The Things We Aren’t Doing

I’m behind in reviewing again, oh no. I’m going to try reviewing more frequently in the upcoming weeks or so (not going to make promises), just that last week I was out of state with a very low motivation to play visual novels while I was vacationing. More stuff coming up. If you want to see a specific game reviewed or something like that, leave a comment. I have to approve every comment one by one, so don’t worry if it takes a while to see yours. I don’t decline any, unless they’re blatant spam (wait, I think I might’ve approved one of those, too, actually, wow).

I play anything and everything. My tastes are all over the place when it comes to these things, strangely enough. I’m not all that into sci-fi stories, however. Never could get into it. Blegh. Anyway, yeah. Good luck making your projects and have fun reading.

Oh, and guess what, to those who care? If you search “visual novel reviews” or “visual novel review” on Google, this site appears close to the top. Good news or bad news, you decide. I wonder if I mention the word visual novel enough, will it also be a top-hit for that search, too? Hm, interesting, but I’m not going crazy over it.

Black Pencil

When I write my reviews, I’m writing to get a few things done. I write to get the word out on not only the game itself, but the underplayed OELVN scene, as well. The more articles on original english language visual novels the better. You’re all rising forces, honestly. Too quick are people to judge you all on being cheap, stupid, badly written, or anything else, solely based on the “OEL” tag. Those assumptions are wrong in many cases — it’s not cheap, stupid, or badly written because it’s an OEL, it’s cheap, stupid, or badly written because it was. The tag has no relevance. A visual novel is a visual novel no matter where it’s birthed from. I try to focus my attention on the more overlooked OEL games or games that aren’t drawing enough interest from the community. So, why am I reviewing a game that has two different reviews already?

It’s because Black Pencil, an ATP Projects game written/directed by mikey, haunted me for months after playing it. I’m serious here. The story, so simple, so incredibly ingenious, kept creeping its way back into my mind. I fell in love with it. You play as Kiyoshi, an office janitor who gets a premonition of Yuki Sakamoto, a worker in the building, dying in a horrible traffic accident. The game revolves around you two, nobody else in your world, and whether or not you can prevent her tragedy. Death, drama, and love, three things that I personally am enamored with, right inside one magnificent game.

It has to be known that it’s not for everyone, especially those used to games made with the Ren’Py engine. Made before the days of Ren’Py popularity, this game was coded from scratch by Luis “Jet” Mondragon, and thusly, lacks the features many of us might be accustomed to at this point. You can’t skip scenes you’ve already seen, you can’t roll back to text you might have missed, and you can’t save the game. Some players, especially those spoiled by Ren’Py and most games that have a save feature, may find themselves frustrated. Even so, you can safely spare yourself the headaches by experiencing this game once. Try it. One time was enough to hook me in.

Black Pencil even has a fan-made manga version (link is a download), drawn by Lost Angel and proofread by ShiraiJunichi, based on my favorite ending to the game. Warning, even though it’s not the same exact Black Pencil story, it does have spoilers for the game. If I were you, I would play the game before reading. The Black Pencil manga was as wonderful as Black Pencil itself. Same basic plot, different character designs and setting (they’re neighbors, not people who meet in the same office building). It’s not a direct adaptation, but that doesn’t make it bad by any means.

The thing that makes this game shine so much for me is how real it feels. As happy as I was to spend touching moments with Yuki, I couldn’t be truly happy knowing what could potentially be around the corner. Her death. January 15th, 2006. Her name on a bloody job application, her dead body in the middle of the road. It’s all I can see. Can I change fate? I’m not a miracle worker, but if I try, maybe there’s a way to protect her, to save her. I couldn’t help but feel for Kiyoshi’s desperation.

The art, drawn by Magic_Diagram, doesn’t have much color beyond shades of black, white, and gray. This only amps up the story’s dark mood. It’s minimal and it works. It’s Black Pencil. If it were presented any other way, well, it wouldn’t work as well as it does. There’s no sound. I didn’t mind that so much. It is what it is and what it is is nothing short of amazing. Part of me even says that this visual novel out of all others is one of my favorites of all time. This one is proof that this OEL scene isn’t as bad as one would assume. Give it a chance.

Black Pencil was made back in 2004 and definitely stands the test of time. It holds its own in this age of colorful graphics, insanely intricate animations, and crazy text boxes. I like it. I think you will, too. Download it from the ATP Projects page here, from the RAA here, and discuss it here at LSF.

Please excuse the horrible screen shot taking this time. I’m not at my usual place, so things aren’t working out like they’re supposed to.

