Garden of Seif: Chronicles of an Assassin

I hope this review is taken as constructive criticism and not negativity... I really wanted to love this game. The art style is lovely and the initial plot and characters seemed intriguing. The attempt at world building was also pretty cool. But man. The story execution was highly disappointing. The writing was confusing. It started off decent, but after I entered the scorpion route chapters... I just couldn't get through it. It was frustrating. I'm usually pretty forgiving when it comes to small missing story aspects here and there. I just couldn't get past it here. The progression made no sense, and several times I was left reviewing the history, trying to see if I just missed something. I'd be happy to give it another shot in the future, if the writing is revised.

[i]“You are enough. Never make the mistake of thinking otherwise just because a man, or woman, is unable to love you.”[/i] -Dust Hunter [h2]Plot[/h2] Zalstar, a mostly desert landscape, is the continent where our heroine, Iris Lapis lives. Iris is secretly an assassin and is on a mission to take out the culprits that were involved in the murder of her boyfriend. Her main target is Venom, who was presumably the one to kill her boyfriend. She begins to work as a dancer at a pub just outside of Nohiria’s walls, the nation she lives in. It is here that she begins to cross off the names on her hitlist, which consists of Imperial assassins. Nothing is easier than when your target is inebriated and has the reaction time of a sloth. It is at this job, that she meets the two love interests, Seth and the Dust Hunter. Both of these men claim that they want to help her and keep her safe from the league of assassins that are coming after the bounty that has been placed on her. Of course, both are equally suspicious. Trusting them will not be easy. [h2]Characters[/h2] Iris Lapis: Our MC. Just your average twenty-something who totally isn’t an assassin and does totally normal twenty-something activities. She has retinitis pigmentosa, which is the reason for her heterochromia. Although she can’t see out of her left eye very well, it doesn’t stop her from being a good fighter. Iris is an interesting character. All she really cares about for most of the story is herself and her goals. It does make things a bit frustrating, but she’s got a good personality in terms of writing, witty comebacks, and a backbone, as well as being a straight-up badass. She does get some good character development in the end though. The player cannot change her name, but they can change the name of their assassin alias that they would like to be called. Seth: One of the main love interests. Seth is working as an Nohirian Wraith, one of the various professions of the Immortals. They deal with anything that poses a threat to their nation, which in this case, is Iris due to her killing Imperials which could cause a war between the two nations. He proposes working together to bring down Venom as he believes that Iris can not take him down alone. His route focuses on seeing more of the world they are in and their relationship. Dust Hunter: One of the main love interests. A traveler from another area on the continent. Dusty is shrouded in mystery. He offers to team up with her to protect her, for unknown reasons. He’s more than meets the eye. He has big plans for their world, but it seems as if there is also a hidden meaning behind doing so. His route feels a little bit left too open for interpretation with some loose ends. There’s a section where you see from his point-of-view and it was probably one of my more favorite moments in the game. Hearing his thoughts on Iris from himself was actually very cute and endearing. There’s also a weird scene towards the end that just kind of feels like it was fit in because it had nowhere else to go. His route is more focused on the specific area they are in and the relationship between Iris and himself. Side Characters: I don’t have a single issue with any of the side characters that have sprites. They are all super entertaining and have their own lives, problems, and reasons for being in the story. Malz is probably my favorite and it’s a shame he had very little screen time. [h2]Art[/h2] •The sprites for all the characters are very well drawn. Their outfits and color schemes fit the world they are in. •The facial expressions for