As far as VN’s go, this one is a little but more well made than most with some significant flaws.
There are all the familiar tropes of course, especially the whole royal medieval incest plot and dark magic, but it’s mostly told in a capable way with decently written characters and impressive visuals that make up for the unoriginality of the plot.
What holds this game back is that the choices are somewhat limited and the morality/karma system doesn’t seem to do much as of yet. In fact a lot of the little options and paths seem like vestiges of an older build of the game that aren’t relevant to what it is now. Likewise, the pacing of the story is glacial. There’s obviously a much larger story at work, but for a large portion the plot just sort of spins on its wheels while characters talk in circles until suddenly we’re pushed into the end of the first act abruptly.
This is also a problem with the game’s lewd scenes. It’s pretty sparse, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but the way this story is structured the incest should be more significant than it is. The narrative essentially wants you to believe that the protagonist has made the ultimate taboo choice and forsaken morality by giving into his lust for his family, but the reality is that the majority of the lewd scenes consist on light petting whilst the characters act as if they’ve spent all night having steamy vigorous sex. It’s honestly quite bizarre because the Dev could have easily told a story that had none of this material and the narrative probably would have worked better, instead we get the barest minimum that ultimately hurts the story more than helps.
Ultimately I think this game has potential, but it’s in the midst of an identity crisis that it needs to get through.
There are all the familiar tropes of course, especially the whole royal medieval incest plot and dark magic, but it’s mostly told in a capable way with decently written characters and impressive visuals that make up for the unoriginality of the plot.
What holds this game back is that the choices are somewhat limited and the morality/karma system doesn’t seem to do much as of yet. In fact a lot of the little options and paths seem like vestiges of an older build of the game that aren’t relevant to what it is now. Likewise, the pacing of the story is glacial. There’s obviously a much larger story at work, but for a large portion the plot just sort of spins on its wheels while characters talk in circles until suddenly we’re pushed into the end of the first act abruptly.
This is also a problem with the game’s lewd scenes. It’s pretty sparse, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but the way this story is structured the incest should be more significant than it is. The narrative essentially wants you to believe that the protagonist has made the ultimate taboo choice and forsaken morality by giving into his lust for his family, but the reality is that the majority of the lewd scenes consist on light petting whilst the characters act as if they’ve spent all night having steamy vigorous sex. It’s honestly quite bizarre because the Dev could have easily told a story that had none of this material and the narrative probably would have worked better, instead we get the barest minimum that ultimately hurts the story more than helps.
Ultimately I think this game has potential, but it’s in the midst of an identity crisis that it needs to get through.