Next Station

Rejection, sadly, isn’t an unfamiliar story to most of us in some unfortunate shape or form. In Next Station, you play as a seventeen year old boy dealing with just that. Rejected by a close friend he had pined after for two years running, he wanders the train station, hoping for a second chance. All of Next Station’s choices rest in choosing where and when to get off at particular stops. Do you choose to get off at Islington St. now, or do you keep riding it along? You don’t get choices in what to say for dialogue, only where and when you’ll go places.

The custom text box proves to be this game’s most interesting feature. Like a train map, you can see where you are at a given time as indicated by the lit-up dot. Use the map to figure out how close you are to a specific point in the stations. There’s also a clock. The game ends at 3:00, giving the player a bit of a push to keep going. Aimlessly wander and you’re not going to get anything done. Keep focused. People don’t wait around forever, you know.

I’m disappointed by the lack of a main menu picture. First impressions mean a lot in the visual novel world, judging by the large number of big name industry games with flashy opening videos. While you might not be able to achieve that much, you can, at the very least, do all you can. A picture, the title, something to take away from the boring one-color background. Hell, you can even filter the fuck out of some picture in your game and make it into your main menu picture. Anything works as long as you do something. Main menus are such an overlooked part of the presentation. You might even be wondering why it matters so much. Well…it’s kind of like a book completely missing a cover. Strange. I wish the book had had a cover, seeing how it’s what I have to keep going back to whenever I end the game, close the book, or want to restart.

The music was fitting. Sad, gentle, etcetera. It’s almost dripping with loneliness, the poor music piece. It didn’t get annoying, which is surprising since it’s the only track there. Ignosco did his job here well. Too bad he missed out on a few mistakes while he was proofreading for Mr. E, Next Station’s author and game maker. Herminger St. became Hermington in one instance. When a character references another character saying, “I don’t want her to know,” Hyphen boy’s name comes up instead of whom was talking. Hyphen boy meaning the nameless main character. Also, instead of the character that was being talked about, the other girl appears. I could be missing something here, though, as that could’ve easily been interpreted as some sort of flashback for “Hyphen”.

The issue I had was that it felt more like you lucked into a few of the endings. You get off at a station, you run into an event. It’s not too hard to figure out where to go. Dialogue was good and clear. The characters were interesting enough, save for one woman you run into on the fourth ending. Actually, the whole fourth ending left me with more questions than answers, namely “what?” I didn’t get it. It seemed a little too surreal, based on everything that had happened prior to endgame. I didn’t believe a moment of it. The other endings, on the other hand, weren’t too bad.

The whole game is a little slow. Beyond the text box and Mr. E’s art, there isn’t much else visually special. Doesn’t matter too much. The story was alright, nothing too remarkable or memorable. When I closed it, I didn’t feel a draw to play through again. Everything to do with Next Station was…alright. Not bad, not amazing; nothing special. Supposedly, Mr. E might work on an updated version, complete with changing expressions for the characters and a bonus ending. Okay, that’s fine. I’m not excited or anything.

Check it out. It’s worth one play through, at the very least. Other players seemed to have liked the game a whole lot. ashogo of LSF calls the game “awesome. . . .It’s got a great awesome atmosphere, and [Mr. E built] the characters really well so that you feel for all of them.” Spiralbunny, also of LSF, says that “it didn’t feel troublesome playing it so many times [to get all the endings] though! It was fun each time!” Interesting. I can’t say I fully agree. It can be fun for about twenty minutes before it becomes forgettable. For what it had, it’s not horrible, so, shrug.

You can discuss the game here in its discussion thread. As of now, it’s not up on the RAA, which is weird. Huh…

Heart of Fire

As someone who somewhat enjoyed Chris “Scout” Love’s first released Ren’Py project Cell Phone Love Letter, I walked into Heart of Fire with a couple of expectations. One being the high customization. CPLL changed up the standard Ren’Py configuration and made it its own, turning it into something you definitely can’t mistake for any other Ren’Py game out there. Bright colors, quirky art, such and such. Two being the wonderful dialogue handling. I don’t know how, but every sentence that finds its way into Love’s characters’ text boxes sounds natural. I’m happy to say my expectations were more than met with Heart of Fire.

Old-school RPG fans rejoice! Using various resources, Love constructs a visual novel that feels, on the surface, like a classic RPG experience. Underline the on the surface part. There’s no leveling up, no EXP to be gained, the battles are extremely easy even on Hard mode, and, honestly, Heart of Fire is obviously more of a visual novel than a turn-based roleplaying game. If you’re looking for a hardcore VN/RPG hybrid, then look elsewhere. This definitely isn’t it. On the other hand, however, Heart of Fire has the feel, right down to the main menu.

