The Ballad Singer

As much as I would like to recommend this game, I just can't. I could say that it has beautiful graphics, is fully voiced, has an intricate story with 4 characters, who sometimes cross with each other, has nice soundtrack and several QoL features, like ability to double the speed of narrator's voice to speed up the game. But all of this gets completely ruined by absolutely unfair death mechanic and BS choices. At the beginning of the game you're warned that you will die here, a lot, that's why developers created fate system. You have limited amount of fate points, every time your character dies you can either continue the game as other character or restart your last choice. Both of these options consume 1 fate point. Ok, so you decided to create a game that revolves around constant danger and death traps, fine. Surely, you will spend extra time making these deaths logical, so only if player actually made a mistake they would die, right? No. Most of choices in the game that lead to your death are absolutely random and, unless you already know which one is the right one, you will die not because you've made a mistake, but because you drew a short stick. Here are few examples, techni…

The Ballad Singer, developed and published by Curtel Games, is a narrative-focused experience that leans heavily into the idea that choice should not just influence a story but actively reshape it. Set in the fantasy world of Hesperia, the game presents itself less as a traditional RPG and more as an interactive saga, where the player’s decisions continuously alter the direction, tone, and outcome of events. Instead of guiding you along a largely fixed path with occasional branching moments, it constructs a system where nearly every decision carries weight, creating a story that feels fluid and reactive. One of the most distinctive aspects of the game is its multi-protagonist structure. Rather than following a single hero, the narrative unfolds through four different characters, each with their own perspective, motivations, and personal struggles. These individual arcs are not isolated; they overlap and influence one another, forming a web of interconnected stories. This design gives the game a layered quality, where actions taken in one storyline can ripple outward and affect others in subtle or significant ways. It creates a sense that the world exists beyond any single characte…

[h1]Overall: 8,1[/h1] [b] Graphic: 10/10 [/b] The graphics in this game are amazing – there are tons of illustrations. It’s incredible to see how many you can enjoy compared to classic visual novels. The artistic quality is sky-high, and the style is super engaging. The design of the monsters is unique, and I’ve really enjoyed how interesting both the monsters and the characters are. [b] Voiceover: 9/10 [/b] The voice acting in both languages is fantastic – it’s the first indie game where I’ve seen such an effort. I’m used to this quality in AAA games, but for an indie title, it’s pretty rare. Every single choice even comes with its own voiceover. [b] Music: 10/10[/b] The music is one of the game’s best features – the OST is really deep and perfectly ties the story to the visuals. I even used the soundtrack for one of my D&D campaigns, and everyone was surprised it came from a game they’d never heard of. [b] Gameplay: 6/10 [/b] The gameplay is functional – it’s a simple game where you just have to click. I mean, it’s more like an interactive book than a typical video game. I’d give it a 6/10 because everything in this department works fine, though they could have added a bit mo…

[h1]Gameplay: 3/10[/h1] [h1]Graphics & Sound: 6/10[/h1] [h1]Narration: 4/10[/h1] ✔️ The promise of playing through a story from different points of view is interesting and partly fulfilled. ✔️ The full voiceover is a nice bonus. ❌ The writing is... not great. The characters lack any kind of depth or relatable emotion, and it makes any decisions you take very superficial. ❌ A lot of decisions aren't even narrative choices but rather right & wrong choices. A lot of time, taking any decision except the "right" one just leads to your death, which limits a lot the narrative branching and makes most choices pretty bland. ❌ The decisions that ARE defining of the rest of the story often can be summed up by "do you keep going on, or do you consider this distraction to be important enough to completely drop your quest to go and take care of it instead - this is your new main quest", and it feels like lazy writing. ❌ The game has an obsession with highschool-grade riddles as artificial locks on the progression. ❌ Some encounters are reused in absolutely unrelated contexts, which dispels any illusion you may have had about a coherent worldbuilding. ❌ The user interface is awful, …

The drawings are magnificent, the story is truly immersive and thrilling, I recommend it.

The game is both really good and really smart. A very interesting storytelling game where your choices do matter quite a lot, and an intelligent way of solving problems that sometimes call to the player's knowledge. You can choose your punition level too, from "I want to suffer every step of the way" to "I'm just here for the story lad please don't hurt me." You'll still be hurt a lot though, but able to come back faster. Give it a try, it's a really good one.