Hope's Funeral is a romance academy game set in a fantasy medieval world with mana and aura systems.
Espoir Academia is the game's stage and where the MC and his/her (depends on the player's preference) love interests will act on. A prestigious academy that raised talented and monstrous alumni with a variety of curricula to nurture students with different interests.
There are 16 love interests overall: 8 male love interests and 8 female interests with different endings. And yes, they're all attractive.
The characters fit, no, exceeded society's beauty standards. The least attractive character has approximately 2 million fans globally. Even some mob characters with no lines had a fan base because of their appearance.
I checked it and... yeah, the artists definitely had a vision when making these characters. From how detailed the designs are, I could tell they lost a lot of blood and tears to make this masterpiece.
The only complaint the players seemed to have is its extreme difficulty. A single slip can end in MC's death or a bad ending.
With over 1000 achievements, the players can't even focus on increasing the characters' favorability when they're too focused on surviving the first day.
Why is a romance game so hard? Because it's a horror romance game.
That's right, horror romance.
Basically, the game is filled with booby traps that can insta-kill characters, screw up scenarios, or give lasting debuffs, which means you can wave goodbye to your save file.
Even if I hate the genre, I will give credit when credit is due. It's a brilliant game with sophisticated world-building and an enjoyable combat system.
The characters are nice to look at and have a logical and realistic approach when it comes to their interactions with the MC. Something I should be glad at but...
It's just whenever I see the ending screen, it makes my migraine worse and nausea rise from my throat.
Like a bunch of bad actors trying to make their mistakes seem intentional. All of them looked like they were catering to someone's needs. Of course, they're game characters. They moved when the developers told them to move and spoke when they were told to speak.
It's sickening. It makes me want to claw my eyes and brain just from touching it.
Maybe that's why I played it until I got every death, bad, good, alternate, and even gag endings. I sat on my gaming chair, eyes stuck on the computer screen. I soon forgot to leave for work, for groceries, and even for my meds.
Maybe that's why it didn't surprise me that I had a heart attack just as I was about to achieve the game's True Ending.
I clawed my chest, trying to take out the invincible source of pressure suffocating me. I tried to ignore the nausea like I always did, but it was too hard. I continued dry heaving despite my body turning cold and tired.
This is pathetic. I'm pathetic for trying so hard to play a game that disgusts me to the very core. What's worse is that it's the last thing I'll see.
If she saw me now, she would have laughed at my pain like always.
"------, why do you always do things the hard way?"
"If you just relied on me like always, you wouldn't have been hurt."
"So just let go and let ------------ help you."
What an utter lie.
That was the last thing I had in my mind before I passed out.