pretty okay, but the characters looked bland and just un-interesting. Everyone had a sort of “sheen” to them, that made them look as if they were lathered up with oil and were prepared for going into a WWF wrestling match. Your female characters, were as usual? Eye candy. Complex characters with over the top toned and athletic bodies thrown together with some massive dohoonkabhankoloos (+ points for anyone catching this one!). The male characters in the game are just, bland and stereotypically macho with a soft side.
The writing didn’t overly impress me either. Some typo’s were apparent, and honestly sometimes even hard to read through. But what mostly broke my b*lls was the fact that the game didn’t auto save!
So, I didn’t save for a bit, had to leave and come back a while later. Load up the game .. Aaand, gone was my progress! WHAT. THE F… Then I saw that in the menu? There ‘s this big button “save game”. Ugh!