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FINALLY. ;n;





Story:

Lady Knight Bethlyn, of the third rank, of the Order of the High King (just Bethlyn is fine) is finally near the end of her journey to bring Elisa back to life. She's finally close to locating the goddess of rebirth. However, it's not that simple. She has to complete seven tasks if she wants to do so. It may be difficult, but she'll come to find it maybe even harder. By the end, she'll have to ask herself: who is she really?

Characters:
Bethlyn:

Has a near one track mind regarding what she's doing

Xiǎoniǎo (小鸟):

A former attendant for the goddess. He has no love lost for her.

HuǒJī (火鸡):

The goddess of rebirth. Generally even-tempered, as long as her name isn't mocked.

Elisa:

Bethyn's deceased girlfriend.

Other(s):
There are several demigods living in HuǒJī's forest. Not evil per se, but best avoided.

Screenshots:



Contains:

-Four endings
-~14,600 words
-~5 CGs
-Note: The extra stuff is to be put in in an update, and doesn't go anywhere at the moment! All vital components should be fine, though

Downloads:

ALL SYSTEMS
WIN
MAC
LINUX

Credits:

Writing/Programming: Mink

Art: AuroCyanide (!!!)

Coding help: Camille, Leon

Semi-voice acting: Rikka

Idea bouncer: Cheerymoya

Music: Jamendo

Other:

Metal Orphans site
Witch/Knight page

Creator of The Loyal Kinsman

Scriptwriter and director of The Dreaming

Scriptwriter and director of The Thirteenth Year

Scriptwriter and producer of Adrift

"Adrift - Like Ever17, but without the Deus Ex Machina" - HigurashiKira

"Trade Yourself" ending didn't accomplish anything at all for Elisa. In fact, it probably took two steps back because that was exactly was Bethlyn didn't want and Elisa STILL DID IT WOW THANKS
"Trade Xiao" wasn't much better because while the girls are happily reunited, Elisa still has the sense that something is missing... DAMN IT
"Forever Alone" is the worst of them. Literally nothing gets accomplished. Was it even necessary to include this when you cut out so much already???
"Keep Xiao" was the only "good" ending here... but then again that doesn't really help me feel better.

where she saved Xiao in a way and gave up on saving her girlfriend.

It's OK, I understand. You're a knight. I'm green. <- I laughed so much.

The scripting felt lacking here and there, for example with fade-ins of the sprites; when everyone just suddenly appears it becomes normal so it's weird that Bethlyn is surprised by Xiao and the goddess suddenly popping up. It also makes dramatic scenes feel too sudden, such as when her side-sprite flicks from fine to crying out within a second/without a transition. And it makes some stuff unclear when you don't explain them in text either. There was a part where she fell into the lake and fought against it, but I had no idea how or what was going on there. All I knew was the lake suddenly lost - an explanation, visual flash or magical other effect from her armour might have helped clarify things.

Aside from that it feels like the VN assumes you know Chinese, because it keeps making jokes about/mentioning the Chinese names and even shows this doodle with Chinese written under it. It can still be somewhat understood from the text, but you have to look for it and it feels a little frustrating. Same goes for the mentions of strange creatures of which you can't make a clear image in your head because you have no idea what they are for example, or the gùn you have a choice about in one of the trials (I had no idea what that was).

Some foreshadowing to what was really going on was a bit missing for me as well. While there seemed to be some subtle foreshadowing (like with the lake in the second trial), it felt lacking and easily hand-waved by the reader. The blue-eyes thing also made no sense for me as a clue because seeing a goddess, a green girl, and a black-eyed kid is much weirder than a blue-eyed dark-skinned person.

Still, the biggest problem I had was that all of the drama of the story came from a silly mistake Elisa made. It's still in-character, but instead of feeling sorrow for the characters, it made me feel frustrated because it was all because of that mistake and then she simply waited for the angry crowd to arrive and burn her alive ^^;. And then the end sort of didn't work for me anymore because it all relied on feeling sorry for the characters there.