That of visual novel is a genre that, despite boasting an enormous stock of titles and a good host of fans, is not frowned upon by many gamers, given its nature almost always devoid of gameplay. Personally I have played a few, but seen the theme of Freezer Pops I tried it to see what could come out of his embracing the world LGBTQ.
Being a visual novel, Freezer Pops he tries to make the story and the characters his strong point, and the opening incipit manages to capture the player’s attention. From evening to morning the protagonist of the story Alexandre, he will find himself without a tenant, having to flee home due to family problems. With just a message where he said his apologies to him especially for not being able to pay the rent, our “friend” is disappeared.
Alexandre does not lose heart and tries to start the day as usual, brushing his teeth and thinking about the video game in development he is working on, a certain GELDA (one of the many tributes to the world of video games in Freezer Pops). Unfortunately, the day was about to get worse and much worse; in fact the president of the state in which the story takes place decides to cut the funds with immediate effect to all “secondary” universities, to invest them in public transport, in full dictatorial style.
Our protagonist thus finds himself in a few minutes without a tenant, work and the possibility of continuing his studies, but with a rent to pay. After the initial discouragement, Alexandre strengthens himself and thanks to a stroke of luck, attends a show where he learns how to do Freezer Pops, the classic summer popsicles. It’s summer, we have a rent to pay, we know how to make popsicles cheaply… why not sell them? And so begins Alexandre’s story.
Freezer Pops: popsicles and surprises
I will try to touch very few points of the story in order to avoid spoilers, but I can say that, once I finished the game following the two main plots, and unlocking all the possible endings for both, Freeza Pops left me a little indifferent. I’m not saying it’s not a good visual novel, quite the opposite, but summing up it has dared very littleboth as events and as the presence of the main characters.
Usually the visual novels, especially the ones in depth erotic / romanceoffer the player a lot of choice, while Freeza Pops proposes as candidates for our Alexandre only two men: Fernando young, athletic and sporty, e Anderson, lawyer, physically robust and very peaceful. Apart from the contenders, only two other important characters will be present, but besides them nothing else.
Even in telling the story Freeza Pops offers no twist or uncertainty about which choice to take on the moment, also because the game offers the mechanics of being able to go back a few “pages” to choose other. In short, on balance the story is quite linear, even if it takes an interesting turn beyond the romance. Honestly touching on a topic like that LGBTQ I would have expected something deeper while Freezer Pops it is limited only to having men who like other men as protagonists.
Yes, it can also boast one erotic component, and if you want the game just for this reason you probably won’t be disappointed, but if on the contrary you want to get to know the protagonists better along with a multi-faceted storyline, Freeza Pops could do the opposite effect.
Aside from that, although I don’t list them as some would be spoilers albeit minor, there are a number of stereotypes towards the world LGBTQ that perhaps it was better not to include in the game, but nothing really “heavy”. On the contrary the story is told in a very polite way, without falling into the vulgarand for the type of game this is a very important factor.
There is not much to say about the technical sector; the title has well-designed but static palettes, which change according to the situation and as the story progresses, but after the game in all its plots, they turn out to be a bit few. For the rest I was scared to play it in portability on Nintendo Switch, often guilty of presenting tiny and almost illegible texts, but instead those of Freezer Pops they are big enough. The total should be noted lack of localization in Italianwith only English and Portuguese as languages available.
Ultimately beautiful visual novel but a great pity, because you could really dare more and not only be able to get engaged to one of the two characters (which is also automatic).