Akash: Path of the Five

I have strong feelings for this game and after playing all the available routes I'd like to share a review of the game with everyone out there that still is unsure of buying it. Sorry for any weird phrasings, English is not my first language. First: Play the Demo. It's free, you can use your savegame in the fullversion later and you get a good feeling of the storytelling itself. I don't especially care for 4k portraits, or background lighting changing with the time of the day but maybe you do? What I did was put all the resolutions to minimum size to get the game running at all. I would have loved to have an option to toggle off anything that killed the engine and made the game so slow. I played the routes like this: Ignatius -> Lux -> Rowan -> Rocco -> Daniel -> Caspian o I still have the feeling that some pairings didn't make any sense at all until the very end; the MC points out some of character traits that she doesn't like about some of the guys and I always felt really bad for the romance to continue after that (like the moment where Rowan criticises the MC for crying and she just responds with "you do your little pushups and physical whatever" - thats just mean. how old are those two? 4?) because they don't seem to like the main character traits of the other partner at all. that was really weird. There is a very early scene with her best friend Lux where he comments on her LI and it lacked any response from her - because what he says there is basically a comment on the biggest character flaunt of the other guys and it could be an important moment to explain why the MC is interested in another boy at all. What I very disliked was when a character changes his whole character for "love" - so Rocco promises to stop flirting and MC beliefs it without a second thought. This is just completely unrealistic. And kinda sad - why does he have to change for her (or at least lie to her) and she doesn't even comment on it? Is she ok with any kind of open relationship? It doesn't seem so as she gets really jealous with Rocco when he hits on the guardsman. That aside: + the epilogues gave the universe at least some kind of a background and I really did enjoy all of them (maybe not the baking - demon stuff in Lux route, but everything else was nice - I still don't know why light elementals have to have to be 'big' in mass; I guess it's as good reason as any to get another huge muscled guy into the game... ;D ) + the option to reload every piece of dialogue was really handy to replay the decisions + the individual designs for the boys rooms were very well done and showed a lot about their personalities + Lux humor was pure comedy gold; I did not expect that from him. And what he said before the ceremony was really good - "so what if you look a little diffrent? You'll be just as intelligent and capable (...) as you are now". + the artwork of the elemental beast was gorgeous; I was disappointed with the cloud in Roccos route though - everything else was really mindblowing and then ... a cloud... okay. Wind can become a tornado or a powerful Djinn or any winged creature... a well. + encouraging / uplifting writing that actually has a lot of good moments; "Nobody gets to make you feel bad when I'm around... not even you" or "you shouldn't be embarrassed about crying. Everybody does it." (Ignatius) I liked it a lot that the MC isn't left in her self pity but gets help from the guys so it feels like a genuine friendship. + sexy times were really nicely written; I enjoyed Lux reading the smut aloud the most I guess. Some of the scenes were too rushed and felt forced (to me) but I did like that you had the choice to back out when things felt too weird and got too heated. Thats an option I only found in Before the Night comes until now and I really think it is important to let the reader decide if he wants to read about any physical intimacy or not. o The story itself was really promising in the demo, but it fell short when romance and fanservice were more important than a storyline. If you don't mind huge logic gaps like "who was this villain shaman guy anyway?" "why was everyone in trouble in the first place and human women just getting used for breeding is not ok or is it?" or the simple culture of elementals coming down to having some rainbow-color whipped on them and playing around with the elemental magics and of course looking down on humans (because... I don't know, ask anyone that wrote this stuff I don't get this "we are superior" ♥♥♥♥ from both sides anyway) - then you will have a great time here in Akash - the heroine; there are so many clashing things about here - what she does say is literally "i don't want to be objectified by a whole village - it's humiliating" (to Sirocco on the first day) and then you get options like doing a freakin lapdance for a strange boy in the night just for fun and the cg shows the MC shoving her butt in his face. Wtf? - I first didn't want to write it but I feel like I have to: The way she is dressing in this game felt weird for me. I don't mind any woman wearing what she wants as long as she feels comfortable. But - if she does not want to get sexualised maybe you want to try not showing your cleavage and your booty in a tight outfit that consists half of see-through lace? Just a friendly reminder. -she is literally drooling over her classmates while daydreaming - I wanted to laugh but the way the guys are objectified here in every single of those daydreams just made me cringe and I felt really uncomfortable reading that; the MC just felt like the creepy guy that we met on the same day; and no fanservice in the world can explain to me why I have to read this stuff; I don't want to know that xyz "smells fantastic" when I only talked to them for like 3 sentences. please give us a way out of oversexualised moments like this - not everyone playing otome games is in the middle of puberty and needs to get their hormones out of their system. Thanks. - the old guys that know everything better - just like in real live you have people like "Elder Borasco" that will invalidate the MCs suffering to the point where she should "get used to" getting harrassed. Hello? Is this the message you want to send? Looking away, not listening at all to her side of everything, putting the blame on the victim? -the LI guys that are just UGH. The worst for me was Rowan - beginning with the "funny" moment where he begins to count the children he wants to have with you ending with his deep hatred for anything human (bc they are dirty). WTF. I see that his character is supposed to be a stupid bodybuilder-type but his responses are so often just outright sexist and hurting and just typical crap that I have enough irl, I don't need a fictional character catcalling and harassing a MC, too. And I don't think its funny that Rowan grabbed the MC without her consent even if it was to help her. Is it so difficult to add a sentence like "he paused and made sure I was alright" or anything that doesn't make him look like an ignorant foolish cave man? -"Lavender prick" overhearing you and Ignatius making out was... just... ugh. Same with Caspian destroying the mood when you are with Lux. Iggy nicknaming us "babe" - wth. Daniel "baby, wherever we make love is holy ground"... let's not talk about him. - the humor that went too far; like the "Put your hands on my butt already" moment where we get a cg of a butt stuck in a wall (srsly?) - everytime when MC forced Ignatius to do something he was feeling uncomfortable with I felt so bad for him and I get that the author thought it was funny but I didn't think so; he literally says "I don't like people touching or crowding me" ... sigh. - the light effects + the rapid changing picutres when you take the amulett can actually trigger epileptic shocks; I personally would have needed a warning and a way to turn that part off. Hope you'll add a way to do this in the main menu in the future.

