[h2]Amatarasu Riddle Star[/h2]
[i]Wishing upon a shooting star.[/i]
[h3]Preclaimer[/h3]
- This is an Adult Visual Novel - one with a free R18 Patch (obtainable at MangaGamer's webshop) at that - designed to be R18, which is why I consider the R18 content part of the whole and will include it in this review. If for whatever reason you are not interested in this content, or aren't legally allowed to play it, you should just skip this review.
- Since many Visual Novels are similar in a bunch of ways, I'm gonna review this one on a few common aspects.
- This is my first impression (4/5+3 routes done). I will update this review as I progress further through the game.
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[h3]Graphical & Technical Quality[/h3]
If I were to summarize, Amatarasu is an upper mid-tier VN. It has as many cool features and as much potential as it has flaws. Though, considering this VN is originally from 2013 and uses the RenPy engine the benefits outweigh, making it an overall enjoyable game.
Despite only having 720p assets, which you clearly see on FullHD and above monitors in fullscreen, Amatarasu has a really beautiful art style and level of detail - except for the few SD artworks. While not having directly animated character sprites, they commonly change these static sprites even mid-sentence and we get a huge amount of animated [i]scenes[/i].
The music too sounds really nice, although there are only around 15 different tracks that aren't changed that often, becoming rather repetetive after a short while and taking away some tension potential from the story. Furthermore, the instrumental version of the opening theme is cut-off half way through and 2 or 3 voicelines are broken. Nothing too major, but still worth of note.
Seeing as the game runs on the RenPy engine, there isn't that much customizability. The settings are minimalistic though do cover all the necessary base features, including volume settings per character. We get 100 most simplistic save-slots which you can't even edit or delete from ingame, and there is no backlog or scene jumping, so utilizing them in order to quickly setup routes is recommended.
One notable gimmick - if it may be planned or not - is that the displayed dialogue waits for mid-sentence sprite or background changes to occur, creating pauses that reflect the way the characters talk at times. Also, as mentioned before, the game has several animations which furthermore have controls for speed and camera position as you might have seen on certain flash games out there.
Considering its age and engine, these animations certainly are the biggest and best feature of Amatarasu, making it a worthy competitor for modern VNs.
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[url]https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2678469868[/url]
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[h3]Content & Runtime[/h3]
So, what can you expect from this game?
A story about wishes, dreams and the sparkling stars in the night sky.
Doumoto Takaya once was a big dreamer. Being a sickly young boy he spend most of his time making up stories and gazing at the beautiful night stars, wishing upon them for wonderous things to happen. Because he believed that "when you die, you become a resident of the stars", and those stars will grant your wishes.
Though one day, a tragic incident changed his life forever. His believes were shattered by cruel reality. Wishing upon the stars has become nothing more than a childish fairy tale, and reality nothing more than a dull nuisance without any action to him. Solely believing in logic and realism, Takaya became a shut-in who prefers to read fantasy novels and fairy tales to escape the boring reality where nothing wonderous will ever happen, since it's impossible.
...or so he thought. Because one day, his inner wish for "something wonderous and exciting" to happen was granted by a shooting star.
As his home town was suddenly turned into a living mix of various fairy tales, will he be able to find his lost enjoyment in life? And who are all these new characters that seem to have some form of connection to him? And what about those memories Takaya sealed away long ago?
Amatarasu is a supernatural slice of life drama with equal amounts of humor and emotional lore. Sadly though the full potential of this story is hold back by all the explicit adult content that takes up 50% of the character routes, making some scenes look rushed as a result. Nonetheless, Amatarasu has a connected story that is told throughout the 5 main routes.
Because routes build up on each other, playing the game in the original character order - the one in the gallery - is heavily recommended. Alternatively, playing Yua's route last works too. Some of the routes are more emotional, deeper while others are a bit more lighthearted. Though in the end, uncovering the whole story of what happened in the past and what is happening now is a worthy journey.
Additionally there are three bonus routes for side characters, of which one is locked behind completing a specific main route first, though these are just rather short and pointless bonus adult scenes.
All the main characters, including the protagonist who has a commonly shown face, have well developed, distinct personalities and some form of character development, as well as more or less severe main story relevance. The side characters are all ridiculous as usual though. I don't know if that is even possible, but maybe knowing the original works behind some of the fairy tales used helps reducing the amount of randomness in the story. Oh yeah, and most of the characters are overbearing in at least one body area.
Choosing a route happens through up to 12 dialogue choices which are rather obvious. The common route takes ~10h, the main character routes the same, resulting in around 70h worth of content, not rush-skipping.
The gallery is available from the very beginning, where you can look at the 94CGs, listen to the 16 OSTs and watch all the scenes and animations again, sorted by character.
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[url]https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2676367164[/url]
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[h3]The R18 content[/h3]
Now this is where this VN both shines and falls.
There are around 5-6 H-scenes per main character, 1-2 per side heroine. In the gallery these are divided into their single segments (poses that can be part of a single H-scene), of which there are exactly 9/3 per character, and of which exactly 5/1 are GIF-loop animated (though with a rather detailed finisher animation).
There are a few, scarcely used sound effects but no background moaning, and the only choice you get is between two character styles (glasses or no glasses) in a single occasion.
Besides some backdoor-poking no fetishes are served.
There are nude sprites which appear even outside of H-scenes, though no sprite viewer to look at them otherwise.
And when it comes to the depiction of bodily fluids, the inhuman stamina of the actors or the overall intensity of the action - it's just casual over-the-top hentai. Though there are one or another surprisingly believable/relatable moments.
The game is [b]fully uncensored[/b], which doesn't look too bad thanks to Amatarasu's great art style, except for some weirdly non-matching color choices maybe.
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[url]https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2685465925[/url]
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[h3]Conclusion[/h3]
Is this game worth it?
In general, yes. Though I would recommend getting it on sale. Amatarasu has some nice elements that make it surpass its old roots and become something better than expected, though it also has a higher than usual asking price, which kinda contradicts with the flaws it has.
But don't worry, for there will always be another sale!
[code]Helpful review? Maybe take a look at [url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/37389784/][u]the rest[/u][/url] of my reviews too![/code]
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