Carpe Noctem - Yuri Visual Novel

It's hard to decide whether or not to recommend this game. On the one hand, it's free. On the other, it's not exceptionally good. First, since I prefer to end on a positive note, the cons: -The writing is a little shaky, especially in the first chapter. The characters, except for Cordelia, all come across as rather two-dimensional, and far too clichéd. -Take out the vampire story of it (which is admittedly the focus, a point in its credit), and it's little more than a "Church bad" rant. I get people having problems with organized religion, but it's really getting trite at this point. -While it's hardly front and center, Adelaide's Arab heritage doesn't seem to be there for any other purpose than to shove "racism bad!" in our faces. Yes, we get it. Racism bad. We know that. Nobody in the English-speaking world hasn't heard that. -The revelation that Lily is [spoiler]trans[/spoiler] feels like an unnecessary insert done for the sake of muh diversity. [spoiler] Isn't the fact that she's a werewolf enough to explain why she needs to stay at the castle with Cordelia? Both of these things together, in fact, don't make much sense. Even assuming that despite the Victorian aesthetic, this game takes place in a world where estrogen can be synthesized/extracted, her body would revert back to fully male with every full moon, and that's assuming the amount of meat she eats doesn't further wreck the balance. [/spoiler] -[spoiler]Keane[/spoiler], considering what we're told of her reputation, is really done dirty with how little screen time she gets. Unlike Lily, Cordelia, and Adelaide, she never gets the chance to grow out of her shallowness. Personally, I would have given her more depth by adding a bit of [spoiler]sexual tension between her and Adelaide, and having her shame about this be the reason she works so hard to be the BESTEST MONSTER HUNTER EVAR and is so obnoxiously pious. Or maybe I just feel personally slighted because I have such a weakness for redheads.[/spoiler] -[spoiler]There's only one choice in the whole game, and no matter what you pick for it, you get basically the same ending. The only difference is whether Adie becomes a vampire or not.[/spoiler] -Why does the menu have sliders for vocals that aren't even included? -Only Cordelia's fighting style makes any sense, given the upper body strength of women in comparison to men, but for her, it makes the least sense. Don't vampires typically have superhuman strength? Obviously that's up to the writers of each story, but it really felt like a Chekov's Gun was dropped here. She should be the one wielding all those heavy weapons with the European-sounding names, and Adelaide should be the one with the rapier. There's nothing wrong with women in combat scenes, but it should at least have some realism. Larry Correia does this quite well in [i]Monster Hunter International[/i] by having Julie Shackleford wielding a sniper rifle, and adapting a woman's fighting style to work against a stronger opponent was done well in the latest [i]Tomb Raider[/i] movie with Alicia Vikander. There's a lot of potential overlooked in general with the whole concept of female monster hunters. Alright, now onto what I liked about it: -For a first-time VN, the writing was actually quite decent, and over the course of it, I came to really like Lily, Cordelia, and Adelaide as people. -While the art was far from exceptional, it was still enjoyable, and budgetary constraints make it easy to overlook. Still, all the artists managed to make Adelaide and Cordelia very pretty. -Adelaide's inner conflict about her loyalty to the Church that raised her is very believable, but the way that conflict ends is a bit unsatisfying. -Cordelia and Adelaide's relationship is very well-paced, and lovely to watch. Even though the lesbian vampire angle is the whole premise, their chemistry is natural and doesn't feel forced in the slightest. -The music added a lot to it, which you can't say about the bulk of visual novels out there. Overall, I'd give this a 7 out of 10. A valiant first attempt, but falling short in many respects. Still, I hope this creator makes more games and keeps improving his/her writing.