[Reposting my Steam review here: tldr, I really really enjoyed this and highly recommend it!]
I first encountered this visual novel a day before it was released, and immediately I was excited – I love historical settings, and WWI doesn’t get nearly enough media attention, and the characters looked very varied and setting-appropriate, so I had high hopes. Having played the first act now, I can say that the VN delivered everything I wanted and more.
Firstly, this is a very well-researched story. Everything from the details of the trenches to the many different wartime roles that were available to the different kinds of reactions people had to the war – and how they changed over time – are replicated here perfectly. But it doesn’t feel either overwhelming or confusing – apart from a brief explanation of the political history of the war early on, there’s no exposition, instead allowing the reader to familiarise themselves with the world by watching it unfold. It’s worth noting now that this story isn’t technically based on the real WWI – the countries and their geography are different, with some interesting results – but if you want something that captures the spirit of WWI in a very personal, in-the-trenches way, I can’t fault it.
The art also contributes to the feel of it. While I actually wasn’t super fond of the CG art, the sprites are very well-drawn and expressive, and fit very well into the setting despite not being hyper realistic. And the music is perfect – from the very first scene, the usage of traditional classical music perfectly expresses the dramatic moment, and other scenes continue, whether it’s upbeat folk music for the scene where everyone is just so darn excited to sign up to go to war, or sour dirges for when things inevitably go to ♥♥♥♥.
And as I’d hoped, the characters are all very different, reflecting a broad range of attitudes towards the war, and towards each other. You have the eager young lad determined to prove himself a hero, the draft-dodger who is castigated by the townspeople, the lout who just wants to beat some heads of the other side… but they don’t end there in those boxes, either. Even over Act I, we see very quickly how the war affects people, sometimes in drastic ways. Things change, and in a very real way.
The romantic system is also worth a note. It’s kind of a mix of the traditional ‘choose dialogue options your character will like’ system and the more modern ‘just straight-up pick the person you want to date’ option, but with a very unique twist – once you pick a character to get on their route, you’re not locked in. You can totally change to get onto someone else’s route later, if you decide you like them better. Which is good, because there’s going to be even more love interests introduced in Act II (beyond the 10 already available!!). I really like this idea, allowing for more flexibility over your route choices, while still making your dialogue options feel like they matter (as you can’t get on someone’s route if they don’t really like you much).
Then there’s the Battle of Wits system – interestingly for a war game, the real gameplay is actually in debates, where you will have to choose the most persuasive or most accurate response in order to win an argument. But it does actually make sense in such a thoughtful vn, set in a time when people were starting to drastically change how they talked and felt about war. And it works well – both times it comes up in Act I, it makes a lot of sense how it would have an impact, and the choices were reasonable if you thought about it. (For what it’s worth, I got a perfect score… except on the coup de grace of the Elfriede vs Elfriede match. Which was instantly reloaded, because I myself probably would’ve been a draft dodger, given my cowardice :P)
But I’ve been dancing around the real reason this VN left such an impression on me. WWI wasn’t like any war that came before it, or really any after it. People really went in thinking it’d be a gallant, noble affair, over by Christmas, but it was the opposite in every possible way. It was dreary and dark and cold and depressing, unartistic and lifeless. And that truth hovers in the background during the first half of the story, through Elfriede’s cautiousness and dramatic irony, but when the second half comes around, it becomes clear that this game is not ♥♥♥♥ing around. The author understands this war EXACTLY, and through her writing, manages to communicate every bit of the hopelessness and tedium of it. But that’s not left for only the characters to experience. Be warned: characters will be injured, and maybe even die – and maybe even your favourite. In recent years, I’ve become skeptical of the writing choice to give character’s stories an early and unexpected end for shock value, but this is the perfect setting for it, aligning fully with the tone and themes of the setting and so subverting the expectations of a romance game to tell a true, realistic story. Because this stuff did happen. If you don’t think you could deal with that, knowing that your love interest is not safe, then this isn’t the game for you. But if you want a story that will punch you in the gut and deliver something you probably haven’t seen before, please do play it.
I should at least mention the few things I didn’t like. As I said, I found the CG art weirdly amateurish compared to the sprites, in a way borderline inappropriate for the setting. As this is Act I, not all of the characters get much attention – for a couple, it’s hard to see how Elfriede could have developed any positive feelings for them by the time it comes to pick a route, but that’s just a structural problem. And I could see others finding this Act too short for the price point, but as someone who measures stories more by impact than time taken, I am completely satisfied.
In short: this is a very well researched and written story with a wide variety of interesting characters well developed, which captures an atmosphere that isn’t quite like anything I’ve ever seen before. It is dark – the creator doesn’t consider it a borderline horror game for no reason – but it’s not so merely for shock or edginess points. These are events that really happened, for real reasons, and every sentence of the story exudes that. And that means that, even in between the awfulness and misery and tedium, there was also friendship, and laughter, and love. To what extent the latter will win out over the worst of the war will only be revealed over Acts II to IV, and I for one will be there on day one.