#3
Post
by Dovahkitteh » Sat Sep 05, 2020 8:16 pm
So uh, there's going to be a lot of happy raving and praise here. I don't typically write up comments on games unless they've really, really struck me.
I clicked this thread in the first place mostly because of the tags. Epistolary, theology, satire? All very fun things, sounds like a good time! Expecting something dark or super stylized, I popped in only to see...cute anime girls? And to be honest, I almost closed the tab. I'm normally not much of an anime girl fan, and there's a trend of "anime girls go with everything" hanging on these days. But when I scanned through the thread, a few things caught my eye: cold-blooded humor, no chronology, different modes (I chuckled at the "please do not imitate the tester" comment, too). So for the hell of it, I decided to click and give it a download--format A, since I'm a fast reader--and plunged in, expecting my gnat-like attention span to flicker away soon enough.
Boy, was I wrong.
General Thoughts
I haven't fully completed the game as of writing this review--I'm about 80-85% done I think--so I'll be going off everything I've seen, which is amazing.
The satire is presented in an absolutely perfect tone. Obviously, a lot of the material is comical or sarcastic, but many other elements are very real, very blunt depictions of human nature. To me, it feels like most of the game straddles this line. I often found myself wondering, "Is this part meant to be taken seriously or as the opposite of what it says?" And I think that's exactly what good satire does: rather than shoving an overblown parody or mockery down the viewer's throat, it compels them to examine blunt/extreme/metaphorical statements and draw their own conclusions (and truths) from it. You pulled this off amazingly well.
Maybe it's not that strange or rare for epistolary works (I've only seen a few), but something about the game gave me a strangely...cozy feeling. It could've been for a number of reasons; the pleasant ambient music, the static pictures in the background, the lack of "normal" VN elements (a linear plot, expression/bg changes, sfx, etc), the conversational (or in Fortunia's case, intellectual like a dry-but-fascinating professor) tone of the messages, the unhurried timeless flow of the letters, or something else entirely. Whatever it is/was, it produced a really immersive, yet comforting atmosphere. Of course, the game still felt unsettling at times--mostly in the menu screens, or in Novostia's scenes, which felt the most bleak and had an anxiety-inducing subtext.
If I'd played even a short demo of this (a couple messages from each girl, maybe), I would've happily put down money for it.
Music
I absolutely adore the soundtrack. Everything about it fits so, so well. Astucia's jazzy/tango-y/carefree themes, Fortunia's atmospheric clockwork tracks (<3), and Novostia's coldly isolated ambience are all equally perfect. Most of the loops didn't seem too long, but I never minded the repetition because of how pleasant they were. Nothing about them distracts from the reading experience, and they fit seamlessly into the background while also supporting the relevant character's "mood." I would've liked some seamless loops (without the endings and pauses of silence), but that's really only minor nit-picking.
Writing/Characters
As I mentioned before, I'm not easily affected by cute anime girls; I usually find most of them not to my taste. But I fell in love with all three of ND's girls just through their quotes, letters, art, and music--almost instantly, actually. They have very distinct personalities, and beyond being ridiculously adorable, their letters express such strong characters that I couldn't help but get attached to them. I'm not even sure I can pick a favorite, although I think Astucia probably wins just for her adorable hilarity. Where can I get my plushies/keychains/Astucia-autographed damnation guidebook? D:
Art
The art, in all respects, is just plain gorgeous. I can't express the love I have for the CGs, both their character designs and the wonderfully thematic, beautifully colored backgrounds on which they appear. The color themes and harmony are so strong, helping each girl (and her letters) have a very unique/individual tone,
GUI
As someone who was more or less forced to learn graphic design for my own games, I've developed a large appreciation for GUI. And ND's GUI is, I have to say, downright superb.
I was pretty impressed from the main menu screen--clean and simple, with a slight flicker to add some interest. The options/load/save feel like a basic computer interface, which fits just fine; anything more detailed would probably seem a little forced. The menu
The NVL screen/letters are ideal, too. Text on a black overlay with a simple quickmenu is all you really need, and it looks wonderfully clean. I really like the font, the stylistic choice to often use numbered/lettered lists, and the nice touch of using a monotype font for dictionary definitions, etc. If I were to gripe about anything, it'd probably just be that the text occasionally gets a little difficult to read--mostly when it's in huge paragraphs, where I sometimes lose my place.
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Overall, I think you've really done something amazing here, and I congratulate you for creating a really extraordinary VN. ^^ I actually wrote most of this review, and intended to post it, almost a full year ago, but life's been crazy. But Noonday Descent has stuck with me all this time, so I had to finally come back to it and post here.
Some questions/random notes:
-As I mentioned before, the soundtrack is amazing. Is it an OST or comprised of royalty-free tracks?
-If I'm not wrong, Fortunia calls the Devil "Papa," which--taking her scholarly letters and personality into account--is somehow the cutest thing I've ever read.
-"Dam-nation" was one of my favorite lines, along with moist
-The Pedobear-Slenderman hybrid popping up when I switched screens was both alarming and amazing.
