Review: Hopeless Junction by Nadia Nova

The game reflects the messiness of real life, portrays trans women, and is a solid entry in the genre of visual novels.

By Roberta Rocinante

If you are interested in English language Visual Novels then you likely have heard of the creator Nadia Nova in some way. You may have either heard of or played one of her games, or you likely have heard people recommending her games. If you haven’t heard of Nadia Nova, then let this review be your introduction to Nova’s works.

Before we get into the review, some context about the game and the wider environment.

Itch.io- the games and creative works marketplace, has been roiled in controversy for its actions recently. 

Specifically, Itch has delisted games and other works following pressure from US-based payment processors. This delisting and mass censorship has predominantly affected queer creators and queer works.

Unfortunately, the game being reviewed today as well as others by Nadia Nova have been affected by Itch’s mass delisting actions.

If you haven’t heard of Nadia Nova, this review is about to introduce you to some cool stuff.

To start and get straight to the point, what is Hopeless Junction? What about its remake?

It’s pretty simple, Hopeless Junction is a Visual Novel about a group of trans girls taking a week long trip on the transcontinental train known as “The Starline Junction Express.” 

In it we follow Kalinda as she decides to get away from her status as a shy wallflower to be more of a people’s person, the end result is chaos not only for herself but a few others as well.This is the basic premise at least, inside the game we find a lot more. 

I’m not going to go into details, this is the sort of story that you should gointo with as little information about it as possible.

Forgive me for making this review vague, if you must. 

What I can say is that Hopeless Junction was to me a story about how people deal with their issues- not necessarily only their traumas but their issues in general.

No one exemplifies this better than the game’s own protagonist, Kalinda.

Kalinda is, again, a shy woman who wants to use the train trip as an excuse to finally be the sort of outgoing person we all thought about being once, a simple idea that comes to bite her in the ass as her decision leads her to meet Zarina, which leads them both into… well I’m only going to say ‘situations.’

But these situations which at times are funny, others times sad to see, and other times too real, make the gist of the game as we get to know these characters and how they deal or don’t with their problems, some more serious than others, some more traumatic than others.

Some people drink, some people put a facade of aloofness around them, some people like to have sex with strangers they just met in an intercontinental train, other people want to hump their plushies.

It’s things like this that add to the “realness” of it all. People, in the game and the real world alike, have layers, like an onion.

Hopeless Junction is a game about people making some rather strange or bad situations and you see where that takes them.

It’s also a game about people being very real to each other, some to the point of vulnerability. 

It’s a story about people after all and in my experience people tend to be two things, first very real, second oddly invested in things that have no bearing in their lives and three they are messy as hell. 

The game reflects that. These characters have sex! Some of it is consensual, some of it is the sort that will make puritans look away in disgust.

However, the sheer fact that this is a game about trans women was already going to do that. 

It’s a game where its characters talk about sex the same way they talk about their own mental health issues, they are portrayed as thinking about their issues, the things others did to them and what they might do next.

It’s also a game where there’s a one week long train trip.All of this is… mundane, it is a mundane game about messy people and that’s everyone. 

There isn’t a single person in this world that isn’t complicated, or messy, or that always have some “drama” following them because if humans are anything they are very odd and things get weird when you have more than one in the same space.

Hopeless Junction reflects the messiness of real life, and real humans. 

Everyone has their issues, everyone is messy, which means nobody is.

The game’s message? There’s no such a thing as someone that’s too much. 

This is what I took away from Hopeless Junction as odd that might be for you once you are done playing the game. It’s not particularly long. 

But it is a very humane game, again, it’s about people. And you know, people can be complicated.

Now speaking more about the technical aspects of the game you’ll find that it’s visuals, across both it’s original release- which was made for the 2^nd VN Cup- and it’s re-release that is also a remake available on Steam, alike have a mix of backgrounds made out of real life pictures with filters on top and the hand drawn art of the character sprites and CGs that give the game a classic feeling that reminds you of Higurashi or the works of Froey.

Meanwhile the sound work in the game is okay- nothing that needs special attention. 

Yet, the game is a visual experience and an excellent one at that, and the sound should fulfill its role but not be the star of the show.Overall, you have a great story mixed in with great visuals and sound work that does its job, making for a very solid package of a game. 

The game’s solidness is reflected in the fact that it won second place in the 2nd VN Cup.

This is one of those Visual Novels that you should read, especially if you are interested in the medium, and this is from a developer that has for a very long time only released banger after banger in my opinion. 

Nadia Nova develops humane stories about people that feel real, these aren’t idealized people, they are messy, they are quite odd just like most people are. 

So let this be your first Nadia Nova game, let this be your door for peeking into Nova’s work and possibly even Visual Novels as a genre.Now before I close this up- you might be wondering what version of the game you should play. 

Should you play the original that’s available for free or the remake on steam? 

The main difference between the versions is the fact that the original has more simpler sprites, while the remake has them with a more finished appearance besides that and some editing changes – nothing that changes the story, just refinements to the text and dialogue – that make for a tighter story. 

I recommend the remake as this version is paid and it’s just a great remake of a great game, but that’s up to you.

To find more of Nadia Nova’s games, you can take a look at her blog and her Itch page.