As you can easily see it, the art is good.
That being said, a game is a game, not a collection of cg and as a game, it got utterly devastated.
It is necessary to mention that the whole game is actually a cg collection, there are no sentences on them though, those go through the visual novel style but there is a change of cg very often, making following the story pleasing to the eye.
The art is also not that complex to go with the game style. It does look superb thanks to thick lines making the characters more impactful and an actual work to give the body enough shadows at the important part to imitate the actual shape. It is those shadows/light play that make a look attractive and most of the people drawing kind of miss them, thinking that only the outline is important.
Now, if you do take a look at those you can see how the brush has been used easily in most cases. I would say that it is a pretty sloppy work, but it is a cg collection and it is actually reassuring that the drawer did find a way to not go all out every time while still making the characters appealing.
You can also simply compare the header coloring and the in-game one, it allows a better understanding of the difference between the actual style used in-game and the one used on only a standalone drawing.
More work isn't necessarily better and it proves it well.
That being said, the art is really the only good part of the game.
The first chapter is an introduction. Nothing is particularly interesting, and as such, there isn't anything bad to say about it.
Yes, it isn't interesting. Yes, the mc design with his shaved head is weirder than anything else. Yes, the mc is uselessly raped almost all the chapter.
But there is nothing actually impactful story-wise, and a bland mc is the basic of almost every game.
And then came the second chapter.
You see, killing your mc is one thing, those are nearly dead by default in almost every game, killing your main female lead is another one.
The tanned elf that you've been seeing since the beginning and keep seeing all along? She went from a cute dumb girl to an utter scum in this second chapter.
What happens is that she goes to some healers to help the mc and guess what she does all along? She begins to do the small talk with those trying to do their job and fuck up with the treatment hoping to get fucked. Again.
I am unfortunately not exaggerating anything. It is even worse in game.
The first time she did go out of her way it didn't feel much, and it was possible to put it into her eagerness, but the second time she was completely forgetting that she was supposed to be trying to help the mc and not fucking him while he is still in the coma.
It seems that the dev thought it was funny—at least that it is how the art is portraying it, but it really isn't.
Only a scum would do such things.
At this point my guess would be that the dev was fed up with the mc and changed him with the female one.
She is, indeed, the mc of the second chapter and all the sex is on her whether the mc is involved or not.
A choice that makes the whole chapter 1... Useless? Why not have begun with her at this point?
There are others details proving that it is going into this direction: futa appears, a comment about a group using means to have "fun", the slow-burning with the sexual exploration at the beginning of the story (chapter 1) replaced by a put it in and get into bliss logic (chapter 2).
Let's add that the last one doesn't make any sense in a world full of women for some thousands of years, their organs should decline.
I am not against forgetting the mc but having killed the most important female lead on the way, it is hard to feel anything anymore for the characters and it really seems to just becoming a mindless fuckfest.
As a game, it feels like an complete change of turn in only one hour of gameplay but it is necessary to take into account that it is purely drawings, and as such, it takes a long time to come to this point of game time. Changing one mind in 4 years of development is actually understandable, but doing it without even the introduction done means that there was no roadmap since the beginning.
And if the dev didn't even bother to think through the introduction of his game, it is easy to guess that it'll keep changing on his whims without any reason.
The only advice that I can give is just forgetting Elfheim as a game and just remembering it as some cg to jerk off. No letdown with characters killed, no stupid development, no story taking a completely different turn right away, just some good pictures.
Isn't it better?
That being said, a game is a game, not a collection of cg and as a game, it got utterly devastated.
It is necessary to mention that the whole game is actually a cg collection, there are no sentences on them though, those go through the visual novel style but there is a change of cg very often, making following the story pleasing to the eye.
The art is also not that complex to go with the game style. It does look superb thanks to thick lines making the characters more impactful and an actual work to give the body enough shadows at the important part to imitate the actual shape. It is those shadows/light play that make a look attractive and most of the people drawing kind of miss them, thinking that only the outline is important.
Now, if you do take a look at those you can see how the brush has been used easily in most cases. I would say that it is a pretty sloppy work, but it is a cg collection and it is actually reassuring that the drawer did find a way to not go all out every time while still making the characters appealing.
You can also simply compare the header coloring and the in-game one, it allows a better understanding of the difference between the actual style used in-game and the one used on only a standalone drawing.
More work isn't necessarily better and it proves it well.
That being said, the art is really the only good part of the game.
The first chapter is an introduction. Nothing is particularly interesting, and as such, there isn't anything bad to say about it.
Yes, it isn't interesting. Yes, the mc design with his shaved head is weirder than anything else. Yes, the mc is uselessly raped almost all the chapter.
But there is nothing actually impactful story-wise, and a bland mc is the basic of almost every game.
And then came the second chapter.
You see, killing your mc is one thing, those are nearly dead by default in almost every game, killing your main female lead is another one.
The tanned elf that you've been seeing since the beginning and keep seeing all along? She went from a cute dumb girl to an utter scum in this second chapter.
What happens is that she goes to some healers to help the mc and guess what she does all along? She begins to do the small talk with those trying to do their job and fuck up with the treatment hoping to get fucked. Again.
I am unfortunately not exaggerating anything. It is even worse in game.
The first time she did go out of her way it didn't feel much, and it was possible to put it into her eagerness, but the second time she was completely forgetting that she was supposed to be trying to help the mc and not fucking him while he is still in the coma.
It seems that the dev thought it was funny—at least that it is how the art is portraying it, but it really isn't.
Only a scum would do such things.
At this point my guess would be that the dev was fed up with the mc and changed him with the female one.
She is, indeed, the mc of the second chapter and all the sex is on her whether the mc is involved or not.
A choice that makes the whole chapter 1... Useless? Why not have begun with her at this point?
There are others details proving that it is going into this direction: futa appears, a comment about a group using means to have "fun", the slow-burning with the sexual exploration at the beginning of the story (chapter 1) replaced by a put it in and get into bliss logic (chapter 2).
Let's add that the last one doesn't make any sense in a world full of women for some thousands of years, their organs should decline.
I am not against forgetting the mc but having killed the most important female lead on the way, it is hard to feel anything anymore for the characters and it really seems to just becoming a mindless fuckfest.
As a game, it feels like an complete change of turn in only one hour of gameplay but it is necessary to take into account that it is purely drawings, and as such, it takes a long time to come to this point of game time. Changing one mind in 4 years of development is actually understandable, but doing it without even the introduction done means that there was no roadmap since the beginning.
And if the dev didn't even bother to think through the introduction of his game, it is easy to guess that it'll keep changing on his whims without any reason.
The only advice that I can give is just forgetting Elfheim as a game and just remembering it as some cg to jerk off. No letdown with characters killed, no stupid development, no story taking a completely different turn right away, just some good pictures.
Isn't it better?
