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(1 edit)

A VERY intriguing story with a cast of characters that make you want to learn more about them. I wasn't able to completely finish all the routes on stream, but I went back off stream to go through everything. I'm writing this after completing the routes off stream. This is a complex VN and so I'm giving you a complex critique.

First of all I must commend you on all the features and style added to the game. I think you achieved the effects and vibe you were hoping for. The writing and descriptions are detailed and beautiful. Ezekial feels like a unique protagonist/pov that I haven't experienced in a VN before. Ezekial was the character I enjoyed the most, but I did also like Macy's route and story. Honestly this really didn't feel like a dating sim to me, as each of the girls aren't really my type, but that's 100% okay and more of a personal thing. I viewed it more like watching someone take apart a bunch of clocks and open them up to see how they tick. I enjoy how the choices appear after you've already chosen the 'wrong' choice. There's so much care and work that went into this and it shows. 

My two biggest issues stem from accessibility. While I understand that certain on screen text is made to be read quickly, they do not stay on screen long enough to read out loud. I understand that the text maybe wasn't supposed to draw on too long, but it had me going ??? what did that say??? Most of the time. In addition there was a few ear splitting sound effects. These sound effects were well placed and did lend to the story, but one of them had no ties to the volume slider in the options. Meaning if I wanted to stop the ear ringing noise, I had to mute the game entirely. Going through another route, same with the bubbling sound effect. It's so loud that it makes hearing the voice acting a little difficult despite having Voice Volume maxed out.

Also during my on stream playthrough I did encounter an instance where a door closing sound effect was looping instead of closing once. 

(Writing as vague as I can) The cards are a fun addition but the update of our current cards feels like it breaks up the dialogue too much if there's no visual. I like when the cards are shown in a specific route and wish that they would show up for the others as well.

The intentional crashing of the game. I get it. I understand the effect that it's suppose to create. Though from a streamer's perspective, it was slightly annoying having to adjust my program to capture the game every single time it 'crashes'. There are other games that do a similar effect and crash the game, but because of the nature of VNs and how many possible 'wrong' answers that can be chosen, the crashing happened very frequently. Not sure what can be done as replacement, but have the same effect. Maybe have an option that doesn't 'crash' the game exactly but just returns the player to the main menu idk? With the many times the game goes back to the main menu, this also makes the 'ending' of the game a little anti-climatic or unclear whether it was the end or not. The only way I could tell was that the 'continue.' no longer allowed me to play.

All in all this is a very promising visual novel with a lot of to give. If you ever consider updating it I would maybe try to mostly look into the sound effect control that I mentioned. 




(1 edit)

Hi Elly! Thank you so much for your comprehensive review (and your fantastic stream and fanart!), we really appreciate the thought and care you’ve put behind our game.

We’re so happy to hear that you loved the style and features and the writing of the game! Our programmers were hard at work with the different choice results and they really appreciate what you had to say.

As for the critique, apologies about what you had to deal with re: the SFX! We’re working on fixing the sound for the next build.

We’ll absolutely take what you said about the crash mechanics into consideration! Crashing only to the menus is a good idea and we’ll see if we can make that more widespread throughout the build (which would also heighten emphasis on the times the game does crash for real). We also plan to add ending screens, which will hopefully make the endings feel less anticlimactic or confusing, as well as cards for Salxire Part 1.

Thank you once again for your playthrough and your care! We hope you’ve been keeping well :)