[i]Gear of Glass: Eolarn's war[/i] was quite an epic read. It took me more than a year to finish it xD It turned out to become quite a personal experience. I've devoted to it an enormous number of hours thinking so many times that I just should quit but completionist nature prevailed, plus this game is created by my native indie devs. This novel is such a fundamental work, so I was really eager to help with the project.
It's not that many hours, as I have on steam record, long. At first when I started reading, it was truly unbearable, as the quality of English was so far from perfection (not a rare case, sadly) but the most important thing is that pronouns were completely mixed. I tried, endured for some time but gave up. I couldn't understand anything, it was more like deciphering than reading.
Then they fixed it a little bit, I started again after 3 months break, English was not in ideal condition but at least I could understand what was going on. I've read quite a lot when the devs fixed smth in the game and I lost all my progress (－‸ლ). I was so close to giving up on the story again but decided I need to finish what I've started and it was more not the story that made me persevere but the devs. Having played indie VNs for years, unfortunately, I met some rude, 'difficult' devs not able to look at the real state of their product and just blaming players, reviewers for their factual opinions.
Here everything was so different. It was a real pleasure to see them willing to improve their work, to help me with the playthrough, I was so entranced by that, so I promised myself to see this through. I helped a little bit with the English version. I do hope when it's edited it's gonna become better. Though as I'm not a native speaker, some weird phrasing will definitely remain, at least you won't have to rack your brains over who's talking now, all pronouns should be fine xD
This review is gonna be a neutral one but I still decided to choose a thumb up. Not the best visual novel I've ever read but it definitely deserves some attention.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2795442063
[b]Story.[/b]
After having read so much of our Russian classic literature where suffering, harsh survival and eternal sorrow of ordinary, poor people is shown, I always think nothing can surprise or deeply touch me anymore. But... This novel deserves such genre tags as dark, psychological, dystopian. I could disagree and not accept what was going on from time to time but I was never left indifferent. That was truly awesome. I felt all that struggle, I had nightmares, I was deeply immersed.
And the plot offers so much content, there're so many routes for all possible tastes. Then it turned out there're two secret routes, not presented in the main menu. Lots of short extras as final pieces of puzzle to complete the whole picture of the route.
There's an official guide btw. I always appreciate when devs do that for the players when their plot branching is so complicated. You can totally focus on reading and not deciphering the riddles. I mean, if that's what you like, great, but always lacking enough free time, I prefer using a guide after my own first playthrough.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2907817111
[b]Art.[/b]
Welp, I'd say it's typical indie art. I'm sorry :D In indie novels I often see that characters look so differenly, for example, in main menu, in CGs, in profile presentation and in the very story. Perhaps, it has to do with the insufficient finance and/or several artists, not really sure. I can't believe it's done on purpose. In general, I lliked the visual part of the story, all the characters look interesting enough. Some CGs are very pretty, some look weird.XD Sure, it's a huge contrast with the AAA games published by the companies with money BUT it's not always a bad thing. Such art may draw your attention 'cause it's strange, not what you expect but it's noticeable, feels so fresh and unique. There's smth enjoyable in it. Though I was never good at art myself at school, so perhaps it's this way just for me XD
[b]Characters.[/b]
I have a soft spot for well-written villains. When it's not like in fairy-tales my dad used to read me before I fell asleep in my childhood when there's a good prince on a white horse and a bad guy without a single positive trait. I like when things are complicated, when everything is not just white and black, wrong and right. When you can sympathize bad guys as well, when you are moved by their passion, attempts to change the world, to reach smth higher than rules and morals ever let us do in real world. I mainly think about Master here. What a fascinating character! I kept recollecting Nietzsche's superman and here Master's experiments to create a perfect man. Yeah, that was evil, undoubtedly but then again those pictures of Pavlov's dogs from biology schoolbooks reappear in my mind and I keep asking myself where's that border of what is allowed for the sake of science and what is condemned as a crime. I llove such stories. Or take, Christian. Yeah, sure, revenge is a bad thing, not healing or helpful but it feels so good at least in this virtual world to succumb to the truest inner desires and to burn everything to the ground.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2808444152
[u]Complaints[/u]:
--My biggest complaint is some romantic endings are achievable only with the specific gender. For me it ruined all the feature of choosing the gender you prefer. There're no erotic scenes, I don't think it'd be so complicated to write the story this way that players could finish all the routes with the preferable MC. Yeah, some CGs had to be presented in both genders variants.
And the biggest issue is that you have to reread the SAME story AGAIN with a different gender because it's not skippable, the text is considered unread in that case. For me it was a waste of time, honestly. With the story long enough it became unnecessarily twice longer.
--the window size of the game is rather small to my taste;
--not a fan of minigames in visual novels;
--dislike it when I see the same just smaller version of the char in the text box when they're speaking, what for? The name is enough. It's like double vision.
--not a fan of a third person narration, when I give MC my name I expect more immersion but that kind of narrative prevents it, in my opinion.
[u]Praises[/u]:
+Truly atmospheric, touching, detailed world with tragic and sometimes even disturbing and slightly repulsive story. Great read for a change after sappy romantic otome games XD
+Unique Art, some backgrounds are especially mesmerizing.
+Guide—16 pages xD.
+Lots of achievements.
+endless save slots \o/ THANK YOU! <3
+Friendly, helpful devs.
Aww It's been a while I felt this deep satisfactory feeling of accomplishment xD After it's edited if dark dystopian stories are your cup of tea, give it a try. If all my complaints don't turn you off :D
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[th]More thoughts about the game in a [url=https://steamcommunity.com/groups/readingnook/discussions/0/3202621953678405549/] Reading Nook [/url][/th]
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