Eldritch Academy

[i] Eldritch Academy [/i] is a romance/paranormal thriller visual novel. You spend approximately one month in all-girl boarding school trying to learn its dark secret and resolve related threats. It's a neutral kind of review. There were too many things I disliked about the game and was even inclined not to recommend it but there were still some admirable moments that didn't leave me indifferent. My first impression was quite favorable. There were lots of little things I liked. +Settings are convenient. +A long list of endings is neatly organized in a gallery. +I appreciated the list of scenes with the names. +Saves are nicely made as well, with titles and acts. +After the first playthrough aftermath section appears with glossary and bonus scenarios. +English is good enough, though as usual there're some typos/mistakes. +The game has achievements but unfortunately profile features are currently limited. +Music is nice +I liked the color of text bar a lot, so pleasing to the eye. +The whole school atmosphere is very up my alley. +It's a yuri game but you may choose not to be in any relationship and just focus on the mystery. +There're three love options with interesting personalities. It was nice to imagine a date with whom you spend time playing games/reading manga/watching anime. No adult content, only kissing scenes. Though of course, one can always use imagination, especially in that harem ending O_o https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1766800281 The game has such appealing tags as horror, psychological horror, thriller, mystery...but dunno really what even to think about it. When some eldritch things began to happen I found them...hilarious. I even double-checked for comedy tag. The game feels amateurish. The story didn't make me really believe and fear those monsters. I found backgrounds mediocre, sprites looked simple but still better. Honestly, after some visual novels with breathtaking CGs the difference may seem jarring but knowing it's indie game... Visuals are nice enough, nothing to gasp and gaze at but quite fitting for the story. There were lots of versatile fun monsters. I guess it's not a nice thing to call monsters like that but they looked kinda cute and not scary at all [strike] except a spider [/strike]. Sadly, I didn't enjoy the story as much as I hoped seeing those tags. I had too many questions to plot and storytelling. I didn't find some explanations sufficient and believable. [spoiler] Why did they decide the girl was killed? Couldn't she enter the room after that hinge had been melted for whatever reason and then was killed by a monster. Why was everyone so sure it was a murder? [/spoiler] I didn't get it. Next, relationship among girls. MC often contemplates if she wants to share some information with others. Why? It's a deadly matter! Or she even says openly some unpleasant, ridiculous things, e.g. not to lose the master key. What's the attitude? Or that ”mistake”. Is there really anything to blame her for? Would anyone do a different thing if they heard a girl crying behind the door? Plus, she WAS injured, for Christ's sake. A flashlight while descending into darkness, no? You learn about your friend's birthday who kept silent about it and because of you as well, don't you want to say smth to others about it?! Or that super logical dialogue: --We're running out of time... –(Friend) Why don't you take a day off? Looots of questions. So, the ending left me emotionless and unsatisfied. Even after I had learnt the truth, the story felt lacking... I love games with lots of choices but here they are all the same. Seriously, six pages of absolutely identical save files. I mean fitting for the plot but still rather tedious. Too monotonous. At my first playthrough I focused only on solving the mystery without any relationships. Maybe otherwise it wouldn't feel so repetitive but it can't be an excuse... The story felt unnecessary dragging. Plus, the text is often unskippable in different routes. I really hate when devs do it. I've already read that, why can't I just skip through it too?! Does it really matter that LI has changed? Happy endings were abrupt. For example, I expected at least to see MC in that cosplay costume they were sewing... In general, the same structure makes the whole process predictable and repetitive again. I mean all routes have 3 choices with quite obvious outcome, one true and one bad endings. No excitement at all in the end. Some heavy topics are mentioned like bullying, teacher/student relationship, bad results of coming out, when parents call it 'phase', 'illness', it sounded painful even for me, someone who's rather far from it. But all those unpleasant scenes, on the contrary, made the game more “enjoyable” because they made me feel some intense emotions. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1753425353 So, on the one hand I was really interested in learning the truth, reading till the very end, but on the other hand, it felt a tad dragging. I guess it sounds weird but the story seemed both boring and intriguing. And unskippable credits at the end really are annoying. It took my several attempts to get all achievements. And all that unavoidable waiting... There's no guide, by the way. I still miss one achievement. I couldn't unlock one route but luckily found dev's explanation on itch.io. All in all, it's one of those games when I was really struggling which kind of review to write. And when I already inclined to a negative one, that aftermath section changed everything. I don't know why the dev decided to do it separately but those true endings which felt rather abrupt and lacking in content, got quite an impressive closure in those separate chapters. For now it's hard to recommend the game at this price, maybe during a sale... But honestly that horror, mystery part left me unexcited. Relationships among girls surprisingly turned out to be more interesting. [table] [tr] [th]Find more in a [url=https://steamcommunity.com/groups/readingnook] Reading Nook [/url][/th] [/tr] [/table]

