Has a lot of potential, but it feels like it's lost in the weeds...
Realistically, this game is probably around a 3.5/5, but did not deserve to be rounded up to 4 stars considering it's release schedule. It's 3.5 years old now, and it only just finished setting the table for the main plot. Way too long to get into the meat and potatoes of its narrative structure. At the current pace it feels like a game that will either take ten years to fully release, or end up abandoned or with a horribly rushed and railroaded ending.
For what it is, The Bite is pulpy. If you expect incredible literary spark, it's not there. It's yet another urban fantasy vampire story with the MC being this extra special fledgling vampire. You've seen this story before, and probably better. But in terms of pulp, it's actually pretty good pulp. The story keeps you engaged and it's suspenseful enough that you want to keep reading.. In other words, it's good enough to keep going, not good enough to be particularly memorable.
There are very few really good, fleshed out characters in the story. Zoey is probably the best, but even she starts to feel more preachy and two-dimensional as the game goes on. But most characters are decent as simulacrums. They present a good facade, even if there's not much underneath.
Not all of it is the fault of the characters, however, who may well have more layers than they show. The MC being a bit of a wet blanket ultimately hampers a lot of the storytelling. A lot of stories like to start the character from zero, so you have the classic RPG feel of a zero to hero, but a lot of storytellers underestimate how hard it is to make that kind of main character compelling. Sure, it has a ready-made story structure, which allows you to paint by numbers, but it also needs a good hook to really grab you. A hook that this game fails to deliver.
For the most part, the MC is window dressing. He's the classic blank slate main character with a thin backstory and the occasional wisecrack. But ultimately he's just kind of there, ready for the next round of worldbuilding exposition to knock him over while he's a passive ride-along for his own story.
You don't need to make the MC into a power-gaming fledgling vampire calling the shots (then again, you don't really need the MC to be a fledgling at all), but it really does feel like, despite this being a sandbox, you have no real agency. Even when the game is broken down into a number of individual quests, the only way to progress forward in the main story is to do them all. In other words, it just feels like a linear VN with extra clicks. And with how clunky the inventory management and navigation system in this game is, it's a lot of extra clicks.
Sometimes the developer struggles to balance the visual part of the visual novel. There's a lot of words, a lot of exposition that creates a fairly interesting backdrop for this urban fantasy. But you end up just wishing it could be delivered better. Often you're just not really engaged in the the actual render at all, and end up just scrolling through the text. Admittedly, the writing is solid despite not being spectacular, so you're willing to read through it, but it just feels like wasted potential in terms of setting the table in a more interesting manner.
The main issue with the story is the amount of setup versus actual action. Almost nothing actually happens. For as much worldbuilding as the game does about warring clans and different factions and ancient vampires circling around like vultures, the cast of characters is both rather small and the interactions with them sporadic and mundane. So little excitement happens that when we finally get something, like Emilia nearly killing Zoey, it almost feels jarring and out of place. The story feels like very sporadic moments of tension overlaid across a very flat narrative.
Renders in this game could also be significantly better. For an obligate nocturnal creature, the MC must have some absolutely awful night vision, because many scenes are so dimly lit that you can't even see what's going on and rely on the text to tell you what's happening. VN pages should almost never be rendered that dark, even for scenes taking place in the darkness. There are ways to convey a sense of darkness without actually making everything nearly impossible to see.
In terms of lewd scenes, they're few and far between. Most of them are very short, linear, and unanimated. They're just okay, but for how much build up there often is to get one, it's often unsatisfying. Still, the game is worth playing for the worldbuilding, enough to offset, as of now, the relatively infrequent and uninspired adult content.
Ultimately, this game is an example of a game where the world building is by far the strongest aspect. It's a slow burn — both in terms of the MC's relationships with the other characters and the overarching plot at large — that tells rather than shows, has fairly unmemorable characters, a limp noodle for an MC, and horrible (and completely superfluous) RPG stats, but the gritty, modern urban struggles of a young, extra special vampire caught between warring clans is interesting enough to carry so much of the game on its back.
It's Gotham with vampires, and you're just hoping that the MC lives long enough to become Bruce Wayne.
