Through a fantastic and successful Kickstarter campaign, AGL Studios managed to develop their game, Faulty Apprentice. An interesting and fun dating simulator set across a Medieval inspired fantasy land. An engaging adventure with plenty of fan-service and naughty moments.
In Faulty Apprentice you’ll take the role of a simple young man who doesn’t know if he should go down the path of a life of adventures, or just settle down for a simple and modest one. Destiny dictated that he shall become the apprentice of the most prestigious wizard of the whole kingdom. Not an easy task, as the ultimate war against the forces of evil is taking place really soon, and those nasty ogres won’t take any prisoners.
The storyline for Faulty Apprentice is quite simple, and it’s obvious the main direction was put towards the whole adult themed adventure, however, there’s still an entertaining story to follow, as our hero must choose between the good, or evil path. Each one will lead to different and unforeseen consequences, and change the course of the final events. To further emphasize its story component, developers made a “Story Mode”, which skips other mechanics, such as mini-games, making the experience much more straightforward.
In gameplay terms, Faulty Apprentice is a well accomplished mix of Visual Novel elements to proceed the story, interactive puzzles, choice-based decisions, and time management components. The game itself rotates across a day and night cycle, in which specific actions push forward in-game time, and there’s even a calendar providing players with a real sense of time progression. During the playable periods, players can train their specific class (or learn new ones), talk with NPC’s, and complete jobs across the map.
Each different area will present a new opportunity to meet different and charismatic girls, all with a different style and personality. Some even completely unexpected, which can and will spice up your adventure. The possible dates have two bar gauges with attributes, Moral and Relationship. These meters can increase simultaneously, or just in one specific attribute, depending on your dialogue choice. While some girls will show a sexy personality and enjoy your naughty comments, others will admire honesty and trust. Quickly picking up on their personality traits is the key to picking the most appropriate choices.
This system of trial and error to learn personality types will motivate players to organize different playthroughs in order to complete all dates and possible endings. Each different character might have a different job or activity, which make up Mini-Games part of the game. Usually they work like a generic clicker or memory-based puzzle. Although simple, they suit the game well, and can be completely toggled off, which is always a great extra option to have for those more interested in progressing through the story.
The dialogues and narrative are well written with tons of teasing and fan-service included. Characters have a few different voiced expressions to symbolize their dialogues. Simple but this gives an extra depth to each one. Through lots of humour and funny situations, the game’s flow will most likely please those interested in a dating-simulator. There’s even an option to toggle adult content On and Off. No adult patch is required or external DLC’s to access the full experience.
Those looking for the complete version of the game can directly have access to the DLC already included and for free. This patch adds interactive nudity scenes with all the characters. The Gallery feature includes an awesome selection of artwork that can be unlocked providing motivation enough to get all the routes done. Visually, with or without any patch, Faulty Apprentice is drawn with a really cool artwork, and renders do look genuine and fun, containing details and awesome traits. It’s the type of art differs from the generic Anime artwork found in many visual novels, but I quickly got used to the change in pace with the art design and really enjoyed the overall fitting theme for Faulty Apprentice.
Faulty Apprentice has a great presentation and solid gameplay experience, with a simple but diverse artwork. The characters are interesting and the overall game is a solid dating simulator, exceptionally good for anyone who enjoys animal-girls, magic, and interactive Visual Novels.