Editing my review because now that I played all routes minus two (just can't do it guys) I can honestly say it's boring. Writing wasn't really there; story was predictable and cringe... just bad. Characters where one dimensional and I felt no chemistry with any of the LI routes. And yes, the story is one route and done since they wanted to focus on a particular "Narrative" but didn't explain anything as to why things happened the way they did Just.... poof magic necklace fixed everything that was broken to begin with for some reason. Okay. The 3d/moving background was okay but got tiring when you where trying to skip through readable text just to continue the story with other routes (I just did this after the 2nd one to get the achievements but really it's not worth it). The story is legit just female smurf turns 16 (20 in the story) 'my sweet 16, a smurfette tale' then married the same day as her birthday within 11 days time. Ta da~ For the record I'm okay with one route being "all the routes" if the story is compelling enough but this wasn't it. The art and the general world kept me interested but none of my questions where answered. I should also note that I played with the voices off since the first "wake up" voice was too jarring for me to keep them on. I have so many hours in the game since I genuinely forgot I had it on when I tabbed out to do something else on my PC. I did enjoy the little sprite that popped up when you where skipping intro and outro movies though.

played a few routes but honestly the plot is so cringe. The cg are nice but it just doesn't really quite make up for it for the whole... fmc only role is a female enslaved baby maker. Not very unique and very disappointing.

4/5。设定非常玛丽苏，全村两百年来第一个女人，一般的土我觉得平平无奇，土到极致我倒是大吃一口。主线故事比较普通，但RO都很好吃，全配音很好，画风看多了也挺不错的。除了caspian之外我都攻略了一遍，我的偏好大概是rowan（热情健气大狗） = ignatius（傲娇敏感小狗） = lux（温柔强壮竹马）＞rocco（轻浮fxckboy）＞daniel（剧情莫名其妙）。 此游设定里对女性的看法让我感觉怪怪的，女主存在的意义好像就只是子宫，更好地交配生出更优质的后代，让村落充满荣耀，这是在构建世界观时就存在的瑕疵——但这些观点基本只存在于一些老登npc，而几个RO在相处的时候没表露出这种倾向，并且大部分情况也是女主在凝RO，没有什么针对女主的恶俗情节，所以我能忍。明明一直没女人但此村有女式服装店首饰店，好好笑。此游这个3d建模感觉像初学者建的，丑丑的，而且还很吃性能。