Iris sometimes look a bit silly, I was definitely thrown off by her kind of pouty face in the beginning, though it did grow on me in the end. •Most of the CG art is very well drawn and I really enjoy it. Some of the eyes on them don’t look quite right to me, but are overall a moot point. •Background art is nice and fits the world very well. You really get the feel that you are in a desert nation. Some of the background art has some oddities to it, like 3D objects or grass that looks a little too realistic for the artstyle, but they are all well detailed. •Particle effects really add to the scene and CGs. Like the dust clouds that cover the screen and are moving and the little particle effects when one of the characters is using magic. •The art for the small item popups is very well drawn. The food looks delicious and I really like the intricate designs for items like the vials and daggers. •Cinematic cutscenes are a nice touch and really cool way to introduce some of the characters and scenes. •Text box looks gorgeous. If it had some transparency, we could see the art behind it and it would be a nice touch. [h2]Soundtrack[/h2] •The title screen music was very well chosen and sets the tone for the game. Reminds me of something from Aladdin. •Overall the music is done well, beautiful and helps set the tone of each scene. I enjoyed listening to it. It never felt repetitive. •Sounds like clapping, paper crinkling, birds chirping, adds to the atmosphere. •No voice acting. •Occasionally the music goes silent and is gone for a scene or there is no music, but some sort of background noise like being spooky and quiet for nighttime. [h2]UI and System[/h2] •Settings options for music, sound, auto forward, text speed, display and skip option. •There is a map of the game’s world in the journal. •There is a note with a list of names that Iris wishes to take out with two random civilians, which include a guy at the pickle stand, and a lady who kicked her out of the bookstore. •The journal has bits of lore for the world and how to say certain names. This was especially helpful in the beginning of the game while I was trying to learn the world. •There is a weird flickering around the screen edges when in full screen mode, so I had to play the game in windowed mode the entire time. I’m unsure what the cause of this issue is. •Keyboard commands section located under help. •Text loads all the way, but sometimes there’s more to be added after when you click or press enter/space. I wish it would either just load everything or load in a new text box because it gets a bit annoying when I have to refind where I previously left off because more text was added. •Can’t see previously made choices, so if you’re going back through the game to choose other choices, hopefully you remember what you previously chose. At least there’s an option to scroll backwards and even loading saves is very quick. •We can access the gallery and journal from the visual novel part of the game, which I really liked. Being able to go and look at the Lore and CGs at any time is a nice quality of life option. [h2]Overall[/h2] I had a lot of fun playing this game. It’s got a lot of great writing and even some really good advice that can be applied to everyday life. Although the story could use some tweaking, I enjoyed it. I kept thinking about it when I wasn’t playing, curious as to what was going to happen next. Some of the twists were easily figured out way before they were shown. I’m not sure if this was meant to be this way, or if the way the foreshadowing was written was just too obvious. The game doesn’t have true stat-building, moreso it’s either the choices typically have your trust go up, betrayal goes down, or nothing. Some of the choices for betrayal are kind of odd and I don’t quite understand why the choice is a betrayal choice. Either way this is a game to check out. I’m really looking forward to seeing what the devs have to offer going forward and will definitely be keeping an eye out. I’m hopeful there is some sort of sequel to the true endings. I want more of these characters and the world. Otome Lovers wishes to thank [i]Foxdrift Studios[/i] for providing a free review copy of this game. [quote]Please follow our curator page, [url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/4680120/]Otome Lovers[/url], if you'd like to see more reviews like this one![/quote]

