Fellow erotic visual novel writers Tlaero and Mortze continue to up the game with their latest release Saving Chloe, which I believe is probably the best game of the genre ever, and sets the bar for the rest of us who work in this genre.  The story is excellent, the artwork is excellent, the 9 possible “good” endings all contain great erotic scenes, and oddly one of the most erotic scenes is in a “bad” ending, of which there are many.  So, lots of choices and lots of endings.

Probably the only flaw of the game is that to really enjoy the story you need to have played 3 previous games Dreaming of Elsa, Redemption for Jessika, and Finding Miranda, all of which I reviewed previously.

There are other odd things in the game.  Some of the points where stories branch are not very obvious.  This is not necessarily a flaw, I like making seemingly meaningless choices turn out to have big consequences as well, but when you are trying to find those last two endings, and not sure how to get there it can be frustrating, but I made it to all 9 “good” endings without cheating and found about 5 bad ones, too.

Link to download Note: This downloadable game is played in a browser, and because of security issues it probably plays best in Firefox.
Online Link #1 (Playforce)
Online Link #2 (Mortze)

The Story So Far

So you don’t have to play (or replay) three other games, I thought I would give you a breakdown of the first three games and what we learned about what is going on.  This review contains major spoilers for the games Dreaming with Elsa, Redemption for Jessika and Finding Miranda, all of which you should play first, but if you just want to start with Saving Chloe, or if you already played those games and forgot the details, here are some things you should probably know first or be reminded about.

Dreaming With Elsa

In Dreaming with Elsa, you play Jason a delivery guy with a recurring dream of chasing a woman. One day your delivery route changes and you deliver a shipment of books to a bookstore whose owner looks exactly like the woman you have been chasing in your dreams. She has also had a recurring dream of being chased by a man. Are you in each others dreams?

Elsa is a shy introvert who lives above the store. She has one employee Chloe who coincidentally has an interest in dream interpretation. Chloe went to the store looking for a rare book called Morpheus which is a legendary book on dreams. Elsa said she did not have a copy, but in their discussion of the book, Chloe talked herself into working for Elsa.

Elsa and Jason experiment and find that they are indeed sharing dreams together, their dreams get more intimate with each passing night.  Eventually Chloe suggest that they go out on a real date. Elsa who hasn’t gone outside her store/home in months finally goes out on a date.  Out at a restaurant named “Delfino’s”, they meet a waitress named Theresa who plays a role later.

Upon returning from the restaurant, Elsa invites Jason up to her room where she discovered, someone has been in her apartment. Elsa quickly checks her wall safe, and the only completely intact copy of Morpheus (which she had all along) is still there.

The volume has been in her family for generations, and she was told never to read it, but she reads it to find out why everyone wants it so bad. It is a guidebook of “dream masters”. In it, Elsa learns to put people together in dreams, see into other’s dreams, and control dreams. With these powers she learns who it was who broke into her apartment: It was Chloe. Chloe, who also gained some dream powers from a few pages of a very incomplete copy, has been manipulating everything the entire way in order to get her hands on the full book.  Elsa fires her, and promising that if she catches Chloe in anyone else’s dreams, she will give Chloe nightmares for life.

In the end credit scene of the latest version, we see a strange woman named Xara show up in a dream and ask Elsa if she is the new Dream Master, and that she needs someone with her abilities.

Unanswered questions:

• What was Chloe’s end game? Why did she need to be a dream master so bad?
• What is so special about Elsa and Chloe that they would have these powers to begin with?

Finding Miranda

This and Redemption for Jessika take place at the same time, even ending the same way, but parts of FM take place before RfJ, so I’m reversing them here.  Finding Miranda‘s main plot is an office romance between a systems engineer named Lucas (which you play), who recently lost his wife, and a beautiful and brilliant “problem solver” named Miranda.  For the purposes of backstory for Saving Chloe, the romance is immaterial, it’s the “b” story that is of interest.

We meet Xara again, this time outside Elsa’s dream world.  She a short blind woman looking for revenge on a former boss named Morland.  He is rich and powerful, and like Elsa, seems to have a superpower, but we do not know what. Morland is protected by a goth female bodyguard named Crow who is a deadly killer with powers of illusion.

