Red Bow Review - Ornamental

Red Bow

Red Bow is, story-wise, the first of Stranga's My Big Sister-related games. It's meant to tell the story of Roh, who was heavily alluded to in Ashina. Despite that, the connection to the other two games is so threadbare that you could easily play this without ever realizing it was part of a larger series. The couple of recognizable characters who show up don't really do anything to connect it to the other stories and the ending feels more or less self-contained. I know that the game was always intended to be playable by itself, but it's a shame that it isn't more connected, because that might have provided a reason to play it.

And that would've been about the only reason to do so, unfortunately. Red Bow is only going to last about an hour even if you do everything, but it doesn't do anything at all memorable in that time. It's a series of very simple puzzles that lead to very brief interactions with characters. Everything goes by so quickly and is so similar to events and themes in the other two games that I already hardly remember most of the game. Considering I finished it yesterday at time of writing, that is a remarkable lack of staying power.

There's nothing here that's bad, per se, but the other two games are better in every way. Since they're also so similar and this adds practically nothing to the overall story, it's hard to come up with any reason to play it. I guess it's worth an hour if you've already got it in the bundle, but I can't recommend it at all as a standalone purchase.

Rating: 60%

Time to beat: 1 hour

MSRP: $5