This is some good stuff. Really great [i]visuals[/i] too. Heh heh. Okay... That's not [i]all[/i] this VN has going for it. The good stuff: I like the story. The MC is not annoying (THANK GOODNESS!). Choices don't feel overly complicated. CGs are very pretty and a lot of work went into them. VA also sounds like people put emotion/effort into it. Jokes are funny. Everything blends together really well with some fine tunes to accompany it! Oh yes! Magic was fun too! I never penalize a VN for writing similar stories for most of the characters... Because I know how much work/time would need to go into all of them being completely different and the changes, etc... and for me personally... I enjoy seeing similar patterns, with some differences to them. So I was more than okay with this. The one thing I didn't like was the secret character's route. I didn't like it because it is [spoiler]dark and depressing and world ending pretty much.[/spoiler] I don't think we are supposed to like it... [i]If[/i] I am getting the message correctly. In that case... Well done. Characters: I liked Caspian for his sophistication... Lux because I am a sucker for "I loved you for so long it hurts...!" kinda thing and Iggy... Iggy has a really nice looking body and tattoos... But his personality is fun as well. Iggy is the one I prefer the most for my MC. ^^ (Yeah... I know he hates being called Iggy... But I don't!) And the best part of it all...! Were the Epilogues. No really... I felt like I learned far more about the characters than I initially did throughout the game and their families, etc. I also thought that if this VN was just you know... A novel? It would've been a fine damn good one too. Either way... It works out. Kudos on silly faces in the end with the credits and the Caspian's chibi on "Y to skip" lol! Good work and good job. Love it. Thanks you!!! :D :> :) <3

+ Полная озвучка. Да ещё и профессиональная. Мало кто из мелких студий готов раскошелиться на это. + Мальчишки прикольные, хоть и стереотипные. Спрайты нарисованы неплохо. + ГГиня не бесячая, с юмором. - Сюжет. Уже отмечено в отзывах много раз, что он весьма незамысловатый и даже кринжеватый (Особенно кринжанула с "злой" концовки xD). - Один сюжет на всех с нулевыми отклонениями (кроме куцей ветки человеческого пацана длиной в три предложения). Перепроходить руты максимально скучно. Писаки даже не потрудились сделать разные романтические сцены. Одна и та же долбанная сцена с купанием... - [spoiler]"Мирное" решение, похоже, является эталонным для данной новеллы, поэтому если выбрать убить всех людей или показать им силу, то продолжения не будет, будет сразу конец. Эпилога тоже не будет, просто в двух предложениях прочитаете концовку на словах. Мде...[/spoiler] - Бэкграунды. Походу последние копейки ушли на оплату озвучки, на художников денег не хватило, поэтому фоны представляют из себя убожеское мыло. Мало того - они при каждой смене обстановки динамические. И если ты скипаешь прочитанное, то эти фоны всё равно проматываются медленно каждый раз! Итог. Если бы в Стиме была нейтральная оценка, она была бы нейтральная. Рекомендовать к покупке? Разве что с большущей скидкой. Видите ли, есть разные девчачьи новеллы. Такие, где у каждого ЛИ своя собственная ветка (например, Nightshade или Ephemeral), есть такие, где сюжета прям много, он разветвлённый и интересный (например, Hakuoki или та же Amnesia), есть даже маленькие, скромные инди ВН с динамичным сюжетом, всего двумя мужчинками, но прям не оторваться (ага, привет, Demonheart). А вот Akash, к сожалению, является недоразумением наподобие отечественных бюджетных новелл для школьниц, поэтому рекомендовать, увы, не могу.

There's clearly a lot of thought and love put into Akash: Path of the five, but this unfortunately wasn't for me. While the art was nice and loved that it was fully voiced, it really falls flat at the writing and world building. A lot of the dialog is cringy and every character is very one dimensional. The pacing is way too fast and there's no build up for character growth. No character moves past their stereotypes and you literally know nothing about the character you romance at end beside a lot of superficial things. There's a lot of lost potential here and the game does have its moments and charm. But the writing can't carry the narrative of a woman being the only female of a village of males, the war between human and elementals, the game would had benefited to just focus on a lighter narrative and fewer romances with more depth.

Charming, simple and fun. My first otome game and definitely one that made me go out and seek more.

I love this game so much. I played all the routes and earned all the CGs. My favorites have to be Lux and Rocco, while my least favorite is Daniel. I wish there was an epilogue and side stories to the story for each character. I've played Akash on both PS5 and PC now. I hope the creator of this game makes other visual novels in the future. I highly recommend this game. Try it. You won't regret it. I promise.

8/10