Последние обзоры Skatrzoo

I was sold on this game ever since trying the prologue a while back, so naturally I had to buy this as soon as it came out. While I haven't played too much yet, I'm liking the character variety and especially the unique season events (weather forecast, as they call it). For example, during spring it might be rainy which creates puddles that slow you down but also provide you with extra water for harvesting (the new system the game uses for powering up), while during summer there can be thunderstorms that constantly strike the ground, damaging you if you're not careful.

As for characters, they each have their own starter tools and you unlock them for general use on others by completing various achievements (mostly related to beating each season with the specific character) so the build variety increases as you finish more runs.

The artstyle is great - some of the sprites are definitely far more adorable than they should be (although don't let that distract you from their deadliness - I'm looking at you, certain fiery thing strolling around the place during summer...).

And speaking of difficulty - while the game can definitely feel punishing at times, it does have sliders for adjusting enemy health, speed and damage (all the way down to 25% of the initial values if you want a really casual experience). It also goes the other way if you feel it's too easy, as you can also increase it up to 175% instead. Also, the prologue/demo is still up at the time I'm writing this so you can just get a feel of it for yourself.

All in all, it's a charming little game in the increasingly popular "survivor" genre, or however you want to call it. It's good enough as it is, but I'm sure it'll continue improving during the early access period as well.

Roughly a year and a half since Vampire Survivors took Steam by storm, some developers still manage to add unique twists to games in the genre.

This is one of those cases.

And hey, you don't even have to take my word for it - it's a free prologue so just try it yourself ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Wow, I can't believe this "kinetic story with no choices/branches", in fact, "does not give you any choice in the game or story."

Yeah, sorry, I probably shouldn't start my review mocking someone else's review but I couldn't resist... :)


Given that many people will likely come across this after reading other ebihime works (myself included), I will have a couple of comparisons between this and her previous lesbian maid story (Blackberry Honey) in this review, although you don't have to worry about missing out on important information if you're unfamiliar with that other title.




Salome's Kiss is a Victorian England-themed story featuring drama and romance. Starting off slow with detailed descriptions to set up the atmosphere, while traveling between her former working environment and the new, it eventually pulls you into the mystery with various rumours concerning what will become our protagonist's new home and the moors surrounding it. One thing that stood out is that the vocabulary used by the manor's residents, as well as the "peasants" you interact with throughout the journey felt particularly authentic, although I haven't visited England in the 1800s so I can't exactly confirm if that is really the case, I suppose...


The characters themselves are all fairly distinct, and I've certainly gotten invested into them enough to be impacted by this tragedy's final curtain. Both Genevieve (Salome's Kiss love interest) and Taohua (Blackberry Honey's love interest) have their own particular charms, although they are pretty similar in many ways.


The artstyle is simply stunning and I'm sure will be the main draw for many. Rock Cr's visuals exude elegance, comfort and lust... for the people that enabled the dlc, anyway. (It's also the second yuri vn I read that he worked on this year, which isn't a lot, but it's weird that it's happened twice). Speaking of 18+ content, you don't have to worry about 200 lines of slurping sounds as is usually the case in higher budget vns, just a couple of shorter, descriptive scenes with "regular" lines of text. The sprites themselves also convey emotions better than usual, despite very subtle adjustments to the face expressions.


As for the soundtrack? It's fitting for sure, and the piece used during the final segment of the game strikes particularly hard, but I don't think it's something I will have on repeat for days, as I have with Blackberry Honey's OST.


Regarding the ending..? Ebi, we need to talk... I know you technically warned us about it, with plenty of hints along the way, but still... 


All in all, I'd say I enjoyed Blackberry Honey more but, to me, the fact that Salome's Kiss' ending left me angry is a sign that it's technically a better written story. As for which one suits you better? I suppose that depends on whether you prefer suffering or joy, my dear reader :)


Fun fact that nobody asked for: I've gotten Blackberry Honey on 1st of May 2018 and Salome's Kiss on 1st of May 2022. Next victorian England yuri vn featuring maids bound before 2026? You heard it here first, folks.

