This story is told from the point of view of both a superhero and her arch-nemesis, and although the player has to consider whether to punch or energy blast the opponent at some points, the game is not about super powered face offs, but about trust, friendship, and finding work-life balance.
Don’t get me wrong: it is still about creating genetic mutant monster henchmen, wearing capes, and so on, but the real choices in the game all take place in a coffee shop, where a superhero and villain meet between battles to talk things out.
The game is in fact very linear except for these conversations that come down to a decision that translates into increasing or decreasing trust between the two central characters. That decision point is telegraphed by an animated graphic announcing that it is …
Someting about that graphic made me feel like this was an afterschool special, and that I really should do the right thing and build trust. I think most piece will hew that way during their first play through and then naturally see what happens if they intentionally try to upset the boat on their next playthrough.
On repeated play, I convinced myself that there is probably a trust variable that increases or decreases according to choices made. The game is fairly consistent regardless of initial choices made, but it is clear that if the variable swings far enough in direction or another, the last portion of the game can differ considerably.
I found the overall story entertaining and well-paced. Although comic book heroes are not known for depth, the two main characters in this work were well developed, with clear, consistent voices.
My only gripes are very minor and all easily fixed; none of these detracted from enjoyment of the story:
* Occasionally, numbers were written as digits rather than text. For example, “The 4 vassals attacked.” I don’t know why this makes my teeth itch, but it does. The same can be said for ampersands. They are perfectly fine for “D&D” and “Books & Brew”, but just too informal when used in prose like “she stops, & nods.”
* Since there are no paragraph indents, putting a bit of additional spacing between paragraphs would have helped presentation. Also, sometimes quotations were not rendered as new paragraphs when speakers changed. Fixing that would make the text scan better for readers.
* The story layout is clean, with legible fonts on muted photographic backgrounds. I might have missed attribution of the photos in one of the game files, but I would suggest citing the sources on the final page in game to make sure that credit is given.