I’ve got to give a hand up to lily of the valley games (that’s Love’s game studio). The level of detail in the customization is downright superb. Hell, the “skip mode” text even got treatment to fit in. As soon as I saw that, I fell for this game’s 16-bitness. I only wish the music could match the appearance. Tracks that sounded like medieval/fantasy .midis would’ve gone along much better. What was there wasn’t bad, though. It got its points across when it needed to and that’s good enough. The look of the visual novel more than makes up for the soundtrack. I mean, seriously, take a moment to admire the hard work. Yeah, yeah, I know they were found resources, but, look, Love put them in all the right places and used them artfully. I’m more than impressed, I can’t say that enough.

You play in the point of view of Mira, whom escapes from orcish capture with fellow captives Sylvia and Saber. In my game, I made Mira the knight, Saber the rogue, and Sylvia the healer. Giving Saber most of the grindstones and buying Sylvia nearly all of her spells made my team virtually unbeatable. There was only one point where I, like you, had to die and you’ll know when ’cause…well, nah. I’m not going to say when. It seemed to frustrate some players, but I’m not going to ruin it for you. I think you’ll know when to give up when you’ll know when to give up, get what I’m saying?

Even though their dialogue exchanges were well-written, I wasn’t overly enthralled with any of the characters. Saber doesn’t get much development until the end of the story, unfortunately; he spends most of the game mostly silent save for a few key scenes. Sylvia, overall, confused me. I still can’t figure out if I dislike her or not. She kinda was just “there” for me. I didn’t care one way or another if she died or not. Mira, ugh. I’m not a fan of her personality type to begin with. I think it was partially my fault, though, that I started not liking them. I made one a knight and the other a healer. Note that the classes don’t affect your game or anything. Those classes only fed into a relationship stereotype I had no idea I walked into until it was too late.

Speaking of the romance, I wasn’t feeling it. It didn’t do much for me. I asked myself, “why was this even in here?” A bit of a harsh question, I know. It all felt rushed. They meet, one falls for the other, and, yeah, it’s pretty obvious from there. It came off to me as being tacked on. Something about it didn’t sit right with me, most likely due to it being so predictable. Some of these issues come from this being a short visual novel and the others come from the writing and characters themselves.

The ending came as a huge slap in the face. Here I was, actually liking Heart of Fire, and, fwham. You get this battle and one fucking line of text and…it’s over? What? It was terribly upsetting. The epilogue, well, you know I didn’t care for it. Double slap. It involves the game’s star pairing, of course. Then, Heart of Fire truly ends. In my mind, they died after they got through the final boss and the epilogue is some sort of afterlife scene. Thinking of it that way makes it a whole lot better, if not a little sad.

In spite of how negative I’ve probably sounded throughout this review, I liked the game’s story and treatment of its setting. I’m so happy that I didn’t have to sit through some stupid cut scene to understand things that are easy to understand based on character conversation. It’s not bad. It’s not wildly unique, either. It’s your usual evil orcs versus “good” humans thing. For what it’s worth, it’s good in Heart of Fire and that’s all that matters.

Play this. It’s a visual novel that looks and feels like an old RPG, which earns major bonus points. Download it here from the lily of the valley games website or here at the RAA. Discuss it here at its LSF thread. I reviewed this while playing version 1.1.

Little God

Little God…the title brings to mind one of those cheap life management sims where you’re stuck overseeing some lame, desperately needy town or equally pathetic village. Instead, in this visual novel written by Septimus, the writer of the up and coming visual novel Deeplake, we’re treated to a supernatural/action story. The story stars you, lone survivor of some kind of attack, and your Lieutenant. Alongside her, you must ward off beasts, deal with a warlock, and carry an assortment of ill-inspired “Type-whatever number” weaponry.

See, now that I’m back here doing reviews again, I’ve decided to do away with the usual formulaic standard bullshit. I don’t think it’s necessary anymore. Really, it makes everything come off as dull. One should be able to gather the four essential categories (story, gameplay, graphics, and sound) out of my game overviews easily, kind of like how, despite being placed immedieately into Little God’s story without a needless world intro, I just got it. The VN doesn’t spend forever and a day telling you what the monsters you’re fighting are or waste text space explaining to you the ins and outs of the organization. No. Little God gives you you in the here and now.

