I never play visual novels, never go into a game so blind, and I’ve also never written a review in my life!
This game kind of consumed my day yesterday after I started playing for a while. The art is really wonderful, it’s a combination of the drawn art style and hazy backgrounds to make it feel something dreamlike. I love the character designs, especially funny secret character. It’s cool how sometimes images appear as comic panels in action moments, and turn to panning around a full drawn image in an intimate/intense moment. I also just think the way the interface is laid out is good. Love the use of the background music and sound effects in this (especially when scary stuff happens), the atmosphere it provides in combination of the art and writing just paints scenes in my mind so well. It felt like a movie, like I ate while playing, when I typically watch stuff when doing so wahaha
It’s really well written, the inner thoughts are very real to me, like Magda’s way of slowly reassuring herself or going down paths of overthinking different things is so realistic. I also didn’t expect to be changing perspectives to different characters but it works well. The sadness of each situation and the difficult relationships these characters have really hit me. Totally on board with the plummet into horror, like I love the feeling of dread it gave me when the situation felt inescapable. This is just a tragic story that I couldn’t do anything about but witness. I was like.. “omg girl no way what happened next!!” in the beginning to being like “girl what the fuck” in the end.
I’ve thought a lot about my feelings on the story, I stayed up to finish it yesterday and couldn’t sleep because I was thinking too much about it. I’m actually very very conflicted about some things near the ending. So, SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS BELOW.
Not getting into my problems yet but I wanna say here in spoiler zone that I absolutely love the way that Magda and Nils are mirrors of each other, sharing similar circumstances and feelings. I’m a sucker for human/non-human fusion I Gasped when that happened, AWESOME design. Though I have a feeling Nils might’ve waited for Magda’s darkest moment to truly get her to understand how they felt this whole time, maybe they were actually about to die themselves, preserving their energy for that moment, maybe that is my game theory lol
I love horror and gore, and as I said I was totally on board, though it lost me when it started to get excessive past the the filmed torture and cannibalism. “Is this being genuine?” I thought “is this necessary? I get it.” at some point. That when it all ended I was like Aight… I totally understand that it makes sense thematically, this is what happens if you were to actually act on your intrusive thoughts and violent impulses. The cannibalism too, I don’t have a problem with depictions of it in fiction it very much makes sense as well as direct revenge for feeding off an angel. I just think there should’ve been a content warning for it in the document, also for eye trauma too.
Maybe the ending just wasn’t for me I don’t know, I didn’t feel a catharsis at all from Lilia’s revenge. In my perfect world they escaped and left the others to live with the fear that would bring. Or exposed the Haven’s secrets to the rest. This isn’t that story though that’s a fanfiction idea hehe. I do understand its ending, it’s a tragedy thru and thru. It’s very sad that Magda would’ve had to die if she didn’t give into otherworldly violence. It’s sad that she became more condescending and violent than her abusers. It must be scary to become someone else entirely, to hurt someone and enjoy it. When they fly off after all that I was like oh she is going never escape her abuse or trauma, it’s become half of her. I hope they go have a nice ice cream cone and watch Movie…
I can’t articulate my thoughts good but I think the way it presents itself as so real and earnest for most of it, that when it starts to linger too much on the over the top torture it completely fizzled out my immersion and had me questioning it. All this might say more about me than the story but it’s hard to view objectively or as someone else. And despite my feelings on it, it does very well as a horror story. It’s the best at making you feel hopeless and full of dread, and especially feel for the characters. Also I’m just glad my fav chars survived waha. It’s something that’s going to stick with me, and is the only thing to make me have to share my thoughts in review form. It’s worth a lot for making you think so much about it. You’re an amazing writer and artist Mado for real.
Moral of the story….DONT fuck around with the bad thoughts or else you WILL find out!!!!!