A promising VN at its beginning that went south due to developer's shift on other games:
That's the title that I'm giving this review, while it may seem bad, I'm going to talk about the positive aspects that initially drawn me to like this game.
The start of the game opens up to a [spoiler]horrific accident that causes the protagonist of this game to lose their parents,[/spoiler] already within the first few minutes, we have some backstory about the main character that we play as. As we progress through the game, we become acquainted with a few other characters, Suzumi, Kaoru, Aki, Akito, and a few others that are quite important to the story, but the enlisted ones are part of the detective team that we work at.
You work alongside the characters, but at times just get to have regular, outside of work conversations that people would have if they were not dealing with a morbid, out of the ordinary crime scene. The ending of the game is the same, regardless of what choices you make throughout the game, though who comes to see the main character on one of the final days can be different depending on the choices you make, Suzumi, Kaoru, Aki, or Akito. Each of the scenes in their own ways are profound, and the interactions that you have had with any of these characters can all culminate into something special (or cracking a cold one open with Akito).
With the positives out of the way, let's discuss the title of this review and why did I give this game a negative review. The developers of this game, Igrasil Studio, have had their work cut out due to development on War of Ashird, including a kickstarter for it, along with another 1 or 2 games (excluding BC) being planned/developed. Feeling like that both the BC visual novel, along with its own kickstarter and their backers has been completely pushed aside and abandoned due to accommodating for a broader range of audiences with an RPG game in War of Ashird in comparison to sticking with just one polished game being (or could of been) Bloody Chronicles. Support for this game is desolate at best, and non-existence at worst.
I use to be an avid fan of this game and the studio behind the development of this game, but because of the abandoned state that this game is in despite the developers promising Aki's IF mode next, Suzumi's IF mode etc in their tweets, there's been no real update from the team regarding Bloody Chronicles since the release of Kaoru's IF mode...over a year ago from the time of this review being written. The team are trying to be too ambitious by having too many projects going on at the same time, meaning that none of the products that they put out will ever be completed. Also as a side note as a content creator, content creators are not allowed to stream/record any of the non-18+ IF modes, but the main game is fine because it has choices. By allowing content creators to stream/record, you are increasing your products's visibility on the internet, not strangulating your products's opportunities of selling, how do you think indie titles get popular suddenly? Because a big name on the internet played it on their channel, meaning many more potential eyes are on the game, with a number of them purchasing your product.
I'm disappointed in the lack of support & love for Bloody Chronicles, because at first I loved this game and the team on the surface at the very least were very transparent, but as time has transpired, less work has gone into this game and more work has gone to other games, too many arms needed, increase the capacity of your studio to allow more work to be done, or not have all of these games you are planning to make, not complete any of them and not land yourself in this position where one could have to write a review like this.
I hope this can be a learning curve for the studio, but unfortunately it feels like any updates (asides any releases) are empty promises. Thank you for reading.
