Spirits: Ciel Bleu

[i] Spirits: Ciel Bleu [/i] is a short (about 3 hours) kinetic visual novel. Actually, there's one choice but not that meaningful. It's really sad but I'm afraid I can't recommend this visual novel. Again that dilemma between pretty art and poor writing. I really loved visuals here: bright and soothing anime-like style, though far from perfect, for example, sometimes a bit disproportional. The backgrounds are especially cute, in my opinion. It would be nice to have a CG gallery. And also, maybe it's not the best idea to use a CG from the 'final boss battle' for the game cover, kinda spoilerish xD https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1721113011 As for the novel part, first what caught my attention was way too many typos and mistakes for such a short game. I even checked several times if the dev is a native speaker because that amount of mistakes I usually see in visual novels made by my native Russian developers. *Sigh* The game needs some serious editing. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1721034664 Writing is kinda simple to my taste and the plot is a bit predictable with some issues, at least for me personally. Though I liked the idea …

I think it's important to emphasize this is a VISUAL NOVEL. Full stop. There is no "game"—no inventory, no interactive objects, no multiple endings, no meaningful dialog options (save for one, which really only serves to provide additional backstory for one of the supporting characters). If your expectations are anything but, or if visual novels are not your regular "milliue," I honestly wouldn't recommend Spirits: Ciel Bleu. ...However. I personally really enjoyed the "game." I found the story, while not world-shatteringly unique, engaging enough to stick with from beginning to end in almost a single sitting. The premise, again, is nothing new—our social outcast protagonist, Willard, lives an uneventful life sheltered from the "larger-than-life" secrets of his family's colored past, with a latent and untapped power inherited from his long-deceased mother. When these strange and unexpected powers being to surface, Willard is shipped off to an academy for "Spirit Users," human beings with inherent, X-Men-like spiritual abilities to hone and train his talents. It is here that the bulk of the narrative unfolds, and where most of the story's "Spirit User" cast is introduced. A…

Amazing art and fast-paced. If you like short VNs with nice art and likeable characters, this VN is for you. There are caption typos but the strength of this VN is truly in the artwork. Dialogues can be improved but that should be an easy fix. I would suggest creating other VNs for the other characters apart from MC. For instance, Clustre, Atalica, and the Guchi girl all look like they could have their own VNs centered around them. The story in the 'other world' where MC was transported was quite short but I thought that was okay because it's not a multi-season anime like Fairy Tail.