The following review is based off my personal experience with playing this Game/Visual Novel... I try to be as brutally honest and detailed as I can, and these are my own opinions and thoughts, from one or more play throughs... The version this review is based on is Chapter 1...
This is a very odd and rather dark VN/Game... Also, this review will include some Spoilers, so be forewarned...
The visuals that I experienced were mostly darkly lit, so it was a bit difficult to really give a base line of the backdrops and so forth... The character models looked alright, from what you can see of them... The police woman wasn't really dressed for performing police duties, even though she had her badge on... Which sort of threw a kink in the immersion... There were a few zoom in visuals, which did add some production value... But the initial visuals, where it switches from one dark picture to another, prior to the event in the woods, felt rather out of place and bizarre... If there was some narration during that sequence, maybe it would have fit in better?
Now I don't play any VN/Games with the sound on, as I use speakers and not a headset, so if there was music and other sounds, I didn't experience them... And I know that many other readers/players also turn sounds off, so I am definitely not alone in that...
The script is a mix of good English along side some broken English (here and there), as well as the occasional spelling/grammar error... This VN/Game starts off very weird, with a bunch of back to back visuals, that I assumed were either flashbacks or something else... I couldn't tell what their significance was, so I ended up left clicking and they stopped... After that the visual novel part began, with a male protagonist and another woman getting stoned on pot, and almost having sex, right before a female police officer (that was wearing a rather revealing set of clothing instead of what a normal police woman would wear) showed up and took them into custody... From there the story instantly flashes forward 3 years...
The part I had the most trouble with, involved when the protagonist left his home... While standing at a crosswalk, a female pedestrian gets hit by a car (it was night and raining), and that is when this VN/Game began to become very dark... The choices you get presented with, and the way the protagonists talks and thinks, almost makes you think the protagonist is some psychotic... He is very apathetic to the whole situation, with choices to shoot someone for no good reason (regardless if it was blanks or not, because he didn't know before pulling the trigger)… One of the choices, with regards to the hurt woman on the ground, basically involved the protagonist being rather disconcered about her injuries, as she realizes she's paralyzed... What kind of choices is that? Who the hell want's to play a psychopath, with dialogue about slitting the accident victims throat as she lay there possibly dying, and then an option of shooting an innocent driver? I get that the developers were trying to portray a troubled protagonist, but come on... The dialogue and choices are extremely dark...
And it only got worse, as the immersion just went flying off into the wild blue yonder... The cops show up and he just decides to walk away from the crime scene (regardless what choices you selected), without the cops even stopping him... Then he picks up the victims belongings and goes through them? All while the cops are right there? I just had to call bullshit on that whole set of events, and quit reading/playing at that point... As I could tell from all the non-sense, that had already occurred up until that point, that this sort of stuff was probably going to be present through the rest of this VN/Game...
Beyond the non-sense with the car accident, there were some other things the protagonist was thinking, that sometimes made no sense or felt out of place... Before the accident even occured... This could be possibly attributed to some bad translation/interpretation or just poor writing, it was hard to tell... Add to that, most visuals were hard too see, due to very darkly lit settings... The content I did encounter, prior to the car accident, also didn't have the best of pacing... Sometimes it was fine, and sometimes it seemed to be missing something... In the end, I wasn't feeling the immersion, due to how unbelievable some of the event setups were, along with not wanting anything to do with playing a possible psychopath in a visual novel...
Some other issues I ran into, up until I quit reading/playing, were the constant blank text boxes that happened over and over again... Sometimes they were present for scene alterations, but sometimes nothing seemed to be changing, yet they were still there... That is something the developers really should work on removing...