Eldritch Academy is one of those Visual Novels, that dont look that great when you just look at the Steam Page, but once you actually start to play it you realise that it is pretty good. The Story is a Mixture between Fantasy, since there are Monsters and Stuff, a little bit of Horror and more general has a Thriller Vibe to it with just the right amount of Romance. Bear in mind that it is a Yuri Game, so Female loves Female. The Story together with the Writing actually were really exciting and I really wanted to know what will happen next. Together with a few well placed Romance Parts made this a very pleasent Playthrough. Also the Romance was very well paced and the Girls personalities felt very good. You shouldnt have any problems enjoying the Romance and its Buildup because of annoying Personalities. One Playthrough is rather short with 3-4 hours Playtime, but considering the Price and that there are 3 Girls in total that is pretty decent. One thing that I would have liked would have been a little bit of a "longer" Ending. With that I mean maybe a bit more about how their Romance advances after all the Adventure, since the Game really ends rather quickly as it is. Another small critice would be that the Story feels a little bit repetitive at times, since they just go explore and kill Monsters every day. All in all however I really enjoyed the Story. Now for the Art, I cant really say that it can compete with some other Visual Novels with bigger Budgets, but I still think that they did a good Job with it and it doesnt hinder you from emerging in the Story. Furthermore I would even say that it added its own Charme as it made the Game feel like an older Visual Novel in a way. The Translation is great and I didnt find any mistakes at all and the Music and Sounds were okay, although one of the Soundtracks used kinda hurt my Ears. Overall I didnt expect too much out of this and as a result I was pleasently surprised on how much I actually enjoyed this. If you can get this in a Sale I really recommend it. Score: 8/10 Check out my Currator Page: https://store.steampowered.com/curator/34401214/ for more Reviews :)

Very cute yuri game

Interesting concept, but took too long to get to any choices. Did not feel like choices impacted the storyline.

+ cute yuri game + interesting mystic concept + a few fun conversations - this is NOT a horror or a thriller. there are definitely no scary or tense moments in the game - the game is short, but terribly repetitive - I expected more from Akomi, almost all her innuendo are dull This is a cute short game with misleading tags in the annotation. The characters and the story itself lack depth. Even so I enjoy this game. You should give it a chance

Fun lil visual novel.

A nice mild magical girl (without the flashy change scenes or clothes change) type horror with mild yuri romance. This is the prelude of the Eldritch University VN which is The Girl who got Badly hurt and her girlfriend.. You have the 3 girl endings and a harem and a secret ending, I have the secret and harem to find. It is a good VN so give it a go.

I've read the author's Nightshade series so I decided to get the Eldritch VNs to support them. Unfortunately the first VN is a bit of a dud and it's all because of the MC, Yue. Sure, the MC of the Nightshade was a bit bland and simple but she was cute and enjoyable when she and her partner were developing their relationship. Yue however doesn't really develop at all during the story as she starts the plot kind of a jerk who avoids one of the few people who likes her like the plague, and ends that story treating her "friend" the same way, except she may have a girlfriend by the end of it which also doesn't really work. The romance kind of sucks, which is a shame cause I know this author for their slice of life romances. They followed the bad VN thing of mostly being the same only slight changes like Cho's would have manga and cosplay stuff and feeling left out cause of her appearance while Kagami would having gaming and upset that she was issues expressing herself. I know these sound different but if you play each route(while skipping the stuff you already read) you notice that these scenes feel the same. It's not til the epilogues where the author gives you a cute short story unique to each love interest. Except the poly route. No short story for that One good thing I say is that later on, there's a good bit of tension as the girls try to figure out come close to figuring our how to defeat the evil force behind everything, but the force tires to manipulate the girls and it kind of becomes a psychological game of cat and mouse. I like this author and know they make good stuff. This just isn't of those good stuff.

Eldritch Academy is a cute visual novel game with interesting lore and fun dialog. To me the game feels like a mashup of Harry Potter & Power Rangers with a splash of Scooby Doo thrown in. At the time of this writing I have completed one route in about five hours. This VN contains no voice acting, and while this is a non issue for me other people may not like that so I felt it was an important detail to note. After completing the game a dictionary type of thing unlocks that provides further interesting backstory to some of the things mentioned in the game and I found this to be a nice touch. I am looking forward to more games from this developer.

Nice and interesting read. Eagerly awaiting the sequel.