Realistically, this game is probably around a 3.5/5, but did not deserve to be rounded up to 4 stars considering it's release schedule. It's 3.5 years old now, and it only just finished setting the table for the main plot. Way too long to get into the meat and potatoes of its narrative structure. At the current pace it feels like a game that will either take ten years to fully release, or end up abandoned or with a horribly rushed and railroaded ending.
For what it is, The Bite is pulpy. If you expect incredible literary spark, it's not there. It's yet another urban fantasy vampire story with the MC being this extra special fledgling vampire. You've seen this story before, and probably better. But in terms of pulp, it's actually pretty good pulp. The story keeps you engaged and it's suspenseful enough that you want to keep reading.. In other words, it's good enough to keep going, not good enough to be particularly memorable.
There are very few really good, fleshed out characters in the story. Zoey is probably the best, but even she starts to feel more preachy and two-dimensional as the game goes on. But most characters are decent as simulacrums. They present a good facade, even if there's not much underneath.
Not all of it is the fault of the characters, however, who may well have more layers than they show. The MC being a bit of a wet blanket ultimately hampers a lot of the storytelling. A lot of stories like to start the character from zero, so you have the classic RPG feel of a zero to hero, but a lot of storytellers underestimate how hard it is to make that kind of main character compelling. Sure, it has a ready-made story structure, which allows you to paint by numbers, but it also needs a good hook to really grab you. A hook that this game fails to deliver.
For the most part, the MC is window dressing. He's the classic blank slate main character with a thin backstory and the occasional wisecrack. But ultimately he's just kind of there, ready for the next round of worldbuilding exposition to knock him over while he's a passive ride-along for his own story.
You don't need to make the MC into a power-gaming fledgling vampire calling the shots (then again, you don't really need the MC to be a fledgling at all), but it really does feel like, despite this being a sandbox, you have no real agency. Even when the game is broken down into a number of individual quests, the only way to progress forward in the main story is to do them all. In other words, it just feels like a linear VN with extra clicks. And with how clunky the inventory management and navigation system in this game is, it's a lot of extra clicks.
Sometimes the developer struggles to balance the visual part of the visual novel. There's a lot of words, a lot of exposition that creates a fairly interesting backdrop for this urban fantasy. But you end up just wishing it could be delivered better. Often you're just not really engaged in the the actual render at all, and end up just scrolling through the text. Admittedly, the writing is solid despite not being spectacular, so you're willing to read through it, but it just feels like wasted potential in terms of setting the table in a more interesting manner.
The main issue with the story is the amount of setup versus actual action. Almost nothing actually happens. For as much worldbuilding as the game does about warring clans and different factions and ancient vampires circling around like vultures, the cast of characters is both rather small and the interactions with them sporadic and mundane. So little excitement happens that when we finally get something, like Emilia nearly killing Zoey, it almost feels jarring and out of place. The story feels like very sporadic moments of tension overlaid across a very flat narrative.
Renders in this game could also be significantly better. For an obligate nocturnal creature, the MC must have some absolutely awful night vision, because many scenes are so dimly lit that you can't even see what's going on and rely on the text to tell you what's happening. VN pages should almost never be rendered that dark, even for scenes taking place in the darkness. There are ways to convey a sense of darkness without actually making everything nearly impossible to see.
In terms of lewd scenes, they're few and far between. Most of them are very short, linear, and unanimated. They're just okay, but for how much build up there often is to get one, it's often unsatisfying. Still, the game is worth playing for the worldbuilding, enough to offset, as of now, the relatively infrequent and uninspired adult content.
Ultimately, this game is an example of a game where the world building is by far the strongest aspect. It's a slow burn — both in terms of the MC's relationships with the other characters and the overarching plot at large — that tells rather than shows, has fairly unmemorable characters, a limp noodle for an MC, and horrible (and completely superfluous) RPG stats, but the gritty, modern urban struggles of a young, extra special vampire caught between warring clans is interesting enough to carry so much of the game on its back.
It's Gotham with vampires, and you're just hoping that the MC lives long enough to become Bruce Wayne.
