Backlog Game Reviews 31: Student Union Demo (PC)

 

 

  Hey there, and welcome to Backlog Game Reviews.

For today's review, we'll be plunging into the world of PC gaming and taking a look at Student Union. I was recently contacted by the indie developer Visual Novel Village and asked if I would be interested in checking out a demo for a game they're currently working on. After doing some research on the game it managed to pique my interest and I decided to write a short mini-review over it. Let's take a look and see what this demo has to offer.

The first character you meet in the game.

 

In this game, you play as Lane Fox, a high school student that's in his senior year. He's in a bad spot financially and needs to find a job soon, but despite his best efforts, he's unable to find anything in town, so he decides to ask his school if there's anything he could do on campus to earn some money. When talking to the assistant principal Mr. Underwood about his situation he tells Lane that the school has undergone severe budget cuts, so much so that they have had to fire a large number of teachers, cut the majority of after school activities, and can't even afford to hire a janitor. 

                                                    

Talking to Mr. Underwood.

　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　

   Mr. Underwood then purposes the idea of starting a student union at the school. It would be something like a club, the members would do work around the school and in return, they get paid for their work. The only problem is the school board, to convince them that this is a good idea Lane would need to recruit four other students. Having no other options left Lane accepts this offer and goes off to look for four other people to join the student union.

 

Mr. Underwood tells Lane about his idea of forming a student union.

 

This being a visual novel the story is one of the most important aspects of the game, and the people at Visual Novel Village seem to understand this. The story starts out simple but quickly evolves beyond a high school student trying to make some money. The school is said to be haunted, the principal and assistant principal are often seen talking to one another in the library during homeroom and are treated with suspicion by some of the students.

Lane's best friend Evan.

 

   The characters all have interesting backgrounds that leaves you wanting to know more about them. The main character Lane for example is shown to have very neglectful parents. They are never at home and never answer the phone when the school tries to call them. We don't know what happened to his parents, but it's heavily implied that he has to work to support himself.

One of the many CGs in the game.

 

   In terms of gameplay, there isn't much to say, it's a visual novel so you spend most of your time just reading. There aren't any mini-games or anything but you occasionally get to choose what Lane will say or do next. Since this is only a demo your choices don't have any weight to them. They very slightly affect the story, but the game's ending will always be the same.

You'll be given the option to make multiple choices throughout the game.

 

   If you like visual novels, then you should definitely check this demo out. Student Union has a very compelling story that makes it hard to stop playing. But as good as the story is I feel that I can only recommend this to fans of visual novels. This is a very text-heavy game and is pretty much a book in video game form. I'm not criticizing that game for that, just keep in mind that if you decide to play this game all you'll really be doing is reading.

Two supporting characters. Alice on the left and Holly on the right.

 

   As for the presentation, it's really good. The hand-drawn visuals look nice, but the art sometimes feels inconsistent. Some character portraits seem like they had more work put into them than others. I do like how the character portraits move and aren't just still images. If the text said something like so and so's eyes darted back and forth then that's reflected in their character portrait.

The text says that Alice looks over at Holly and her character portrait is actually looking at her.

 

   Moving on to the music, it's good just not very memorable. It does a good job of setting the mood and sounds great when you're playing the game, but as soon as you stop playing it's really hard to remember what any of the songs sound like.

 

That's all I have to say about Student Union. This demo was a lot of fun to play through and I'm looking forward to its release. If you're a fan of visual novels or are trying to get into the genre then you should give this game a try.

 

  Thank you for reading! Next time we'll go back to our regularly scheduled program and take a look at that SNES game. I hope to see you again here at Backlog Game Reviews.