VN - Others - Completed - Cartagra ~Affliction of the Soul~ [v1.02] [Innocent Grey]

Cartagra works like a prequel to Kara no Shoujo (KnS), and is recommended (not necessary) to start here if you want to explore that trilogy. The main thing to consider is that Cartagra is a more casual, fast paced, and instantly gratifying read, when compared to its successor. That fact can be a good or a bad thing, depending on your stance towards a "convoluted murder mystery". To put it clearly, people who read and complained about KnS (difficulty/structure/map travelling/detective work), might actually enjoy Cartagra, overall quality notwithstanding.

Positive:
- Entertaining murder mystery - There are issues when we consider execution (more aptly important plot points, and their timing) but Cartagra is highly engaging, and excels at keeping your mind busy with some pet theory. The speed at which things develop is also a plus, you are constantly being fed another bit of info that might be relevant later on. It's sheer fun factor, without serious demands.
- Characters have difference factor - There's a one armed albino yakuza?, a genius little sister "2 steps ahead" of the plot, a creepy guy who sells "takoyaki", surprisingly cheap, doomsday cult loli twins, and the protagonist is not much of a detective, after all. Seems distinctive enough to me.
- Realistic style of portraying things- Not in absolute terms, but compared to a traditional VN, and its tropes, some things here just feel believable. For instance the police in the 50's (after war) using brutal methods to get a confession, or a particular speech pattern in a character you'd presume to be uneducated, due to their background, that kind of thing. Wacky high school settings, and teenagers with preternatural abilities, should take a break every now and then.

Negative:
- Not much, except being an old VN, and everything that entails. The main problem would be reading KnS first, and expect the same level of quality here. Premise and setting, will feel similar, but the scale and complexity will lead to disappointment. This doesn't have to be a negative for everyone though.

Score: Cartagra is a 7/10 a good VN, and a very nice time. If you haven't read KnS, start here. If you have read KnS, temper your expectations. Both VN's have their strong points, but the methods used to deliver, "murder mystery" have different degrees of intricacy.

(H-scenes aren't bad for 2005, and there's a lot of them too. The concept behind some scenes might surprise you, the art style itself has self-evident limitations, but the "sober" approach is a nice change of pace.)

dog shit visual novel. Half the time when the plot wants to get anywhere, its interrupted by sex. The porn scenes in this make the characters do the absolute dumbest shit. "oh my friend just died, time to fuck outside in the snow". Nana is also an extremely unlikable, doing the most sociopathic shit that made me more confused as to why the fuck does her brain work that way than afraid of her. And its not like the game is not aware of it either, theres just no real consequence to her actions. The main character is also fucking stupid, and barely does any detective work besides relying on his sister or paying prostitutes and hobos for information. Not only that, even when he knows its not safe for his prostitute friends + kazuna to wander outside, he just forgets theres a serial killer around. These characters are just so stupid. Kazuna also feels lack luster, there really isnt much development on her since most of the routes seem to focus on the serial murders so she doesnt get to do much at all.

The music was nice, and when the game did want to dive into horror it was pretty nice. The sounds when Otoha was being chopped up was unnerving.

sex scenes were alright. Rin and ujaku had some nice ones, even most of them made no sense as to why there was a sex scene. Rin getting fucked in the snow right after her friend died was hilarious.

Dark story, violence mixed with sex, several ways to complete. There is definitely some thrill hidden inside, because you never can be sure who will be the next victim. Some decisions are not obvious what they will result in. But that's part of the style.

You play as ex-police officer, who is half forced and half wanted to know the truth about his missing ex girlfriend which he couldn't satisfy in the past. What could possibly go wrong ? I'll tell you, MULTIPLY ENDINGS.
Read the text, then read again. From time to time pick a choice that will possibly don't change anything but give you horny vibes, yet some choices will change your game instantly, forcing you to routes different from the main one.
Arts and music are quite cute.
You are locked from true ending from the beginning. Hell... I'd tell that you shouldn't get one until you get the all other ones, because true ending is... questionable
I feel myself disappointed a bit, but reading a new story was worth it, even if the ending is not very pleasurable

I wanted to give 5* it's a nice game.
But honestly I've enjoyed it a lot until I figured out the ending with the girl I like absolutely suck. Seriously I don't want to spoil but it's disgusting, meh and frustrating. In result in this ending the adventure give nothing to the MC.

A fantastic horror visual novel. I'm really only commenting because it had one review, at two stars. This is not a two star visual novel. There's a lot of care put into crafting the characters and the atmosphere for the series as a whole, and this visual novel is a great starting point to a larger story, continued in Kara no Shojo. It's a wonderful combination of murder mystery and romance. The two leads are actually likable, Shugo being a humorous protagonist as he solves mysteries and tries to keep his dick in his pants (but not too hard). Kazuna manages to be more than a damsel in distress, and shows a personality that is really refreshing compared to the numerous bitchy female protagonists in other games. The real star of the show, though, in my humble opinion, is Takashiro Nana, Shugo's sister, who's always one step ahead of everyone else. She's a joy whenever she pops up. All in all, an awesome visual novel.

I wanted to like this because I love almost all things horror. But, sadly I can't say this game was for me. I won't say this was a bad game because I don't think they did anything particularly wrong.

I will say things that bothered me though and what made me put it down was the fact that I am pretty sure I spent more time hitting the skip button then I did actually reading what was being said. When I say that I really mean it there is so much text that I felt like it was reading simulator. There is very little to no options when it does come to options.

The game would actually be really short without all the text that was thrown into the game. The story was actually so boring to me and the lack of anything actually happening I couldn't help but hit the skip button in hopes to see something actually start happening. You don't even get anything related to horror in the first half of the game that you spent hitting skip (because I refuse to believe anyone actually made time to read every single text).

(For the people playing for purely the fact its an adult rated game) - I would not recommend this for sure as you don't really get any of it until later in the game. If you do want a potential story (that you might like I for sure don't) then that is probably the only thing that might make you want to play this game.