Winter's Empty Mask - Visual novel

The writing starts out as overly edgy and chuunibyou-esque, but eventually becomes readable if you can make it past the first hour or so. Similarly, the combat appears to be overly simple at first, (leading me to almost abandon the game) but becomes fairly engaging and nuanced later on. The romances are adorable, and the endings are pretty memorable. Music does a good job of setting the mood in most cases, especially during battle. The CGs are great, but some of the art is lacking to the point where it hurts the experience. This is especially true during the game's first battle, which includes a sprite that is downright embarrassing in my opinion. The world-building, themes, dialogue, and plot progression are unremarkable in every way, but serve as an adequate vehicle for moving the romances, character arcs, and battles along, all of which made this game fun for me in the end. If I can nitpick for a bit, there are a lot of very simple flaws that hurt the game's credibility. The resolution on the title screen CG is completely messed up, and what otherwise would be a very nice opening menu is a pixelated mess. Another example: during combat, characters' health bars go into the nega…

[h1] <-- Review written for [url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/35180752/] 3 Point Play [/url] --> [/h1] For starters, you've gotta endure at least one hours of the really edgy writting to get into it. I mean, I won't lie. It doesn't start very well, at least, not from my POV; if you're an avid Wattpad/Fanfiction reader, you might enjoy it, but if that's not the case, you will have to ENDURE it. After that one hour, the VN starts getting interesting, still edgy, but the actual character development begins when you get to the first school scene, when the protagonist will switch from the one you had a the beginning, to a dude who happens to bump into the previous protagonist. When you've reached an hour, the story will develop as it follows: You'll accompany either the new protagonist or the old one as they either go through school life or through a murdering spree. It's a pretty interesting setting, pretty much like the writting style and structure, you'll be switching between characters as you progress through the story. I can't say much more without spoiling it a lot. The story, once again, is really edgy, but it can be pretty heartwarming as well. You'll be dealing with…

I'm writing this review while stuck at the final boss, which is probably not a good idea. There is no happiness, only rage. I admire what they're trying to do with the combat system, but...just no. Shoddy writing, amateurish sprite art, and a battle system which is honestly an abomination. I have been screwed over by the RNG so many times today, all I feel is hate. If this game didn't have achievements, I would have uninstalled it hours ago and never looked back. Turns are timed, why? It's not as if there's much to think about, you can only use one or two skills before you have to pray to the RNG gods to let your attacks land enough times (best case scenario, it takes 5 turns) so that you can replenish mp. Some enemies have ten times the health you have and are able to kill you in two or three lucky hits, while you have to chip away at their health in 150hp chunks (assuming you get to hit them at all - I have missed 5 hits in a row before now, which is basically a death sentence). Just a few tweaks would make the whole system bearable to deal with - for example halving the heal skill cost, or having a passive regen on ki. Maybe have parry hits contribute to the super gauge? So muc…

not bad for RPG gameplay + visual novel route, also i like this visual novel because the story is my type D:

It is a well written Story about a boy who recently moved back to his old hometown. There he meets two girls, Reika - an old friend and Yuki - an assassin. During the story you can decide which path you take ( which girl you wanna get close too) . There are a total of 8 endings - 4 for each path with 1 good ending each. It took me around 14h to complete the story with all endings. I would definetly recommend this novel. It is worth the time and money. I also recommend reading "Haruka Winter Dreams" before reading this story for additional Information about some characters. If you enjoyed this story I recommend reading the other stories from Eternal Night Studios too.

Enjoyable visual novel. Altough story is not breathtaking, it's certainly interesting and its characters are consistent. Taking into account that it is independent production, it looks quite nice - espcially CGs. Music is climatic, over a dozen hours of gameplay, 8 endings. All in all, it was a good read. Worth a shot. Btw. On the beginning you may think that fights are simplisctic and unnecessery, but give it a try, they're quite demanding and surprisingly enjoyable. Besides you have demo to try it out, if you are not sure.