如果有中评的话我不会选推荐，以及不建议原价买，这故事质量不是很能对得起定价。 只通了Seth的true end。这个剧本，该怎么描述其质量呢.............莫非这就是刺客被黑的最惨的一次。再直白点说，就是剧本所呈现的笔力完全不足以支撑角色作为一个刺客（甚至普通成年人）应有的基础智力。女主的台词跟行为逻辑设计绝大多数情况下都惨不忍睹，两位LI的脑回路也很抽象。这三位时而搞出的神秘行为姑且还可以勉强用“恋爱脑驱动”来解释，剩下的配角役里除了提供金手指的那位以外，一个比一个让人迷惑，行事的前后思路转折非常生硬且缺乏铺垫，结局感觉纯粹是无情抓来配合反转or拿来救场or强行被抓包当工具人陪衬主角的魅力属性。虽然配角没人权很常见，但这实在是...太没人权了。 至于为什么我还是心软点了推荐，这都要多亏美术给的立绘还可以（无所谓，我早已习惯无视cg问题.jpg），配乐也还算符合基调，人设属性也还算讨喜（虽然剧情塑造水准实在是不敢恭维）。啊，以及多亏我心软。 以上。

TL:DR; Garden of Seif: Chronicles of an Assassin is the kickstarter-backed, debut title of Foxdrift Studios and it was released on October 4th, 2023; and like any good garden, I dig it! The art is gorgeous, the character models are unique over the generic styles I’m used to seeing, the character writing shines, the music is pleasing on the ears, and the plot is filled with twists and turns. What more could you want from the chronicles of an assassin? I’ve been suffering withdrawal from not reading any VNs in the last month, and most of the ones I’ve read recently were on the older side, so I thought I’d look into a fresh release, and well, Chronicles of an Assassin is just that; fresh! I couldn’t find anything rotten about it at all~ The gameplay is straightforward. You have a couple of routes to choose from and if you play your cards right, you just might survive and maybe even get a little something more. There are lots of choices you get to choose from; over 30 - some are flavor and some are impactful. Most dialogue choices lead to you building trust or betrayal with the character whose route you are on which will determine what ending you get. I really appreciate that the game tells you whenever you are gaining trust or betrayal. It also helps that the game has a fully completed walkthrough that will guide you to all the endings, super handy if you don’t feel like searching all the different combinations to see all the endings. One thing that I partially wish was done a bit differently is the exploration of the bad endings. I think it would have been incredibly interesting to see how some of the characters react to the things that happen in a few of the bad endings, but instead it abruptly cuts off, shows a cool looking card that tells you where you went wrong, and takes you back to the main menu. I get it though. The game is from the point of view of the protagonist, Iris, and then the two people whose routes you can follow, so further exploration of some of the bad endings would require adding more character perspective changes and that might not flow as well. I guess this is sort of a compliment to the writing because it means that I was wanting more! You are also able to enter a custom assassin name for Iris to be referred to. I thought that was a really neat touch and gave me an even deeper connection to a protagonist that I already liked a lot! The UI is really pretty and does something that I’ve never noticed before with its buttons. Instead of having the buttons tab up off the dialogue/text box, it has the buttons go up from the lower right side. I like this! It doesn’t block anything important from the scene and it is not distracting off to the side like that while I am reading, plus it looks really good. I want to see more VNs do that in the future! A minor but another appreciated thing is that the game is entirely playable with just a keyboard and even lists the keybindings. It’s not super important, but it’s something I noticed and thought worth pointing out. There is also a journal function that not only gives quick access to the credits and music tracks, but also has a tab for viewing unlocked in-game letters and a lore tab. When I first saw the lore tab, I was pretty nervous. I was worried that it would be required reading for understanding the world of the game. It’s not. It’s a very expansive and enjoyable read that goes in-depth about the various factions, locations, and languages but thankfully it isn’t there to act as a lore dump/do the legwork for the story; it’s an enhancement. Speaking of enhancements, the lore page comes with a viewable map of the continent where the game takes place. It’s a highly detailed, yet clean and gorgeous to look at map that gives you a better idea of the overall game world! The characters do a fantastic job filling each other in on the details of the world and factions as necessary, to a point that it feels very natural. It’s something that the reader is eased into over a period of time as well, instead of just being repeatedly bombarded with information. The writer knew what she was doing when she did her world building. The story repeatedly gives off a sense of wonder by mentioning something about the world; whether it be the name of a faction, an item, or an animal - to get you wondering what it is and then introducing you to it later on! It all feels organic/natural (which is what a lot of fantasy themed stories fail to do properly, in my experience). The story itself is pretty light-hearted, often romantic and comedic, but sprinkled with flakes of melancholy here and there. I don’t want to get too deep into it because I don’t want to spoil anything, but I will say that there are more twists and turns than your typical racetrack! It was hard to put down, and even prevented me from getting some work of my own done because I kept wanting to read more. Garden of Seif: Chronicles of an Assassin clocks in at a satisfying 100,000 words! It took me around a total of 9 hours to read both routes. The character artist, Cutecumber, did an amazing job. Her artstyle gave the characters very vibrant and unique designs. Furthermore, the character faces in the dialogue box have a wide variety of expressions. I thought I was done seeing all of Iris’s expressions by the end of the first chapter, but nope. I’m not sure if it was who worked on the UI, the character art, or the CG Backgrounds, but there are these cool chapter title cards and a batch of them for one of the routes is that of a scorpion. I don’t know if it was intended or if I’m just seeing things, but I always see a heart-shape while staring at the top down view of the scorpion’s head on the title card, and I just think that is so cute and clever! That is good design! The CG Backgrounds were well done, always matched the current scene, and perhaps most shockingly of all, I never noticed them repeating (as in to represent separate locations, they repeated, but only for the singular location it represented) - especially to the borderline off putting degree that it sometimes happens in a lot of VNs. I’ve briefly mentioned characters a few times but haven’t given them a deep dive yet, so let’s get to that, shall we? The characters are so well written that if I was just staring at the script and the names next to the dialogue were covered I’d be able to tell who was saying what the vast majority of the time. The characters always feel genuine, especially the characters who are anything but. I loved it and had a fun time with all of them; from the supporting cast to the whole ensemble! Garden of Seif: Chronicles of an Assassin gets a resounding, “Yes, you should buy it if you like visual novels. Especially if you are starving for a fantastic Otome!” from me. The $20 price tag is very fair, but if you are still unconvinced after reading this review, then consider getting it during a sale! Personally, I normally wait for sales to buy my games, but I bought this full price and am very satisfied with it!

