Umineko When They Cry - Answer Arcs
The second, more uneven half of Umineko. There is some fantastic content in these four arcs, particularly with the introduction of a new character from the fifth arc. Continuing with the ongoing trend of deconstructing the detective fiction genre, the fifth and sixth arcs provide a stark contrast to the preceding ones that reveal further truths, mostly on the rules governing the game board and its pieces. The new character uses the limit of the rules to play with the game boards in novel ways not seen before, and makes for the series' best antagonist. You’ll hate her, but love every moment she’s on screen. Like the games in the Question Arcs, there is an exciting back and forth interplay between characters arguing the logic and reasoning behind what is shown. These two arcs are the highlight of the Answer Arcs, and perhaps of the entire series.
– Real player with 115.0 hrs in game
Read More: Best Great Soundtrack Mystery Games.
It takes two to create a universe and undoubtedly it must have taken more than two to create this universe of umineko. After a long journey of exploring theories and techniques of logical arguments and mysteries, it is no secret that the reader must have gained some skills in interpretation and analysis. Although, the creators describe this novel to be fictional and fantastical in nature the story is undoubtedly philosophical. Compared to the first installment of the visual novel, the answer arcs are far more focused on unnecessary details and fights and seems elongated like how a bollywood soap opera would cleverly add endless episodes of drama to just get more room for ads. In my personal opinion this whole story would have ended in in the answer arcs with just two long episodes and I will stand by that. When I was reading the question arcs I felt refreshed and amazed by each episode, but I expected more from answer arcs. The whole two visual novels revolve around this one single incident : the murders of Rokkenjima, when a whole visual novel with like 4 episodes were given based on twisting the same story it would be impossible to enjoy it fully in the 5th or 7th time. I was mainly bored in the 5th 6th episodes and what mostly interested me was the last two. On the terms of the mystery genre and explaining mysteries I have far not read any visual novel that would impress me. So that credit would go to Umineko alone. IT should also be noteworthy to mention that I like Higurashi novels better no matter how repetitive it was- it was different each time with the same setting much better than umineko.
– Real player with 73.1 hrs in game
The House in Fata Morgana
Full review (including score):
Written review below!
The rundown:
Pros:
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Unique art style
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Great use of atmosphere
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Excellent storyline
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God-tier soundtrack
Cons:
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Rough first few chapters
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Lossy soundtrack compression
The House in Fata Morgana proved to be quite the journey for me. It took me nearly three months of on-and-off playing to finally clear, but in the end, it was totally worth it. Not only does the game provide an excellent story with a great sense of atmosphere, but it also does so with a unique art style and a soundtrack that quickly became one of my favorites.
– Real player with 65.6 hrs in game
Read More: Best Great Soundtrack Gothic Games.
Introduction
The House in Fata Morgana was an incredible surprise for me, as visuals novel are not something I would actively seek to play. However, this game is the one that might change my mind, and I definitely want to play more similar games like that in the future. The game’s story is amazingly written and has several interesting characters and thrilling plots, accompanied by an astonishing soundtrack and a beautiful art style.
Story
At the start, you wake up at a mysterious mansion with no memory of yourself whatsoever. However, you are not alone here. A woman, who calls herself The Maid, claims you should know each other, as you have been here before. In pursuit of regaining your memory, you follow The Maid through the mansion, where you witness multiple tragedies that happened to its previous residents throughout the years. What secrets do their stories hide? Why are you connected to this place? That is something you need to discover by yourself.
– Real player with 44.4 hrs in game
Symphonic Rain
Do you believe in fairy tales?
Symphonic Rain is a really great visual novel. It’s mostly mundane and slice of life, at least on the surface. There is a lot going on behind the scenes and while there are some clues, it doesn’t really come together until the very end. One very big plot point requires a little suspension of disbelief, but this same reveal also relies on the concepts of love and faith.
Its bright and sweet, subtle and wholesome on the surface, but is truly quite dark beneath its unassuming cover.
– Real player with 83.6 hrs in game
Read More: Best Great Soundtrack Music Games.
This is a bit strange for me to say… but I THINK I’m recommending this visual novel. The reason I’m so unsure is because it has a LOT of flaws, some of which I would say probably doesn’t make it worth the slog of playing it, but having persevered all the way through to the end, I did experience some things that I really enjoyed. But does it balance out? I’ll try to find that answer now.
Symphonic Rain’s premise is right up my street; the story plays out in a music school as the protagonist is attempting to graduate, working towards a musical ensemble between the player and the heroine of your choosing. I also really like how all of the background visuals have a hand drawn look to them - it’s a refreshing change from stock photo style pictures of schools and the like you see in a lot of VNs. The way the character sprites blink their eyes also adds something - it’s a small animation but it brings the characters to life more. The game’s themes on that basis are fantastic, and I was really looking forward to playing the game. However, from the first playthrough, of which I did many, as I wanted to experience all possible endings, it became apparent that there were some rough edges to the game, and with each route I took, the flaws got more and more major to the point where I wasn’t really enjoying myself - the only thing that pushed me through in the end was to find out what the truth behind the plot really was, feeling a bit like a morbid curiosity considering I was struggling to stay entertained at times. I’ll break down exactly what bothered me.
