Mancer: Prelude

I don't tend to play Visual Novels, but the trailer for this one caught my eye and I thought I'd give it a shot, and I do not regret it. Haven't finished my first playthrough yet but I love the characters and the art style. My profile pic probably gives away what project I found the creator from and this does not disappoint.

Cons: Backgrounds are obviously AI generated. Dialogue and narration could use a fair amount of line editing due to mild repetitiveness. Choices don't seem to matter much, if at all. It's like twice the length on auto than the store page says. Encountered a game-breaking bug during the fight between Clary and Myranda that makes the entire interface uninteractable. Pros: Story is engaging. Characters are fun (and hot). The setting is interesting. The fewer pros may, understandably, not outweigh the cons for some, but I'd be lying if I said didn't enjoy this, despite it's obvious flaws. With some polish and fixing the major bug that stops the later part of the game in its tracks in the middle of a fairly tense scene, I would say it's really good.

The game doesn't try to advertise something it isn't, which is always a plus. They aren't subtle about Alexis being a touch-starved pervert, but the writers don't fall into the trap of causing her to lose all other character traits the moment she sees a pair of tits. The writing is surprisingly good for a VN, especially one that advertises comedic value. The Mature Content warning does apply, even if it seems like an exaggeration. Way to go, Lex. There are, however, a few things that could use improvement(or just playtesting) -First, at least some of the dialogue choices are implied to have consequences, even if only statistical ones. Unfortunately, what-if anything- these consequences are isn't explained well if at all. This exacerbates some other problems I'll mention later. -Second, there are some minor textual issues: empty save files are in a different language(Russian I think?), and if intentional that information isn't conveyed well; there are also some repeated or jittery dialogue(some words appear to have been accidentally deleted), and one of those repeated dialogue lines actually softlocked me unless I had Auto text on(when the elf ♥♥♥♥♥ pulls a knife on you). -Third, t…

This is more than a "Prelude", this is effectively a completed chapter 1 of a large story! Hope it continues for many more :)