Разочарование. Я купилась на красивую обертку. Нет, ну правда, визуально игра прекрасна, да и идея интересная + история об ассасинах. Как можно зафейлить? Таки просто - неумение писать сюжеты. Честное слово, такое чувство, что читаю плохо написанный фанфик где очень много воды. ОЧЕНЬ МНОГО ВОДЫ. И ничего не понятно. Нет, конечно инглишь не мой родной язык, но уверяю, я прекрасно справлялась с историческими японскими новеллами и выжила. Тут же автор текста так старательно пытался держать интригу, что кажется будто читаешь бессвязные куски текста и все остальные в курсе что происходит, даже героиня, но не ты. И вместо того, чтоб хоть немного приоткрыть завесу, нам продолжают пускать пыль в глаза, отчего становится скучно. Интрига это хорошо, но без хоть небольшого стаканчика информации наступает засуха, зато автор щедро налил воды в бессмысленных диалогах. Вот читаешь ты, а в голове туман. Да и еще нелогичные какие-то поступки персонажей. То героиня предает напарника, а потом такая "ой, я передумала :(", то напарник прощает за красивые глазки. То явный враг разговаривает с героиней и та точно в курсе кто перед ней, но продолжает с ней тусить, да и еще рассказывает свою слезливую историю. Почему зачем? Вердикт: красиво, но наймите другого писателя.

This was a very stylish VN. The artwork was beautiful and all the characters had very lovely designs. The cinematic cut scenes really immerse you in the world. The story, while it fell flat for me at times, was still a fun ride with a lot of twists and turns.

This game has great art and music and effects....great characterization and realistic characters...the two main interests are both different but both amazing in different ways. It's better to play the scorpion before the snake in terms of story progression. I loved this game. The romance brought tears to my eyes and that makes it great in my opinion. I love a sweet story with a good, exciting story and the art and music together are just a perfect experience. The music is so beautiful - I just love it! 10/10!! Worth the full price! I got 5 hours out of it with just the true ends and a couple bad ends.

I've only gone through the snake storyline, but oh my goodness. The writing is so sloppy, there are more plot holes than actual plot. I've been on a big visual novel kick lately, and if I didn't get this as a birthday present, I'd be requesting a refund. There are some fun twists, but any time tension was built, suddenly there was a convenient, unsatisfying way it was relieved. I can only compare this to some of the absolute worst fanfictions I've read, and this is still somehow worse. The characters aren't even likable, which isn't even a requirement for me, I love an unlikable character when they have substance. But everything felt very flat and formulaic in a really disappointing way. Not worth the time or money.

