Developer: MoaCube
Publisher: MoaCube
Rrp: £14.99
Released: 20th June 2012
Available on Steam
This is a first for me, I’ve never played a visual novel before. It makes me think of the old Choose Your Own Adventure books from my childhood. I must say this now, this game will require the player to read, there are no voice actors or cut scenes, this requires you to actually read. If you stick with this game though I can promise a brilliant reimagining of the classic story accompanied by some beautiful artwork.
The game started off by surprising me with a small graphical element. As I mentioned at the beginning of the review I’ve never played a visual novel before but I have seen other people playing them. So this one gave me a bit of a surprise when I discovered this; the character whose supposed to be speaking’s lips move as the text scrolls. Such a simple thing but surprising none the less.
As you play through the game you will be asked to make choices, some deeply meaningful to the plot others less so. The thing is, no choice you make is without consequence, even extremely minor ones will be reflected in some small way. The game lets you know when you are about to make a plot changing decision by showing a flower icon in the upper right corner.
The game allows you to save at any point you wish, and provides plenty of save slots.
The writing is good and the characters believable, there wasn’t one moment where I found myself jarred out of the experience. Its quite amusing that it frequently pokes fun at the Disney version of Cinderella, usually stating how silly certain actions (that the Disney Cinderella does) would be.
There are four types of endings and different variances of those endings as well. Each can be viewed through the rewards button on the main menu. I discovered five of the endings but found myself growing bored of reading the same essential plot points.
On the whole I think this game is good, for me it had limited milage but I can see others enjoying it immensely. That being said, I probably wouldn’t pay more than £6 for this.
