Iwakura Aria

EDIT: It's been about 2 months since I left this review and the game still does not open for me. In the last 2 months I tried deleting a huge swathe of files off my laptop, freeing up a lot of space, my laptop has been restarted numerous times, I've uninstalled and reinstalled the game multiple times in different folders, and nothing. The game refuses to open, and it doesn't even throw an error log so I can't troubleshoot what the problem might be. I left a message on the community hub 2 months ago asking for help and have received no offcial reply. Therefore, I have to reiterate that if you buy this VN (which is very expensive), it might stop working for seemingly no reason, and if this happens nobody will help you. As such, I would have to advise everybody to stay away from this VN no matter how pretty the art might be or how interesting the story. OLD REVIEW: The game doesn't launch. I bought it a month ago and it worked OK and read it for a few hours. Yesterday I tried to launch the game again to read more of it, but it won't open. I click play on Steam, but nothing happens. It doesn't throw me an error log or give me any error message, the game simply doesn't open at all. …

Well, that was really traumatic lesbodrama. Very good story and it's very sad that horny kids are ruining it's rating just because it ends not how they wanted. So, yeah, if you expect some hardcore rampage of the "scissors" - nope, nothing like this here. But let me make a step back and start from afar. Visuals - stunning. Absolutely stunning. But this is something that you can see yourself. Music - great as well. Perfectly sets the mood and overal atmosphere. Characters and voiceacting. I put them together because they fit each other perfectly and It would be wrong to evaluate them separately. I would even say that voiceacting is greatly shaping their personality and reflects emotions, intentions and change of mood. Now let's talk about the story. And it's... complicated. Dark. Disturbing. Cruel. Violent. Unpleasant. Unfair. [b]Wrong[/b]. But it also tells us, that even among total darkness, there is still light. That struggle is not hopeless. That even if you think that everything is over - there is still something to care and fight for. That if you have enough resolve - you can still reach your goal. And eventually it ends how it ends. Call it cruel. But it totally fits the st…

If you are looking for a gothic lesbian romance in a mysterious mansion, you won't find it here. If you want media with similar vibes, go read "Fingersmith" or watch it's korean movie adaptation "The Handmaiden" What you will find here is a visual novel visually prettier than most. Hyakunen's illustrations are really doing the heavy lifting here. The story bored me to death most of the time with some moments of trepidation in between. I sussed out "The twist at the last minute" around halfway through, so that kinda flattened the whole experience as well.

Well, I voted this game in the Steam Awards for the "Outstanding Visual Style Award", because it's the best looking game I've seen in years, but also I like the artistic direction; using portrait close-ups for intimate discussion, and using manga-style panels for gently animating scenes. I really hope we see more from this artist in the future, and other VNs using these techniques. I still haven't finished reading the story yet. It's very good but I need to steel my nerves for some of this content. This gets pretty dark!

I'm a faster reader so for me Iwakura Aria was roughly about a 10 hour read that got extended to about 13 hours because I forgot to do save points and had to backtrack for 100% completion. Overall it's a much smaller scale story when compared to Fata Morgana, but it's very quaint and intimate in exchange so it was easy to cozy myself up to Ichiko and Aria's story. If you're looking for a shorter Sapphic story to delve into, I think it's worth checking out! I bought mine at full price and was entertained enough to not feel robbed. Worst case just check out the demo at least to see if the characters interest you. A little curious they didn't spring for an English dub since the character cast is small and the price is much higher if you compare it to Fata Morgana (which costs half the price usually and has a ton more writing and side stories). It's a coming of age story, so if that's not your jam, then the protagonist might come off as annoying and childish (cause she is a child lol). Art is gorgeous as expected. Only thing I wish they did was delve more into some of the side characters a bit more via the short stories section. Overall it was interesting and will have you puttin…

beautiful artstyle