– Real player with 63.4 hrs in game
True Lover’s Knot
I actually like to play VN’s from time to time, but wow this is one of the worst I have encountered in a long while. You play as Emma, a female Mac Gyver who can and needs to fix up every damn thing with her IT skills, namingly server, mobile phones, tablets,doors, or even ship engines. Because all of this tech.stuff is interchangable and breaks every five minutes, obviously.
Which brings me to the absolute stupid and infuriating match 3 mini-game. It isn’t hard at all, but so very overused that you find yourself on this mini-game screen every few minutes and you quickly feel as if the starting melody of it is mocking you. Seeing how the story is about Emma taking a cruise trip with her best friend, I didn’t expect much plot, yet even the little there is, is drab and expository. Less telling and more showing would have done wonders here.
– Real player with 4.6 hrs in game
This game has a lot of selling points that would ordinarily be a massive hit with me - Romantic story, anime-inspired characters, photo-realism, exotic/luxurious setting, etc etc. That’s why I bought the game, after all. But while my personal check marks are all on deck, the execution has completely missed the boat. I get that it’s the job of the developers to try and sell the game, but reading the description here on the store page after having played the game will make the passengers of this voyage feel like they’ve been shanghaied. Let me break down the brochure for you:
– Real player with 4.2 hrs in game
Umineko When They Cry - Question Arcs
Ryukishi07, you sadistic bastard, I love you.
Before getting this one, I would recommend you to at least try to read the Higurashi When They Cry series. They’re amazing visual novels that have some connection to Umineko’s plot. Don’t worry, they’re not required, but they’re also great stories that, if you finish them, you’ll have a whole different view on some of Umineko’s important characters.
Umineko is a story about sin, punishment, guilt, trauma and especially love. Written by Ryukishi07, who had experience as a social worker, it’s a mystery in it’s core, but not entirely. The content ranges from bittersweet love stories to chuuni fantastic logic and reasoning battles, where arguments take form as weapons. How can you have so many different kinds of dilemmas in one story? Well, just look at the hour counts which people who read this series have on Steam. It’s easily an 100+ experience.
– Real player with 112.4 hrs in game
This is a review of the whole of Umineko, not just the Question Arcs. Just so you know.
Mystery stories are, at their core, just one big puzzle. An author writes a story, gives you hints, and typically tells you all you need to know before the story’s conclusion so that you have a fair chance at figuring it out if you’re perceptive enough. Good mystery authors make it possible to figure out the killer long before they are revealed in the story. But it has gotten to the point that many people either don’t try and figure it out, or if they do, their guesses are far more lukewarm, because they know the story will succinctly reveal everything at the end of the story and wrap everything up in a nice little bow. Umineko, on the other hand, does not do this. Umineko lays out clues for you and tells you to figure it out yourself, not directly revealing the answer to a majority of its individual mysteries, and, while giving you more hints to its biggest mysteries, never outright stating the answer. What makes the story even more difficult to solve is the constant questioning of whether what you’re seeing is true or false, and whether or not the murders are truly being done by magic, not helped by the constant seemingly impossible closed room murders. Can you figure out the truth? That’s up to your observational skills.
– Real player with 108.7 hrs in game
ESC
First off, I haven’t spent 14 hours playing (reading?) ESC. I played half of it, went to bed, then played the other half in the morning. Ironically, I was afraid of pressing esc and possibly losing my progress.
First off, the writing, music, and atmosphere are phenomenal. It was so immersive and I felt like I was actually there with the characters (who weren’t actually there themselves). The multiple story reveals felt earned and organic. At times the writing was creepy, at others it was witty, and at some it was so engaging that I forgot to breathe. I laughed out loud at some parts and was on the edge of my seat for others. The ending was bittersweet and the ending of the chapter right before the epilogue made me cry, ‘cause I’m just that sorta person. The themes of the story resonated with me so strongly that I was even more invested in the story that I thought I’d be when I started, this was also due to the fact that I adored all the characters.
– Real player with 14.0 hrs in game
This story is beautiful, a truly enrapturing exploration of identity and social experience. It explores existential themes without losing connection to the grounded experiences of humanity, and it explores mundane experiences without losing appreciation for their greater significance. And on a more personal note, as someone who came into adolescent internet use in the mid/late 2000s, the MUD framing gave me a profound feeling of connection to the mysterious internet experiences of people 10-15 years older than me, contextualizing the many scraps of references I’ve collected through the years to a bygone web I just barely missed experiencing. Then while I was sat there thinking about that fact, the story went and explored that theme of a reality shaped by place and time of birth too.
