A Foretold Affair

Review – A Foretold Affair, an indie visual novel from 2017. 4.5 hours to finish I only played the male romance route, as a heterosexual woman, so that’s the perspective I’m speaking from. Player Character: The protagonist is masked and hooded, leaving their appearance and identity deliberately ambiguous. In theory, this lets the player project onto them. No point in that, I can’t relate to them at all. They are reckless and alien as they aren’t from a culture like ours so there is no point in trying to project anything. Their ambiguity only serves to make them more alien in this case. Their behavior seems rooted in a bizarre, hyper-isolationist culture—almost cult-like. It reminded me of the “factions” in Divergent, but even more extreme. There is a line about how they aren’t seen as individuals until a coming of age ritual where they get a mask to hide them even better from each other. The game attempts to reflect the PC’s upbringing through odd behavior. That they believe in love and feel it, yes. Did they ever seek it out before? Do they like or want sex? They seem to be asexual. So I can pick their pronouns and gender but I can’t pick what romantic structure they want, od…

[h1] Horrible experience. Play something better. [/h1]

I love the company GB PATCH, this just might be their weakest product. Not that I didn't enjoy the characters! January was a favorite of mine, it just was a bit rough to get through. Some of the styles did not stay consistent, there were typos, it just felt a bit unpolished and the main character felt a bit confusing sometimes, there was not a very understanding of them, even as someone we should insert ourselves into. I felt as if the romance sometimes lacked, it was lacking something, communication with some of the main characters you were romancing felt like a rushed ending thing, but besides pointing out the things I didn't like, I want to mention what I did like! I loved the backgrounds to these characters, although we as the player didn't get to delve too much into our own story, the main three have lives that are super interesting! I wish we could have gotten into them more! I wish this game was a little more tidied up, but besides that I do suggest this game, I just wish it was cheaper for how it is.

Usually I am a huge GB Patch Games fan but this one just simply didn't hit the spot for me. The writing is good but I found it hard to connect the with the characters - especially the main character. In fact the obsession of the seer is terrifying and it made me uncomfortable the way they interacted with their love interest. The concept is a cool idea in theory, I just don't think it was executed well. Worldbuilding is also interesting in theory but you kinda just get thrown into it and half the time I didn't know what was going on. I also felt like the pacing was so off - it was antagonizingly slow at times and felt extremly repetitive since it often felt like all they do is sit around and snack, talking without saying anything interesting at all. Eventually I found myself just kind of skipping through dialouge because I got bored. The character art and UI is extremly gorgeus and the quality of the writing itself is still very good. I suppose the story itself is just what didn't hook me. It won't hurt if you play this one, but you also won't miss out on anything if you don't play it.

At first i was really off-putted by MC. Loved realising that this is precisely the point. Im sure like half the plot is a metaphor for autism.

I primarily played this on Itch but I wanted to buy it here to support the dev. This is a great game. The game is pretty funny, and I really like how the characters are written. This is quite an interesting world that was written.