Extremely adorable game!
I'm glad for the controversy because I never would have found out about this game.

From the first 15 minutes of playing this game I already knew I should recommend it. 20 hours later I'm not even done and that hasn't changed, but what has is that I have a BUNCH more to talk about.

So! First and foremost I'm seeing a lot of comparisons to UNDERTALE. I know that in taking time to refute this claim I'll be going off-topic, but it's such a widespread claim that it really needs to be done. I guess some of these people have literally never played an RPGMaker adventure before, because aside from a little storybook scenario that kind of looks like the Attract Mode for UNDERTALE, and the name of the game being [COMPOUNDNOUN], there's nothing that warrants such comparisons. You fight animal-monsters that let their emotions get the best of them. Some of them live underground and there's some royalty that's acting bad but they're just fearful and misunderstood. Totally sounds a lot like things UNDERTALE pioneered...if that's one of the few games you've ever played. There's a party system and you're not discouraged from engaging in combat. In fact there's no way avoiding it, so yes it follows conventional RPG mechanics.
Thankfully missing from this game, is the irritating "anti-humor" that the overly eccentric tobyfox loved to sprinkle heavily throughout his game. In HEARTBEAT, there's genuinely good scriptwriting. The humor comes naturally instead of forced. The puzzles are real instead of cringeworthy fake-puzzles. You're never suddenly punished for no reason at your expense for the amusement of someone who isn't even present to witness it. I remember a comment about UNDERTALE back in 2015: "If Earthbound was like someone tucking you into bed and reading you a bedtime story, then UNDERTALE is a creepy guy holding up a pillow, winking and hoping you get the reference." An apt description. Thankfully HEARTBEAT puts you back in bed, patting your head before turning out the light.

The spritework is excellent. The music, unlike UNDERTALE actually uses competent instrumentation for its melodies so you'll never find yourself irritated by any song. It's entirely an enjoyable listening experience and you'll want to buy the OST...until you realize that half the songs are missing, as I did when I tried to get the Card Shop theme that coincidentally sounded similar to "I Say A Little Prayer For You". This is because those tracks weren't made by the team and are public-domain resources. So just extract the rpgmvo files tbh. You'll notice some of those public-domain tracks were composed by watson, who you might recognize from Irisu Syndrome!


I've also seen some claims that this game has very positive representation of same-sex relationships. There must certainly be a low bar to meet to fulfill that. I wouldn't exactly call polygamy, debauchery, and an adulterous affair "positive" but you do you. I'm still probably only slightly half the way through the game at...20 hours so we'll see if this "wonder positive representation" ever shows up.

But indeed this game is lengthy! And for only 15 USD! Someone bought this as a gift for me during the sale but I'd call this a bargain at full price. I've played shorter games that cost a lot more. It's a definite recommended buy if you're looking for something that will give you weeks of entertainment.

On normal difficulty nothing really feels like a chore unless you doggedly insist on focusing on a single thing for too long. Optional sidetracks are indeed optional.

If I must make one complaint, it is that there's some dialogue that you can end up unknowingly missing out on by just going to your next destination instead of backtracking and talking to NPCs. It's quite unclear when these events update so going back to check can actually become bothersome.

All in all, you should pick up this game, especially if you are in the "age 24-36 and have familiarity with imageboard culture" demographic because there's quite a few references to things, especially /x/ pasta and /v/ lolcows, that you just might not recognize otherwise.