3/5。中东刺客题材的vn，设定有点像奥斯曼+蒙昧时期阿拉伯，但是都是那种比较符号化的元素的挪用滥用（？），作为中东史同姐我颇有微词不过就不掉书袋了。配乐很有风情，我非常喜欢。不仅有女主的pov，还有各ro的pov。 女主iris是半盲的所以在立绘上表现为异瞳。虽然看起来有什么大阴谋实际上女主真的很头脑简单+四肢不发达，女主甚至直接向陌生人坦露自己的意图，干坏事也从来不遮掩自己的标志性特征，甚至在路上走着走着平地摔扭伤脚踝，关键是女主的设定是武艺高超的敏捷刺客舞女啊！不过女主也有优点是非常不内耗并且什么梦都敢做，可能是因为脑子也不太聪明吧。 该多写的地方不多写，作者貌似不懂大家的爽点。很多情节只是给出了一个模糊的交代，但实际上描写是完全不深入的，比如当某角色坦白自己在ro和iris的关系间从中作梗了之后，情节很快就切走了，根本没有表现各角色的反应细节。 明明各角色各怀鬼胎各有自己的目的，所以在这样的前提下ro对女主的示好也太莫名其妙，感觉整个故事的逻辑是不清晰的，角色的行为动机完全不讲理，显得很诡异啊，比如遇到对方威胁的时候刀都稳稳地架到对方脖子上了直接把对方脖子抹了事情就可以解决，结果杀过众多人的女主还在大发慈悲（？）说“我们要用flirt的方式解决问题”。作者编大纲的时候可能都没过脑子吧。 目前我只打了venom的true ending，此男非常像《阿拉桑雄狮》的阿马尔·伊本·哈兰，想吃一口代餐的话打这个倒是还行。不太剧透地评价的话，关于女主死掉的前任哥，我还是觉得就保持原有的一方死亡才好，毕竟遗憾感的美丽是无可替代的，当然也可能是因为作者铺垫不足且各角色的感情都写得有点欠缺所以“竹马变天降”的部分并不有意思。相似的情节我还是更喜欢moon observatory iris的rieffe。

I really went back and forth for a while on how to rate this game; I don't like tearing down indie games unnecessarily when they're at a disadvantage in funding to triple A games, but ultimately, this is still a commercially priced title that received Kickstarter funding on top, and I don't feel that my experience with this game reflected the quality that I would expect. That said, there were some things in this game that I did genuinely like or impressed me, so I'll do a quick pro-and-con list. Pros: -Gorgeous art. I like this artist's style a lot and it was part of what got me to check out the game in the first place. The CGs in particular are incredible, and I was stopping and hiding the textbox to get a nice, long look at each one. -Fun, immersive visual effects. Not every VN takes the time to make its presentation less static, and clearly a lot of effort was put in here. -Lots of different endings. Because I wasn't enjoying the story, I found them a bit tedious to get, but I do think that the variety was fun and the death endings added some stakes to the story. -Love interest POV chapters. These chapters were by far the most interesting and immersive to me on each route. -A twist that I found genuinely interesting and unexpected. Cons: -The relationship developments often felt unnatural, both with the love interests and the side characters. (Honestly, I think with the side characters it was even worse - there's a particular part I'm thinking of where one side character repeatedly betrays Iris's trust, but this is sort of handwaved by Iris and the story and she still considers this character a close friend. I would have liked to see this breach of trust and its effect on their relationship explored more, but it fell flat with the way it was handled.) -The pacing felt off at times - the game would seem to drag on and then suddenly I was at an ending. -Some of the dialogue felt juvenile, or like the characters were trading Funny Quips back and forth without regard for how they actually speak as people. -A LOT of typos and misspellings. This is the kind of thing that I'm more lenient towards in a free or cheap indie game, but when you pull in several thousand dollars on Kickstarter, you had BETTER be hiring a competent proofreader. -For a game set in a pseudo-Arabian setting, the majority of characters are extremely light-skinned. The darkest characters in this game are the Magical Mystical Old Lady, The Bounty Hunter, and The Merchant. Maybe it's my fault for playing a pseudo-Arabian game in the first place, but I've played others that can at least give their characters some melanin. Ultimately, I think that a lot of genuine effort was put into the game, but it fell pretty far flat for my standards to the point that I dragged my feet on finishing it and it was over a year from me starting this game to actually finishing it. Most of my gripes with this game stem from the writing side, so if you're someone who cares more about the art than the story, this may be worthwhile for you, but to my own standards I can't recommend this game over many of the other VNs available, free and paid alike.