I’ve played one too many games that had the whole hour long cut scene shit. It’s a risky move, because it’s always a hit or a miss and more often than not, it’s a huge miss. I don’t want to feel like I’m wasting my time reading walls of text that I could, you know, use my brain and get the information from my surroundings while I’m playing. Sure, you could say that you don’t want to be lost by being thrown right into it, but at the same time, why make me feel stupid by explaining the obvious? If the Hfoiasjs hate the Afdsojis then let me figure that out on my own, rather than making me read about their huge ten year war. Great.

Like I already mentioned, Little God puts you right in the action. You’ve got the sound of your heart beating and a very real sense of fear. The visual novel plays out in pure NVL style, that is rows of text carefully displayed over faded backgrounds. It works here. White text on black background allows so much more room for imagination. Too many of us forget how much we could experience given minimal resources. A lonely kiss, a broken heart, and a depressed hug are so much more powerful when we can see it in our own head, rather than being forced fed images of tears and constant blue.

The sounds play a major help in Little God’s story. All were picked out very well, I have to admit. Every description of a door closing found its match in a little sound effect. Hurried scenes had fast paced music. It kept me focused, on my toes, and for a moment there, made me forget that I didn’t have to hurry at all because the game didn’t have a timer or anything.

There are very few pictures. I wish that the writer hadn’t chosen to show the grand final enemy. It took away from things a bit, at least for me. The graphic overlaying the background image looked…maybe the word is clunky. It kind of just floated there obnoxiously. I know the author “stole” the image from his artist friend (the same one working with him on Deeplake, SapphireDragon) however that doesn’t excuse the awkwardness. Things would’ve been better without, since things like that don’t work in NVL mode for me, sorry. Something about the perspective made my eyes burn.

While the rush of the beginning scenes was enough to keep me reading, the ending was wholly disappointing. The whole story kind of dissolves into a bit of a cheesy mess. I felt that the final boss’s character was a horribly misplaced cliche. As soon as the Lieutenant says who he is, Little God starts slowly going down the drain. The battle becomes overclogged with mentions of Type-07 and Type-47 and Type-whatever weaponry. Why the names? If it’s a projectile, it’s a projectile. If it’s an explosive, it’s an explosive. I could see the weapon naming for a longer visual novel, but for something that takes ten to fifteen minutes, no.

It didn’t keep much of my interest after that. Things got into “just like the others” territory. I’m not going to spoil much, so I’m just gonna say special blood, that kind of thing. Never was into those kinds of stories. I have to mention the main character not thinking he’s special or anything. It sort of ties into the territory, a little bit. By getting the good ending, you see this visual novel’s connection with the title. Sadly, I was rolling my eyes at the whole thing.

One poster on LemmaSoft Forums mentioned how they could see Little God being a pilot to a longer series. The same thing crossed my mind. If the final scene had been done differently, I would look forward to such a thing. I would run for it. I would chase it down. Too bad things didn’t turn out in a better way. Everything else was pretty ace. The story, up until the warlock point, proves how maybe some of us should put down the gimmicky shiney-eyed anime girl graphics and go back to our simple storytelling roots. Little God shows that you don’t need all of that to draw a reader in. It’s all about the words and how you place them.

There aren’t very many choices to make in the game. Only a few. They’re all pretty obvious if you pay attention. Hell, you don’t have to pay attention to a couple. Use common sense. Then, go back and get some of the bad endings, particularly the first possible bad ending when you go the wrong way. I loved it more than I loved the good ending. Crunch.

Bottom line? Little God was a refreshing little read. Septimus knows his craft. If he’s half as good writing Deeplake as he was writing the beginning of this, then, damn. I’ll be one of the first to check it out when it comes out. Oh and by the way, if you’ll be writing more stories in the vein of Little God’s start, you’ve got an audience right here. Nice job.

Get it here at the RAA and discuss it here at its LSF thread.

I’m back…

I’m back because I care. Yes. My harshness (if any, because, honestly, I’m not the WORST out there that you can find) is to only prove that I care about your shit. You say you want to be the next big name visual novel company. You say you want to be the best, huh? Then, go ahead. Who else is going to call your stuff for what it is without fear? Huh… Maybe, it has to be me.

I’m behind, as usual. If you’ve got something you want to see reviewed in particular or you want a work of your own extensively evaluated, like a demo or something, go ahead and post a comment here. I’m checking this place throughout the summer and I’m gonna try to write up a bunch of reviews to make up for the lost time. Enjoy.