Xara isn’t helpless, she is trained in combat before she was blinded, and is basically a female version of Daredevil.  She earns a living teaching self defense courses at a local gym.

Xara can’t touch Morland, but starts recruiting “gifted” people that might be able to. Her first recruit is Miranda, who can solve complex problems in her head and come up with the best strategy rather quickly.  Miranda is also the childhood friend of Chloe, Morland’s daughter!

Miranda and Chloe fell out about a year and a half ago, when Chloe caused an accident that left Miranda in a coma for a year. Chloe felt sorry and visited her old friend every day of the coma, but upon waking up Miranda refused to forgive her. Since the coma, Miranda has not been able to sleep again for the last 6 months.

Xara also recruits dream master Elsa, of course, and manages a secret contact inside Morland’s operation who goes by the code name “YellowFever”.  This contact leaks information about Morland’s operation to shut down another super-powered woman named Jessica.

Redemption for Jessika

Jessica’s super power is that she can affect people’s emotions by singing.  Sing fun songs, everyone has fun, sing sad songs, everyone is sad, etc.  Jessica is the lead singer in a rock band that is gaining popularity, mostly because she sings fun songs.

Xara and Miranda work out that Morland plans to disable Jessica by getting her to sing angry by making her angry before a concert, then start a riot at the concert. Unfortunately, Xara is too late to stop it from happening.  Five people are killed in the ensuing riot.

This is where Redemption for Jessika starts (her real name is Jessica Springfield, but “Jessika with a K” is her stage name).  You play Marc (with a “c”), a court stenographer who, being a big fan of Mayhem (Jessica’s band) was at the concert when the riot started, by happenstance you were also in the court during the hearing to determine if Jessica might have been at fault for the riot.  Jessica has become a drunk mess ever since the incident that left 5 people dead.  The plot of the game is to get Jessica to wake up from her drunken stupor and go back to singing again. Standing in your way is Chloe, who attempts to sabotage your efforts at every step.

Along the way, you learn that Charles, Jessica’s former boyfriend, is the one that made her angry, and that he purposely started the riot. The story ends with you and Jessica stopping a bombing at a political rally that was set by Charles.

Later, back in Finding Miranda, Xara, Elsa, and Miranda learn that Chloe is planning on attacking Jessica again at a concert to prevent her from stopping the bombing, but Miranda kidnaps Chloe to stop her and keeps her drugged for three days until Lucas convinces Miranda it is wrong to keep her that way. Chloe wakes up and she and Miranda have a fierce argument.  Ultimately Miranda feels sorry for the way Chloe is abused by her father Morland, and lets her go.

In the epilogue of Redemption for Jessika, Jessica is meeting with Xara at “Delfino’s” to be recruited.  Xara informs her that Charles is a pawn of Morland, the man she is trying to take down.  Xara wants her help in recruiting other powered people starting with the waitress Theresa.

In the epilogue of Finding Miranda, Chloe goes into hiding from her father.  After failing in both operation Elsa and Jessika, she is likely to be severely punished, maybe even killed. In a secret safe house, she grabs her laptop, signs into a secret message board as “YellowFever” and posts that she can no longer help from the inside anymore.

Unanswered Questions:

• What is Xara’s beef with Morland?
• What is Morland really up to?
• What power does Morland have?
• What power does Theresa have?
• Where do all these powers come from anyways?
• Can Chloe be persuaded to switch sides?
• Can Miranda ever forgive Chloe for the coma?
• Will anyone figure out Chloe has been working for the good guys the whole time?
• Can Xara and her allies stop Morland? or Crow? or Charles?
• Will Miranda ever get a good nights rest?

The above descriptions leave out big chunks of all 3 games, but should give you enough information to start “Saving Chloe”.

Update:

If you play the game and are missing an ending or two, I wrote a guide to how to reach the 10 endings (9 good, 1 major bad). Here is a link to my chart. This is not a complete guide, there are some bad choice traps you will have to avoid yourself. These are just to point you in the right direction.