Some impressions for Heileen 3: New Horizons
Do you want Senpai-rate to notice you? Then this is the game for you! ...Okay, that's actually not fair.
The graphics: Not bad. All the characters have the impossible-standard faces and bodies, except for a handful you can't romance that look average or overweight. Professions are done with the main character in a "chibi" style. Backgrounds look nice...no real complaints here.
The music: A few good tunes. One even has lyrics. Not that the lyrics are that complicated or interesting. The main track gets a bit repetitive but luckily random events with different tracks happen frequently enough to break the monotony.
The gameplay: It's a raising sim, albeit a more simplistic one. For those of you familiar with Long Live the Queen, you'll remember that the princess had two classes a day, then one activity in the evening to change her moods and make education more efficient. In Heileen 3, you choose one activity per day, and maybe you'll get a random event. There are 21 possible activities: 7 build up one basic skill, and 14 secondary skills are only available if you have two basic skills to the requisite levels. In my case, I chose cooking (oddly enough, the least-won achievement.) In order to start it, you need to build up endurance through navigation, and dexterity through lookout duty. Once your secondary skill levels up, you have to go back and level your basic skills. Level your secondary skill enough, and you can unlock the ending for that job...as long as you have the correct virtue or sin. Changing your virtues and sins are through story decisions. Some are more obvious than others: in order to be a cook, I had to follow the sin of gluttony so when given the choice to "eat more cake" or "limit yourself," it becomes a no-brainer. Other decisions are less clear: choosing to try to save your friend in a desperate situation may activate the sin of pride since you believe yourself capable of saving her.
Overall, if you're going for a job ending, it's quite easy. You're given 600 days to reach an ending and I finished in less than half that (four hours of gameplay.) I didn't reach any romance endings - there are four men and even four women you can romantically pursue - but those seem to be more time-intensive to achieve: by the time I got to my job ending, my highest relationship was in the low 60s when it needed to be 90.
My biggest quibble with the gameplay would have to be the invitation system. You're allowed to bring one of the other crew members to assist you in a secondary job, and some will give benefits to your learning, and some will take it away. Only thing is, you're not allowed to invite someone until you've found all your friends. This seems to run counter to one of the screenshots. But that said, once you find everyone, why would you want to invite anyone except the person they explained was an expert at it? Why cook with anyone except the cook? Maybe it sets up other random events, or advances romance, I don't know, but it seems kinda pointless to risk that.
The story: Don't expect the intricacies of LLTQ. Don't expect to plunder or pillage anything either. You're apparently a young woman who was on a voyage with your rich uncle and your friends, shipwrecked, and then saved by pirates. It's not made entirely clear whether the captain kept you on board because he was compassionate towards your plight or just wanted to get his D wet. Anyway, the first part of the game is an "Avengers Assemble" of finding your friends. "I looked everywhere and couldn't find them! Now let's go into this hugely popular tavern and WHAAA? My friend has been dancing here all along?" After you find them all (and that takes a little over 100 days) you're given the 600 day timer as the captain agrees to avoid all other ships to protect you, under the guise of searching for a big diamond.
Knowledge of the previous games only appeared to help in one instance: the captain asks which of your missing companions you miss the most. Then you're given four names, three of which I hadn't seen yet. My rationale: "Oh, this one name I've seen, that was my uncle. I should probably miss my family the most. Blood is thicker than water, and all that." *click* "Oh, I miss my rich uncle because he gives me all sorts of things!" *sin of greed* "Well, shit." If that sounds superficial to you, that's the tone for the rest of the game: everyone seems to live fancy-free. This pirate has agreed to cut off his main source of income for two years, but nobody appears to want for anything. Nobody gets scurvy, nobody dares to scoop up some brackish seawater because they're too thirsty, and when the other white pirates bully your two black friends, you immediately assume it's because the black friends are still wearing their shoddy clothes from the shipwreck, and beg the captain to give them new clothes! And that works! Maybe I should be taking this on its face as "a game for young girls," but seriously, what kind of weak-ass pirate captain wouldn't tie those bullies to the riggings and/or lash them? Or tell the friends to cowboy up and fight back to earn respect? Anyway, the story is a lot of romance and/or jealousy, You might be macking four guys AND four chicks at the same time, but how DARE one of them like another! *sin of envy* Damn it!
The verdict: It might sound like I'm skewering this game, but in all honesty, it's...not bad. It's okay. If it was more pirate-y and more complex, I'd be heartily recommending it. As it stands, it might be alright as a "my first raising sim" or, based on the most popular achievement, a "let's see if I can get the main character to bang the hot first mate chick" sim. Not without its flaws, but I won't tell you to avoid this one.
