version Chapter 5
Story 3/5
Graphics 5/5
Writing 2/5
Characters 2/5
Audio 3/5
UI 4/5
The Neverwhere Tales is a story about what happens when you go to the mythology section of the library, take all the books, throw them all in the cauldron, add a few James Bond novels and the Venus Delta, and set it to boil for an hour.
The story follows young MCallister, a young customer insurance call center employee that counterintuitively gets all the ladies. He expertly uses his call center skills to doink and bamboozle the sexiest women on the planet.
Eventually he finds out that he is the son of the Templar Grand Pumpkin or some such, that his sexier-than-Jesus girlfriend is a templar ninja samurai MMA shaolin monk assassin, and that his sister is an annoying cunt. Then he goes back to work as an insurance cuck.
If you find it difficult to imagine the thought process here, you are not alone. I'm not sure what drives a man to prefer office work in the insurance business over a saucy adventure with bouncing tiddies in every direction, but I suspect the thought process would make Cthulhu recoil in horror. MC does not have his priorities straight, and jumps with equal enthusiasm between saving the world, cheating on his girlfriend, lecturing others on morality, handling customer support for insurance claims, and throwing angsty tween tantrums. As you can imagine, MC is a complicated individual with a faceted personality.
Story
The story is standard in creativity and application. Granted, standard on F95 is not great, but around half the VNs here are carried by character development between MC and LIs rather than high quality storyline arcs, and as such only one of those aspects need to be great to make a great VN.
The story is founded on throwing all the myths and legends together in a modern setting making something elegant and new out of it: templars, elves, the usual elemental magic schools, celtic stuff (presumably), demons/devils, magical realms, magical swords, and pocket dimensions; combined with normal every day stuff like trains, ballet practice, ice cream, insurance claims, and a day at the beach. This works decently as a backdrop but it's not quite sufficient as a main story arc. No aspect of the mythical is prominent enough to ground the world created in rules or expectations, and as a result it doesn't feel immersive. This could be a result of the writing, or it could be because it feels too generic to enthuse interest in the world. When everything can be solved with a deus ex machina, there is no reason to invest in the drama. If the story had more humor, perhaps the journey alone would be enough to enjoy it all, but the story is quite serious in tone. The main story arc does move forward at a nice pace most of the time, and the introduction of two main LIs at odds with each other does set up for a fun and explosive finale (unless MC uses his insurance call center skills for a diplomatic MFF tiddy party at the end).
Graphics
The visuals are top notch, and the animations are excellent. While some people do look like they are using a tiktok beautify filter, it's hard to find any real flaws. The animations with Finnabrae, or whatever the blond elf maiden was called, are amazing, and even better than the rest.
Writing
This part is the most important aspect of a VN, and it is unfortunately not as good as one might wish. Conversations will either run long with exposition, or feel wooden to the point of reading a mathematical theorem, or both. It's a shame that with the wonderful graphics this VN sports, they aren't used to show the reader what's going on instead of telling the reader what's going on. The audience does not need an instruction manual on how to interpret scenes (and this is actually provided in a few places).
Every character talks in a similar way - unfortunately it's not like Captain Kirk or Morgan Freeman. The points of interest for every character also converge, which in some areas feel a little silly (the mommy conversation with the sister about swords feels almost disturbing in surreality). The revelations and conclusions drawn from various events are flabbergasting, which while not unique to this VN still comes off weird, and MC jumping all over the place in personality does not help either. All in all, the writing is the weakest point of this VN, and I hope it can improve.
Characters
The characters are a bit too similar in personality and presentation for my taste. They will all explain topics in an attempted logical flow of detail, frequently focusing on things that serve little purpose to drive the story forward or develop characters/connections. The sister is probably the most distinct of the bunch, though she is also the most annoying one, and the one designated as the joker. Unfortunately she's too silly for the role. This is a standard flaw of trying to fit a joker into a serious setting but not tempering the character to fit. A silly story needs an absurd joker, a serious story needs a serious/realistic joker. Putting a silly Jessica into a serious setting (the daddy hand off) takes away from immersion and gives the reader the sensation that nothing matters.
MC is the by now classical schizophrenic, as should be expected of an insurance call center psychopath. He's the horny teenager, the lifelong experience logical teacher, the devoted boyfriend, the oblivious cheater, the experienced Casanova, the moral idealist, the apathic pragmatist, and the oblivious entitled brat. He is enraged that his everything-in-one girlfriend potentially lied (she didn't) to him, but it's fine that he cheats on her. He is outraged at his parents for not telling him certain things yet it's fine when he does the same. On one hand he will get his girlfriend to interject herself into a fight between unknown people because it's the right thing to do, on the other he will magically turn into a confident casanova and blammo into her colleague without even asking if she's on the pill. He spends time watching the sunset with his girlfriend (with lewd handholding), and the next moment he bing bing wahoos in a stranger. He's complicated to say the least.
If the choices open to the player weren't so discordant with MCs personality it would have worked, but as it is MC behaves like he's taking crazy pills off camera. He turns into a completely different person with none of the moral concerns that would come from such a change. I thought it would help that he for most of the time talks like he's narrating his own life (the autism might explain some things), but unfortunately that part is just as discordant when his entitlement comes out. He is basically Gary Busey on a good day.
Audio
The audio is so and so. Several scenes mesh poorly with the music, but most of them give a general sense of what the author wants to convey.
UI
Works fine most of the time, and the end of chapter summary is great, but it would be enormously handy if the points gained / lost with the main LIs could be shown whenever choices are made. At the very least I would like to be able to see where I stand with the main LIs whenever I wanted (such as a main LI tab in the options) so I could follow a certain path. This would come in handy during replays.
Summary
While graphics are majestic, they are insufficient to remedy the poor writing of this VN. I hope it improves, because graphics this lovely deserve to have an equal match in writing and I wish the devs the best of luck in achieving that.