All I could really gather, before I quit playing, is that the plot revolves around a possibly psychotic male protagonist, who gets high with some woman, gets caught out in the woods, gets into the back of a police car, and then it's 3 years later, and he feels bad about something that happened regarding that girl... He is apparently distraught, while living with his mother and sister... From there, he goes from what seems like a slightly depressed guy, to having choices to either be a twisted psychotic pent on murder, or being a normal person... The fact that the options existed for being a possible murdering psycho just made me say, hell to the no... Mixed with the breaks from reality, based on how the story was being told, alongside the odd story telling, I just called it quits...
Overall, from the content I experienced, I could see that the developers were trying to make a story driven VN/Game, with both intrigue and darkness... Some production value was added with a few zoom in's... The darkness of the visuals was probably being used as a way of setting the mood to go with it's darker theme, is what I was guessing... The story text didn't always feel right, as it was telling the story, along with the occasional tiny amounts of broken English, just didn't allow it to read well some of the time... The story, in someways, felt artificial and sometimes a tiny bit forced... Like it was trying too hard to force the dark mood of the VN/Game onto the reader, rather then using subtle hints while leading the reader through the story, allowing time for the visuals and so forth to sink in...
The addition of very dark dialogue and inner-monologue along with very dark and sinister choices, just is not my cup of tea... There are better ways to setup a protagonist as depressed and hurt, over some past tragedy that he may or may not of had control over... Portraying him as this broken and emotionless psychotic, who would rather project his issues onto others through thoughts and actions of violence and murder, that is way over the top... And that type of character is not someone I can immerse myself into playing as... If it had been a kinetic story, with no choices, yet the same thoughts and actions were to take place, I still probably couldn't keep reading it... I don't even know if the remainder of this VN/Game continues with those types of choices, dialogue/monologue, and so on, but I wasn't going to stick around to find out.. There is dark, and then there is very dark...
Will I revisit this one? Not in it's current incarnation... I don't enjoy playing as a dark and possibly very violent character, especially in a Erotic/Adult VN/Game... This VN/Game is still early in it's development, but it is not for me, and probably not for a lot of other folks as well... Best of luck...
EDIT (05/09/2019): The developer and others are trying to play it off (in the thread) as though the protagonist talking about killing the accident victim, was some act of mercy to end her suffering... Who in their right mind, at a scene of an accident, thinks about killing someone as an act of mercy? That is not how normal human beings think... Normal people will either freeze up because they are in shock over what they just witnessed, or they panic out of shock and flee, or they try and help by calling the police and/or attempting to aid the person... Only someone with serious psychological problems immediately turns to thoughts of killing a human being, to put them out of their misery, at a car accident scene... This isn't some stray dog or horse that just got hit by a car, this is a fellow human being...
Also, the fact that the developer offered an option to shoot the witness to his verbal outburst, of possibly killing the accident victim, is a very dark choice, only made worse by the VN/Game actually allowing him to go through with it... The argument that he could have just grazed the driver or missed vital organs, does not nullify the fact that he still tried to kill the driver, if you select that choice... And yet the story continues on, even if that choice is selected, regardless if the developer made the ammo blanks or not... He just proclaimed killing someone in front of a witness, and a very dark option was added that allowed the protagonist to attempt to murder that witness in order to silence her, and only after the cops show up, he just walks away like nothing happened... No empathy for the victim, no remorse for having just attempted murder, he just walks away, takes the victims ID, and goes home like nothing happened...The developer may have had certain thoughts and feelings he/she was trying to portray in that event, but the way it actually plays out, or even offers to play out, is far darker then some players/readers are willing to deal with, or possibly put up with...
And defending the developers choices, or making up excuses to try and downplay the actual content as it currently stands, is fruitless... It does not nullify the very dark story telling devices used and choices offered... There is no defending how it looks and feels for others like myself... No matter how you try and justify it to yourself, or reason out how it isn't as bad as it looks... No matter how you try and spin it, in defense of the rest of this VN/Game... I get it, others may see it differently, but again, these are my opinions and thoughts, and others will probably see it as I do... There is no getting away from that... I take these VN/Games at face value, based on how they actually present themselves, regardless what the actual intensions might or might not have been by the developers... And in it's current state, it shows some very dark content/choices...
