Death Becomes You - Mystery Visual Novel

I really enjoyed this a lot. It's a nice little mystery with interesting characters and good endings. Really liked how more of the story unravelled with each one.

If there was ever a middle option. I found the narrative and writing on a theme and conceptual level extremely interesting and felt like I constantly had a lot to think about, but ultimately I didn't exactly enjoy myself. I found I had to push myself to engage, the story gripping me far more intellectually than it did emotionally. It's ideas kept me going where it's emotions, characters, structure made me want to quit. I think this could have been relieved a lot by allowing you to get the good endings without getting bad endings first. There are several bad endings that are the exact same choices as the good or even more developed endings but simply exist to gate you until you fail enough. That and while in concept of you picking who you want to investigate more doesn't actually link to the choices, being insightful about who might give you more information is pointless, the right answer is always just swapping between the two. It matches its ending theme of balance but is dissonant with the whole "investigation" theme. That said the themes of balance, the concept of an abuse victim seeking to resolve the mystery of their abuser is a fascinating concept and the story was willing to go hard on its ideas often. Its characters were allowed to be messy, even flat out cruel in a way a lot of VNs wont risk. I even like the bold choice that no matter what, Sidney will end the story romantically alone, for the best. I legit flipped between recommending and not but ultimately I think I got to lean on favoring it as a game that made me think even if it failed to make me feel engaged. Mileage will vary.

A great murder mystery visual novel. I highly recommend it!

This is a good yuri visual novel. It's a murder mystery set at a school of magic, and the mystery and the characters embroiled in it are really compelling. It also has a unique and vibrant art style. While it's pretty light on the yuri and there's very little romance, the characters are all sapphic, so it counts for me.

I still haven't finished the game - I've only got 7 out of the 13 endings and 70% of the achievements - but I'm very much enjoying the story so far and I don't believe my opinion is going to change at this point. All of the characters have been written beautifully, and are complex in their own merits. I love the way the story is being presented from the point of view of the MC (I named her Alana), and how at some points there's a clear dissonance from her psyche and mine. It just makes it way more interesting this way, rather than having a blank slate MC. The story is slowly revealed little by little in a way that keeps the mystery going through during every play-through. The art is gorgeous, both the backgrounds and specially the sprites. And the music is so so good! If I had to point out the things I'm linking the least: the SFX sound a bit cartoony at some points, and the fact that the sprites and the CGs are not in the same style. However, these two things are irrelevant to the enjoyment of the game so shouldn't bear any weight if you're on the fence. Just buy the game. I'd highly encourage anyone reading this review to play"Dodgy Lesbians, the videogame" as I call it in my head.

I got a 1/3rd of the way through and was getting bored with the whiny bile and going over and over the same stuff. It was "Investigate" rather than going to talk, so it was more like you are suspecting some person. Not Like you Want to date that person. So it just seemed a bit off to me. The behaviour of 2 Girls who One said are lifelong friends and would not date as it would damage their friendship,, yet they acted more like girlfriends at times. I had a hope and was let down. Oh well. On To Another I suppose.

I love this game! Such a compelling story and good representation. Well worth it!

A murder mystery in a magical academy that turns out to be a deep analysis of characters and their relationships with each other, with the ultimate take home message being full of hope. Minor spoilers. -- Setting and Game -- The setting of a magical academy is not something that is force-fed to the player, which is very nice. There is just enough vagueness in the worldbuilding to keep us wondering if where is more, inside and outside of the main game. There are several "meta" points in the game, such as the way the game requires you to play through the different routes, that I find really cool. Some come out in such surprising ways I was like "damn, that was awesome". I was a bit unclear on how the progress is tracked (since it doesn't look at the manual saves) but I also don't play a whole lot of VN so it might be just me. The structure of the game shows different sides to different characters, always keeping the player curious. You can get hints of a darker and/or deeper backstory, and you have to dig to find out more. I especially liked the way we learn about the murder victim, Lyra, through the dialogue and memories of the other characters and MC. And as you play more and more, you start to get a pretty good sense who Lyra might be. "Might" is used here, since I think there is a lot of room for interpretation, though it should ultimately point towards a toxic direction. Will speak more on Lyra at the end of this review. -- Dialogue -- One thing I really enjoyed about the dialogue are the banters between certain characters, especially Sophie, who is just so surprising with the way she speaks when you look at her character design. There is a natural chemistry formed with the "pairs" of characters. Another thing that I love and also found extremely awkward is the amount of third-wheeling the MC ends up doing. It's great in the sense that it's intentional (I think) on the part of the dev, and speaks volumes to the way dialogue is written to make sure the player feels invisible and left out. Yet, at the same time, you're third-wheeling so... -- Music -- Overall liked the music, some pieces are quite nice and can really help with the tone of some scenes. One small criticism I have is that I wish when MC is in her room, going through some rather different thoughts / time, we can get more silence or sound effects over music. I found the music to take me out of the mood at times. -- Characters -- Really ended up liking the characters. At first glance, the player might think the characters as the stereotype they seem to be based off of, but as you explore more and more, I found them all to be likeable. MC tends to suffer in these sort of POVs but I even found her to be quite likeable, with obvious strengths and flaws (I do her design is low key hot as well, which helps). You get to explore some pretty interesting and thoughtful topics with these characters, such as imposter syndrome, co-dependency, etc. Sophie and Alice's relationship, I ended being very invested in. The sort where the problem is obvious, and gets more and more obvious and toxic as the game reveals more details, yet you still root for them. I'm happy with the way the game handled. Sophie, for me, is surprisingly endearing. Like the game says, she grows on you. My favourite is Daniella, from first sight, to be honest. But I especially like the power she supposedly holds, with an extremely vulnerable side as well. Won't spoil too much, but it definitely made me swoon a bit at the end. Last but not least, the dark horse of the game for here is actually Apolline. I didn't even know what I expected when I started the game, but at the end, I found her to be a very complex character that is also very human. There are parts of the game where she genuinely creeped me out, but I couldn't help but want to stare into the "abyss" more. Bravo. -- Pacing -- More note on the pacing. I have no issues with it in general, but I found it to be a little bit disorienting in the sense that you are essentially tossed into this situation, with an argument that you don't know much about, and a murder that just comes out of no where (to you). I think on subsequent playthroughs, I had no issue. I can't think of a better way to handle this, so it's really a nitpick than anything. -- On Lyra -- Really fascinating, in the way the MC (simps) talks about her, and in the way other characters describe. I mentioned this already, but I'll say it again here, I love the way she is told to us, through investigation, through stories. It reminds me of the stories times in GoW (unrelated) which is one of the my favourite parts of that game as well. I think she is really well done here, and I had a hard time figuring out she is "really" is (is there an answer) and whether I actually like her (if she were a person). A great character for the backbone of this story. You can truly feel her presence everywhere.

Got interested in this after starting the spin-off. The art is not as great but good enough. I would describe this as a psychological VN, exploring unhinged personalities and toxic relationships. While there is nothing gripping about the mystery part, it's interesting to explore each character and understand their motives. [spoiler] It's also interesting to find out later that the unhinged main character turns out to be the most well-balanced character in this VN. And this is just me: Daniella is easily the best girl! The moe-gap is just...!!![/spoiler]

I enjoyed this game, particularly the magical setting. Since it doesn't have a flowchart, you are probably going to want to use the walkthrough someone made here on steam. Also this game has only female/female pairings which is cool. I was a little disappointed the main character [spoiler] always ends up the odd one out romantically though. [/spoiler]