– Real player with 4.4 hrs in game
Love, Money, Rock’n’Roll
Story
Nikolai, the son of two soviet engineers and a normal Japanese student, has no idea his world will soon be turned over. The familiar and dear will clash with the grim ghosts of the past in his soul. Now Nikolai will have to decide whom can he really trust and find out why those with power and money have taken an interest in him, the lives of average people insignificant to them.
Heroines
Himitsu is Nikolai’s childhood friend. She is kind, caring, she always worries for him, sometimes even too annoyingly so. But is simple friendship really enough for her? Perhaps, the years of devotion earned her something more?
Catherine is Nikolai’s ex-girlfriend who left Japan about a year before the beginning of the game’s events. Their parting wasn’t the prettiest, and Nikolai still carries quite uncomfortable memories about it. Perhaps he would have forgotten them with time, but Catherine suddenly returns and, moreover, transfers into his class. Why did she return? Does she still love him? Does he still love her?
Ellie is the granddaughter of the board chairman of the school Nikolai goes to. She is a self-willed, proud girl and thinks highly of herself, but cannot be said to lack ardour. Is everything really as simple as it looks at the first glance, or is there more than meets the eye behind the image of a spoiled young lady?
Kagome is the representative of Nikolai’s class. He has never paid attention to her before, but a certain sequence of events makes them come to know each other. Kagome isn’t loved in the school, and she isn’t really burning with desire to become friends with anyone either. Is there a reason for her behaviour? What hides behind the facade of a simple unsociable girl? What secrets does she hide?
Main features
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Four heroines, each with her own story and several possible endings
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Over 100 backgrounds and over 100 event CGs
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3,5+ hours of music
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Unity3D as the game engine
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Over 400 000 words in the script
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Fully animated background and character sprites
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Multiplatform (including web- and mobile versions)
Everlasting Summer
Everlasting Summer is a well written Visual Novel. I find the multiple choice branches to several alternate story lines and interesting endings make it a cut above most VN’s. It has existentialist { &/or multiverse } aspects, bringing to my mind Luigi Pirandello’s {1934 Nobel Laureate} play “Six Characters in Search of an Author”.
The “hidden” stories and screens in the alternate story lines add a lot to the enjoyment of the game and bring many hours of gaming enjoyment. I have found the game to be quite interesting and, as a ”Free To Play”, it’s hard to beat the price.
– Real player with 421.4 hrs in game
Everlasting Summer is a free-to-play animesque visual novel, created by Soviet Games.
The game has a pretty standart gameplay as far as visual novels go: there is a static picture that depicts your current surroundings, character sprites are placed on that picture, you read dialogues, sometimes you get to make a decision. There are few notable exceptions to that rule, but this is generally what you would expect from the game.
Everlasting Summer is extremely story-rich, one playthrough has an average span of seven in-game days, each day takes aproximately one-two hours to read through. There is an average number of 5 decisions to make per day that do have an impact on the story (so much there are actually 13 endings to discover). On top of that, ending of Day 5 and the following days are completely unique to the ending you’re heading to. You will have to play through all of them to discover all secrets of the story.
– Real player with 400.8 hrs in game
Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney Trilogy
amazing, show stopping, spectacular, never the same, totally unique, completely not ever been done before, unafraid to reference or not reference, put it in a blender, sh1t on it, vomit on it, eat it, give birth to it
no further explanation needed, its a legendary game with high affordability
– Real player with 120.7 hrs in game
When you deductive reasoning
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– Real player with 106.0 hrs in game
The 25th Ward: The Silver Case
The 25th Ward is a sequel to the previous entries in the series, The Silver Case and Flower, Sun, and Rain, and also exists in an overall bigger picture universe known as “Kill the Past”…
The 25th Ward is a visual novel with light adventure games elements, puzzles, and a few surprises…
The 25th Ward is a story about the Heinous Crimes Unit investigating “transmittable crime”…
The 25th Ward is a story about the Regional Adjustment Bureau adjusting undesirable citizens…
The 25th Ward is a story about the reporter Tokio Morishima regaining his lost memories…
– Real player with 52.1 hrs in game
I was expecting the 25th Ward (for the purpose of this review I will call this game The 25th Ward) to be way weaker story wise compared to the Silver Case, this wasn’t the case (pun intended). The 25th Ward is a disjointed sequel that takes place after the events of the Silver Case. if you want the full experience I advice you to first play The Silver Case which is a seperate game currently on Steam, then read Case 4.5 Face by Naoko Korekata, after that play Flower, Sun, and Rain for PS2 or Nintendo DS (the PS2 version is Japan Only) and after all that play this game.
– Real player with 39.7 hrs in game