This is a very odd and rather dark VN/Game... Also, this review will include some Spoilers, so be forewarned...
The visuals that I experienced were mostly darkly lit, so it was a bit difficult to really give a base line of the backdrops and so forth... The character models looked alright, from what you can see of them... The police woman wasn't really dressed for performing police duties, even though she had her badge on... Which sort of threw a kink in the immersion... There were a few zoom in visuals, which did add some production value... But the initial visuals, where it switches from one dark picture to another, prior to the event in the woods, felt rather out of place and bizarre... If there was some narration during that sequence, maybe it would have fit in better?
Now I don't play any VN/Games with the sound on, as I use speakers and not a headset, so if there was music and other sounds, I didn't experience them... And I know that many other readers/players also turn sounds off, so I am definitely not alone in that...
The script is a mix of good English along side some broken English (here and there), as well as the occasional spelling/grammar error... This VN/Game starts off very weird, with a bunch of back to back visuals, that I assumed were either flashbacks or something else... I couldn't tell what their significance was, so I ended up left clicking and they stopped... After that the visual novel part began, with a male protagonist and another woman getting stoned on pot, and almost having sex, right before a female police officer (that was wearing a rather revealing set of clothing instead of what a normal police woman would wear) showed up and took them into custody... From there the story instantly flashes forward 3 years...
The part I had the most trouble with, involved when the protagonist left his home... While standing at a crosswalk, a female pedestrian gets hit by a car (it was night and raining), and that is when this VN/Game began to become very dark... The choices you get presented with, and the way the protagonists talks and thinks, almost makes you think the protagonist is some psychotic... He is very apathetic to the whole situation, with choices to shoot someone for no good reason (regardless if it was blanks or not, because he didn't know before pulling the trigger)… One of the choices, with regards to the hurt woman on the ground, basically involved the protagonist being rather disconcered about her injuries, as she realizes she's paralyzed... What kind of choices is that? Who the hell want's to play a psychopath, with dialogue about slitting the accident victims throat as she lay there possibly dying, and then an option of shooting an innocent driver? I get that the developers were trying to portray a troubled protagonist, but come on... The dialogue and choices are extremely dark...
And it only got worse, as the immersion just went flying off into the wild blue yonder... The cops show up and he just decides to walk away from the crime scene (regardless what choices you selected), without the cops even stopping him... Then he picks up the victims belongings and goes through them? All while the cops are right there? I just had to call bullshit on that whole set of events, and quit reading/playing at that point... As I could tell from all the non-sense, that had already occurred up until that point, that this sort of stuff was probably going to be present through the rest of this VN/Game...
Beyond the non-sense with the car accident, there were some other things the protagonist was thinking, that sometimes made no sense or felt out of place... Before the accident even occured... This could be possibly attributed to some bad translation/interpretation or just poor writing, it was hard to tell... Add to that, most visuals were hard too see, due to very darkly lit settings... The content I did encounter, prior to the car accident, also didn't have the best of pacing... Sometimes it was fine, and sometimes it seemed to be missing something... In the end, I wasn't feeling the immersion, due to how unbelievable some of the event setups were, along with not wanting anything to do with playing a possible psychopath in a visual novel...
Some other issues I ran into, up until I quit reading/playing, were the constant blank text boxes that happened over and over again... Sometimes they were present for scene alterations, but sometimes nothing seemed to be changing, yet they were still there... That is something the developers really should work on removing...
All I could really gather, before I quit playing, is that the plot revolves around a possibly psychotic male protagonist, who gets high with some woman, gets caught out in the woods, gets into the back of a police car, and then it's 3 years later, and he feels bad about something that happened regarding that girl... He is apparently distraught, while living with his mother and sister... From there, he goes from what seems like a slightly depressed guy, to having choices to either be a twisted psychotic pent on murder, or being a normal person... The fact that the options existed for being a possible murdering psycho just made me say, hell to the no... Mixed with the breaks from reality, based on how the story was being told, alongside the odd story telling, I just called it quits...