WILL: A Wonderful World - A fairly unique visual novel mixed with puzzle elements where you play as a Goddess trying to solve people's problems (or not, you're the Goddess after all)

So, what exactly can you expect from this game?

Pros:

• Fantastic music selection - Considering how well the music fits every character's theme and such, you'd think this was a custom soundtrack made for this game but no, it's actually some carefully curated royalty-free music (for the most part anyway - there are a few original tracks too)
  
• Sound design - Even though this is "just" a visual novel, it has so many nicely placed sound effects to really get you into every scenario, whether it's a gunshot, rustling leaves, footsteps and so on. The attention to detail in terms of sound design is both incredible and unexpected.
  
• Art design - Same thing as with the sound design - there are a lot of various small things added to enhance the experience while you're reading each letter.
  
• A nicely connected world - It's pretty fun to see how everything develops based on previous actions - You know, butterfly effect and all that.
  
• Diverse cast of characters - Sure, many of them still fall into archetypes you are probably familiar with, but they're well written regardless.
  
• Great English translation - Indies that aren't originally in English are often doomed by translations with a ludicrous amount of mistakes - this is absolutely not the case for this one.

Neutral:

• Grim scenarios - Many of the letters you receive will have brutal scenes (some are detailed, some have actual dictionary definitions of gruesome torture methods, and then there's one particular CG with... questionable content (spoiler: pedophilia). Objectively, this is the "good" way to go about things in this particular game, but I could see why some people might not wanna read/see this kind of stuff (after all, as a God I'd prefer solving these issues instead of, I don't know, helping someone make pancakes tonight for example - but maybe that's just personal preference).

Cons:

• ...pretty much none, really? There are a couple of minor inconveniences in terms of getting a couple of achievements, but gameplay wise there's nothing I disliked in particular.

All in all, this is a phenomenal Chinese visual novel in which you can very clearly see all the love and effort put in by the developer. If you're fine with the things mentioned in the neutral part of this review, there's no real reason not to pick up this one-of-a-kind game (Quite literally this time, as I believe there is no other visual novel similar to this one currently on the market).

If you've found this game, odds are that you already read the first and maybe second game in the fault series and liked them enough to look for other games made by ALICE IN DISSONANCE.

So, what can you expect from this spinoff?

• A kinetic novel with absolutely gorgeous visuals (in the form of a Children's book)
  
• A fairly straightforward story that does not overstay its welcome - There are some ambiguous elements, but I assume these are meant to be referenced in the main fault series at some point in the future.
  
• Just about the right length - since the theme revolves around being a children's fairy tale, I feel that 1.5-2 hours of reading time is just perfect.
  
• Likeable characters that receive a decent amount of development (Especially considering the length of the game)
  
• A lovely soundtrack - I had my doubts about the soundtrack being double the actual game's price, but after playing through the game, I think it's justifiable.

Also, I would like to point out that reading the fault series is absolutely not required before getting this one. If you have, you will likely recognize the artstyle immediately (despite the different styles) and some terminology used across both series, but story-wise you're not missing anything by playing this before Fault or vice versa.

To sum it up, you can expect pretty much the same high level of quality, but in a different shape.

Pros:

• Soundtrack - The very first thing I did after I finished reading this was to go and buy the OST so I can remind myself of the experience I just went through in the future.
  
• Engaging, captivating story - Although you get to know how it all ends after the first few minutes, you will definitely be overwhelmed by emotions in the end. Whether you admit that it made you cry or not is an entirely different story. It's actually quite impressive how immersed you can get into common activities, such as riding a bike.
  
• Charming cast of characters - Of course, you may recognize some common archetypes amongst them, but they're still rather distinct. They interact incredibly well with eachother, which in turn makes it highly unlikely for anyone to dislike any of them.
  
• Lighthearted atmosphere - Despite its serious conclusion, this will have you giggling and smiling throughout most of the game.
  
