ARISEN: Prologue

ARISEN: Prologue - демка помеси новеллки с карточной игрой. К тому же быстрая "идеальная игра". Ахтунг: большая часть игры повязана на текст, так что для прохождения желательно знать английский и\или французский, хотя бы на базовом уровне. Демка короткая, в ней мы пройдем путь от нахождения в корабле работорговцев, до боя на арене и продажи собственно в рабство. Сюжет скорее наметан, чем подается полностью. Ибо типичный фэнтезийный мир - темные эльфы, светлые эльфы, люди... только с упором на нетолерантные ныне темы типа рабовладения. И с фишкой в виде пола и гендера, могущих влиять на некоторые выборы. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2404214897 По механике это почти визуальная новелла, только вместо выбора текста, мы выбираем карту таро с соответствующей эмоцией и настроением. В остальном все просто: читаем текст, делаем выборы. Что доставляет отдельно, так это два момента: 1) про нетолерантные темы я сказал неспроста, ибо к примеру для одной ачивки (концовки), можно выбрать к примеру женское тело, но обращение "он" (he) или "они" (they), тогда на вопрос работорговца "человек? женщина?", можно выбрать бунтующий вариант "rebel" и наша героиня ответит что она небинарная персона, а он нетолерантная свол@чь. За что собственна и будет прибита. А мы получим нужное достижение. Даже в играх не все любят агрессивных трансгендеров и прочих небинарных личностей, да. И да, на мужике это достижение получить не удалось, даже с такими же вариантами выбора обращения (she и they в этом случае), тупо не выпала карта бунта. То ли это баг, то ли хз. 2) все люди в игре негры, и только светлые эльфы европеоиды. Тут могла бы быть расистская шутка, но мы же толерантные люди чтобы так шутить, верно? По артам и музыке все неплохо, но не сказать чтобы очень сильно запоминается. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2404214955 Как итог: в демке всего очень мало. В целом может быть неплохой задел, если доведут сюжет до нужной кондиции. Будем ждать полную, посмотрим что выйдет. Полная версия: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1101670/ARISEN__Chronicles_of_VarNagal/ [i]P.s: если этот обзор был для Вас полезен ставьте лайк, а также добавляйтесь в друзья и подписывайтесь на меня как куратора - [url=http://store.steampowered.com/curator/28776273/] Обзоры онлайн [/url][/i]

As an English native who instinctively proofreads every game she plays; I have spent a fair amount of time playing right through this demo many times over, seeking out all of the options available. I have reported all of my language findings to the team, who have been most receptive, and have informed me that an update will be following within the next few days. Therefore, if you are considering downloading this but have been discouraged by the observations about the initial English translation failings; I'd urge you not to abandon your thoughts of installation, but merely to briefly hold on until you see an update land. I'm not going to review an early access demo, except to say that both story and decision-making are very original and set the scene for what promises to be a huge, intriguing and absorbing adventure. Put it on your following list if you're even remotely curious, and take a look as soon as you get a notification of some activity.

The artworks for the cards is fantastic.

This new VN is shaping up to be pretty interesting. Unlike the traditional list of responses, ARISEN uses a deck of cards that actually slowly evolve over time, where more options are added depending on how you respond (and I think some options will be taken away if you don't use them but I'm not sure). It sounds like a promising mechanic. The story is very gritty in nature due to being about, well, slavery from a slave's perspective but since it never crosses the line of being overly-gratuitous or not serious enough then it's handled quite well in my opinion.

TLDR: This is a game where the jigsaw pieces just don't fit together very well. Great art but poor writing and neither (card art excluded) fit the theme very well. Also hampered by a desire to be inoffensive which make some choices, given the setting choices, more offensive. Starting with the positives I'll say the art style and direction for this is very nice, particularly on the cards. They're expressive while also being clear which emotion they're trying to portray. I will say that the character/background art does feel a little out of place in the story, given it's dark theme but comic-book style visuals. Unfortunately this was the only part of the game that felt compelling to me. The developers have put efforts into catering to different gender/pronoun options but doesn't give you any options on your appearance. It then plops you on a slave ship on it's way to an iron-age Rome. If you're going to make the setting for your game so clearly a Rome-analogy and you've gone to such great lengths to not be offensive then you may want to research slavery during the period of Rome's height realise that slavery at that point in history was not colour blind, with the Celtic people probably the biggest proportion of Roman slaves. I'm perfectly happy with a game being offensive while aiming for artist heights but if you've gone to such great lengths to not be offensive and that's your aim then please do a little more research! I feel like this whole issue could have been avoided if far more effort had been paid to the world building and avoiding the easy analogues to real-world history. Instead this feels like an lazy mash-up of world history, just with characters ears now being pointy. While the above is jarring i think it could all be put aside if the story and writing where compelling, unfortunately this isn't the case. The writing style is quite a vivid poetic style, which i have to say doesn't tie incredibly well to the theme or the structure of the story, it's not helped by the odd translation either. There's also nothing that feels new or innovative here, obviously this could change with the full game but on the strength of this start i won't be picking it up to find out. I also have to say while i absolutely loved the card art in the game it essentially boils down to unlocking extra dialogue options, there's no actual card play or real mechanic here. In reality it's just a very pretty way to select from dialogue choices. I'd like to see what game these developers do next, I think this art style with a more adventure/upbeat theme could work very well, particularly if they can make the world-building more distinct and interesting. I would also like to see them develop the emotion card system into something more mechanically driven rather than it just providing dialogue options.

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This is just a demo / early release version of the full game. This game somewhat reminds me of the game books (choices to choose from in each scenario with multiple endings within a book) when I was a little kiddo. Interesting concept, I look forward to the full game! Cool graphics, and especially the tarot-card-like card designs. [b]100% Achievement?[/b] Yes, for this prologue. [b]Microtransaction?[/b] Nope! [b]Children Friendly?[/b] Yeah but there is quite some text to read.

I like this. What little is in the prologue seems to deal with slavery and racism pretty delicately which I'm a fan of. I also like that it lets you choose your sex and your pronouns, even though I'm a cis guy, it's always good to see trans representation. While I didn't get the card system initially I picked up on like the third time I was given the option, and I thought it was cool, especially the art on the cards. Some of the syntax is a bit off, but I'm assuming that's because it's a translation from French, so I'm not really going to knock on that, especially since the translation is generally pretty good. All in all, pretty good, looking forward to the full game.

You can choose the gender and pronouns but cannot even choose your appearance or skin tone? Too much political correctness as well that it just destroys the immersion, I'm literally a slave in the game but people are willing to know my pronouns? Why are all the slaves just blacks as if anything other than black can't be enslaved? I also had a long conversation with another slave in front of a slave trader and did not even get punished, like do the slave traders just don't give a ♥♥♥♥ that the slaves are just chatting among themselves or are they deaf? Prologue was just too short and boring for me to be convinced to buy the full game, actually, it just made me lose interest in buying the full game.