Overall, from the content I experienced, I could see that the developers were trying to make a story driven VN/Game, with both intrigue and darkness... Some production value was added with a few zoom in's... The darkness of the visuals was probably being used as a way of setting the mood to go with it's darker theme, is what I was guessing... The story text didn't always feel right, as it was telling the story, along with the occasional tiny amounts of broken English, just didn't allow it to read well some of the time... The story, in someways, felt artificial and sometimes a tiny bit forced... Like it was trying too hard to force the dark mood of the VN/Game onto the reader, rather then using subtle hints while leading the reader through the story, allowing time for the visuals and so forth to sink in...
The addition of very dark dialogue and inner-monologue along with very dark and sinister choices, just is not my cup of tea... There are better ways to setup a protagonist as depressed and hurt, over some past tragedy that he may or may not of had control over... Portraying him as this broken and emotionless psychotic, who would rather project his issues onto others through thoughts and actions of violence and murder, that is way over the top... And that type of character is not someone I can immerse myself into playing as... If it had been a kinetic story, with no choices, yet the same thoughts and actions were to take place, I still probably couldn't keep reading it... I don't even know if the remainder of this VN/Game continues with those types of choices, dialogue/monologue, and so on, but I wasn't going to stick around to find out.. There is dark, and then there is very dark...
Will I revisit this one? Not in it's current incarnation... I don't enjoy playing as a dark and possibly very violent character, especially in a Erotic/Adult VN/Game... This VN/Game is still early in it's development, but it is not for me, and probably not for a lot of other folks as well... Best of luck...
EDIT (05/09/2019): The developer and others are trying to play it off (in the thread) as though the protagonist talking about killing the accident victim, was some act of mercy to end her suffering... Who in their right mind, at a scene of an accident, thinks about killing someone as an act of mercy? That is not how normal human beings think... Normal people will either freeze up because they are in shock over what they just witnessed, or they panic out of shock and flee, or they try and help by calling the police and/or attempting to aid the person... Only someone with serious psychological problems immediately turns to thoughts of killing a human being, to put them out of their misery, at a car accident scene... This isn't some stray dog or horse that just got hit by a car, this is a fellow human being...
Also, the fact that the developer offered an option to shoot the witness to his verbal outburst, of possibly killing the accident victim, is a very dark choice, only made worse by the VN/Game actually allowing him to go through with it... The argument that he could have just grazed the driver or missed vital organs, does not nullify the fact that he still tried to kill the driver, if you select that choice... And yet the story continues on, even if that choice is selected, regardless if the developer made the ammo blanks or not... He just proclaimed killing someone in front of a witness, and a very dark option was added that allowed the protagonist to attempt to murder that witness in order to silence her, and only after the cops show up, he just walks away like nothing happened... No empathy for the victim, no remorse for having just attempted murder, he just walks away, takes the victims ID, and goes home like nothing happened...The developer may have had certain thoughts and feelings he/she was trying to portray in that event, but the way it actually plays out, or even offers to play out, is far darker then some players/readers are willing to deal with, or possibly put up with...
And defending the developers choices, or making up excuses to try and downplay the actual content as it currently stands, is fruitless... It does not nullify the very dark story telling devices used and choices offered... There is no defending how it looks and feels for others like myself... No matter how you try and justify it to yourself, or reason out how it isn't as bad as it looks... No matter how you try and spin it, in defense of the rest of this VN/Game... I get it, others may see it differently, but again, these are my opinions and thoughts, and others will probably see it as I do... There is no getting away from that... I take these VN/Games at face value, based on how they actually present themselves, regardless what the actual intensions might or might not have been by the developers... And in it's current state, it shows some very dark content/choices...