• Gorgeous backgrounds & CGs
  
• Easter eggs - Obviously cannot go into details without spoiling anything, but for once I would highly suggest you to get all the achievements if you end up buying this game. It's not the achievements themselves that are important, but you'd miss out on a few things without getting them all.

Neutral:

• Some.. unnecessary angles - This game is about as far as it gets from having lewd content, so the random pantyshots thrown in make little to no sense and may potentially ruin the innocent/lighthearted feel of the story.
  
• Unique Artstyle - This is obviously gonna be hit or miss for many, as you likely haven't seen anything like it before (the only exception being Magenta Factory's previous title, Shan Gui, of course)
  
• Very few choices - Not really an issue for me as I enjoy kinetic novels as well, but do note that there are about 3-4 choices per playthrough that lead to one of the three possible endings. On the other hand, I guess you could say that they're more impactful.

Cons:

• Typoes & grammar mistakes are all over the place. While I highly doubt anyone will have issues understanding the message, it's still worth mentioning that they're ever-present. There is a discussion where you can report them and they'd get fixed, but it's not very active so it will likely take a while until this is completely flawless.

Overall, I've really enjoyed my journey alongside Jiayun and her friends through the select locations in Nanjing. To end this review, I think this particular quote sums up the whole experience rather well: "I then realised that, in this story, sadness seemed to only be a small, insignificant part. Everything else were joyful memories."

Pros:

• OST
  
• Decent hack-n-slash combat
  
• Decent variety of Servans for your party combinations
  
• Character design
  
• OST
  
• Optimization (runs at constant 60fps for me - don't know if it goes higher as that's my monitor's limit)
  
• OST - no, seriously - I don't think it would be unfair to say the soundtrack is even better than the game itself

Neutral:

• Pretty generic story with a relatively easy to predict "plot twist" - it's not bad, but it could definitely be better
  
• Achievement hunting seems to be pretty grindy (not an issue for me as I'm not a completionist, but I know this can be a problem for some people)
  
• Promotes save-scumming (Mostly in post-game / NG+ - this is especially true if you're an achievement hunter, but can apply to the ingame mechanic related to actualizing/summoning your Servans)
  
• Yuri setting which is thrown in your face at every opportunity - for me it's a plus, but I can see how it could be tiresome for various people.
  
• Boss design - no, not the visual part - some of them actually look really cool and unique, but unfortunately only a couple of them have skills worth paying attention to, as the rest don't have attacks powerful enough to threaten you (Note: I always had a healer-type Servan in my party, so this might not be true if you play with more focus on offense)

Cons:

• It *can* get repetitive - for me it wasn't an issue as I enjoyed the combat, but you'll definitely be running the same areas several times for various quests
  
• No character customization - none of the equipment has any visible impact on your character
  
• Broken opening & ending movies (fps drops every second) - this is the one technical issue I've personally encountered that seems to be more widespread - apparently turning off AA works for certain people, but it's not guaranteed. This is a pretty minor issue as you can just watch them on youtube after, but it's still worth pointing out regardless. (No, this isn't really acceptable but you can probably overlook it considering it only happens twice in the whole game - even if the fix doesn't work for you either)

All in all, I've enjoyed my time spent in this game and I will very likely return to it to get the "true ending" (as I've only gotten the first ending at the time of writing this review). Now if you'll excuse me, I'm gonna go listen to the soundtrack some more.

Expected some casual yuri hentai (which I got, mind you - thanks to the 18+ patch - and it was pretty detailed), but I sure as hell wasn't expecting to actually get "the feels" from this game. Surprisingly good writing in regards to a taboo topic which made me go through a rollercoaster of emotions. Do take note that depending on your reading speed, it is a bit on the short side (Took me less than 4 hours to get both endings, though in all fairness I did savescum the "bad end" as it was rather obvious it was coming up) - so keep that in mind if you believe it's too expensive at the moment. Other than that, a damn fine work and I expect more great things from Razzart in the future.

It's rare when a game offers so much replayability that repeating the exact same thing 20 times in a row produces 20 different results.