Salvus: Aries

I spent several months searching for a good romance visual novel, and this one caught my attention as the art looked beautiful and I immediately liked ALL the characters when I played the demo. I was pretty much sold. But now that I've played into the game, I'm feeling like I was duped. Lots of reviews cite the MC as the main issue, and yes, she is annoying, however I personally find the love interests to be a lot more unbearable. To be fair, I've only played 7 hours in, and maybe half of that is actually delving into one of the love interest's actual routes (Valefar's) after the intro, but I have started to really dislike this game. My biggest gripe is that [spoiler] there's a conflict between the love interests and someone evil from their past, and the MC is completely unaware of the issue and makes a mistake that endangers everyone. One of the characters from then on out (at least as far as I've played) is really cold to the MC to the point that I've completely lost interest in him as a love option. He also did something in the past without showing any real remorse, and I personally find it pretty unforgivable. All the characters despise the MC's old best friend and talk badl…

I've never done a review before, but this game frustrated me enough in the first couple of hours of playing it, to do one at 3 in the morning. I have never disliked an MC as much as i dislike this one, the amount of stupidity this MC has, baffles me. It is brought up multiple times in fact by some of the love interests, yet they all seem to pine after her anyways. She did/does terrible (and stupid) things that everyone just keeps brushing off in the story. She is pampered and treated like a little girl would be, like getting her way all time when she pouts or cries (she does that A LOT), wanting the love interests to pick her up and hold her...not hug...hold her like a baby. And never really facing any consequences for what she does, even though that's the whole reason she was made a reaper for! (like she isn't a grown woman that's been around apparently for 300+ years, but instead a child!) There's also this creepy amount of touching going on by the love interests with the MC way before you're on any of their routes. They barely know her for more than a few days and they're touching her face, petting her head, messing up her hair, holding/grabbing her cheeks/hands, pushing her …

I will edit my review after full release. I didn't even finish any of the current routes so far, but I'm very satisfied with the cast. Like. I love them. Unironically. They're my precious. The drama is too good, the worldbuild is fun, the lore is interesting, everyone is so endearing and silly. I love a found family cast ok, it's how you make me loyal towards your work lmao. The shenanigans are too peak and there's actual complexity to each character, breaking stereotypes. I think it's cool that Aina is her own character; girl has many flaws and a big goal here seems to get her to become aware of them and hopefully not act on her strong sense of self-justice (which I find to be a very good internal conflict ngl). I wonder how that will play out. I'm personally ok with the game releasing routes one at a time in Early Access, so if anyone else shares this sentiment then Just Play This. Get familiar with it. Allow the cast to win you over with their flaws, virtues, antics and shared bonds. As long as the game reaches its end goal I'm good, so this is hardly anything that turns me off when it comes to dating sims and VNs in general. I do wish to see though an affinity gauge to ch…

I really love the story as a whole. As someone who hasn’t ventured into the otome/visual novel game space much this captured me by surprise. I just finished Valefar’s route and got the happy ending.. 12 hours for one route is impressive (but i am a slow reader) There are some issues, voice lines not lining up correctly on occasion, if you choose to name the protagonist anything else her original name is spoken a few times. And once I unlocked Val’s route the chapters said Caym’s route instead but shown Valefar’s picture. All things easy to look past for the story. I like that even doing a certain route you get little hints and reveals regarding the others that make you want to experience their routes too. I assume Orias is the “intended” route from when I played the demo, so I’m eagerly awaiting that one, but the feeling of Orias being the intended route didnt dampen the story with Valefar in the slightest, and it had me choking up towards the end. It was insanely sweet. Overall I love how each route seems to be adding little pieces to the overall picture/story. I love the story, the writing and the voice acting when present is phenomenal! I know the devs are working on a…

Overall I am enjoying the game and would definitely recommend giving the demo a try to see if it's worth buying or wishlisting until more routes are established (there may just be 2 or 3 fully realized routes so far? I didn't realize that when I bought it but thankfully the LI I wanted was included haha) Aina is a fun protagonist when it comes to her dialog interacting with the guys. From her culture shock to her playful banter taking on different moods for each LI, to the lack of damsel-in-distress moments, and even having a backbone not made of sponge, she is a lovely girl to have as the MC. Unfortunately she still suffers from the pitfalls of many visual novel female protags, her wit and personality gets overshadowed by some not-great decisions and disappointing lapses in wisdom for sake of plot, I assume. The game teases to be different, to be better, in toying with the idea of her feeling the consequences of her action (e.g. the premise of the game). I welcome protags that aren’t mary sues, it adds depth when they have skeletons in their closet, and while I only finished Caym's route, and dabbled in what was offered for Orais, I fear the writing/storytelling has yet to full…

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