holy hell dude what a wild fucking ride. My journey through this VN was a little weird; a friend of my set up what was basically a Visual Novel Book Club kinda thing where we all read one chapter a week, but that ended up falling through and I ended up completing the rest of it in like two nights, lmao. I knew I was in for something special when I watched what was effectively the intro movie; the monochrome vibes and the music were immaculate.
I actually know of Xeecee first through the Shrieking Shack podcast, which sort of helps me see a little bit of the creative DNA here via, like, asides and literary analysis therein and such. (It's a very fun podcast and I found it pretty cathartic in the whole. "ah i liked harry potter a lot as a kid. what's it like to revisit it now that jkr is like one of the worst people alive who isn't a head of state." kind of thing.) I think it's fun to track artistic influences, and I can definitely see some Ryukishi07 in here, what with there being a certain amount of mystery over whether everything is entirely mundane or if there's something more supernatural going on here.
Of course, it's very much its own thing, too. The art's fantastic, of course; all the characters are very striking and unique looking, and the expression work is great. The music is also totally fantastic, and there's so much of it! There were a LOT of unique tracks. I can't imagine myself getting bored with any of the tracks if they were repeated more often than they were, but damn, there's so much of it. I can't believe the game dumped the sickest track in the world over a debate over how many ducks one nun could kill.
Of course, with style comes substance, and I really love everything going on here. The characters are great! All of them are pretty delightful, even the ones who kind of suck. (Angela sucks in an extremely fun way. love her.) Hedwig is an extremely fun protagonist to be in the head of... well, maybe she isn't, because I'll admit it can be rough. She's, uh, not doing great here. But she's compelling as hell, and so is everyone else, I think.
Darcy is my favorite, of course. Love her. But I do enjoy every character here, and the dialogue and narration are both extremely compelling. I can't WAIT to see where this shit goes. I cannot deal with this being volume one, man. Where's the rest of it!!!! I want to know how the hell the prologue has anything to do with all of this crazy shit!!!! Let me back on the ride!!!
(Also this is a fun companion piece to Pentiment, another medieval mystery featuring an anchoress. It's very funny that they came out not too long apart from each other. I think this should become a trend.)
I actually know of Xeecee first through the Shrieking Shack podcast, which sort of helps me see a little bit of the creative DNA here via, like, asides and literary analysis therein and such. (It's a very fun podcast and I found it pretty cathartic in the whole. "ah i liked harry potter a lot as a kid. what's it like to revisit it now that jkr is like one of the worst people alive who isn't a head of state." kind of thing.) I think it's fun to track artistic influences, and I can definitely see some Ryukishi07 in here, what with there being a certain amount of mystery over whether everything is entirely mundane or if there's something more supernatural going on here.
Of course, it's very much its own thing, too. The art's fantastic, of course; all the characters are very striking and unique looking, and the expression work is great. The music is also totally fantastic, and there's so much of it! There were a LOT of unique tracks. I can't imagine myself getting bored with any of the tracks if they were repeated more often than they were, but damn, there's so much of it. I can't believe the game dumped the sickest track in the world over a debate over how many ducks one nun could kill.
Of course, with style comes substance, and I really love everything going on here. The characters are great! All of them are pretty delightful, even the ones who kind of suck. (Angela sucks in an extremely fun way. love her.) Hedwig is an extremely fun protagonist to be in the head of... well, maybe she isn't, because I'll admit it can be rough. She's, uh, not doing great here. But she's compelling as hell, and so is everyone else, I think.
Darcy is my favorite, of course. Love her. But I do enjoy every character here, and the dialogue and narration are both extremely compelling. I can't WAIT to see where this shit goes. I cannot deal with this being volume one, man. Where's the rest of it!!!! I want to know how the hell the prologue has anything to do with all of this crazy shit!!!! Let me back on the ride!!!
(Also this is a fun companion piece to Pentiment, another medieval mystery featuring an anchoress. It's very funny that they came out not too long apart from each other. I think this should become a trend.)