Mistwinter Bay

(This review has been edited after completing my second playthrough) This game is absolutely perfect if you want a highly customizable experience while playing a visual novel. The characters I've met so far are all fantastic, the writing is interesting and the lore is expansive, not to mention the artwork is absolutely beautiful. If you enjoy good stories and a wide variety of things to do and people to talk to, this is the game for you! I also really appreciate that there are 38 romance options, and they're all gorgeous in their own unique ways! There is truly something for everyone. It is, unfortunately, extremely difficult to build buildings in early game. It's slowly getting easier as the game goes on, but do not expect to build much in your first year. It seems to be best to focus on treasure production as well as food production so the growing town population is fed. Once you complete the game, you get to see epilogues for every character in the game, including yourself and your family. The epilogues for your character's possible adoptive children are especially adorable. You also get to see statistics for your playthrough, which is a super fun feature! I also need to commend the developers, they've been very responsive every time I had a question about the game and they are very involved with the community and listen to them. I still can't believe only two people made such an incredible game! Try not to let the price point scare you away. The game is definitely worth it for the sheer amount of content you can encounter and the replay value of the game. If you enjoy visual novels and creating your own unique story in games, this is absolutely not to be missed. Something amazing about this game is that on my second playthrough, more than half of the events of I saw were completely new to me. The sheer amount of events in this game is absolutely amazing, and they're all really fun and interesting, sometimes even stressful. An easy mode has been added as well, which makes me really happy as a more casual gamer. I'm looking forward to playing through a third time in easy mode!

Fantastic game! For those who enjoy fantasy VNs with some resource management and life-or-death decisions, you'll find much to enjoy here. ==Out of Context== Take over town as a sovereign. Meet the innkeeper. He gets mugged and stabbed in the street and dies the next day. Take a tough stance on petty criminals and execute them all. Executioner is mad at all the work and wants a raise. I refuse. Executioner tracks me down in middle of the night and kills me. 11/10 would play again. ==What It (Actually) Is== The description uses the phrase "visual novel-like", but it is a VN with simulation/management elements, which is not a bad thing. However, potential buyers should not go into this thinking the reading/VN elements are severely limited or reduced. ==Features/Gameplay== The character creator presents a lot of customization. It far exceeds anything else I have come across in other VNs. For a first play-through, the optional tutorial/tips windows do a great job making sure the player knows all of the systems and how they interact with one another. The resource-management-and-town-upgrading process is a nice layer. As a long-time fan of strategy games, I focused way more effort on this part than necessary. It's not an overly complex system, but it's complex enough that it could put off a fan of VNs who feel like non-VN elements can be a hinderance. As you build new buildings, new characters become available to interact with. It's important to note that these are not generic characters. They are all well-written with distinct personalities and an improvable relationship with a story arc. Ruling an emerging city-state as a sovereign is the main gameplay loop. There are Hang Outs, Personal Quests, randomized events and main story events. The foreign leaders and townsfolk all have Hang Out interactions at 5 stages that can progress to romance and even marriage. Each character also has a Personal Quest that is required to complete to progress to the later stages of a relationship. This is all provided you have managed your reputation well with an individual. Dialogue choices and buildings can alter your reputation, sometimes drastically. To progress time, there is an always an event, which can be a randomized major or minor one or a story or triggered event. These have quite the range of consequences as it can affect your reputation or present opportunities to trade or spend resources. In some instances, they lead to the death of a character or even four characters all at once. Let me explain. Townsfolk are used during events to complete tasks based on their strengths. The underlying systems optionally let you know who is better suited to a task, but it is not a guarantee of success. ==Pain Points== Death. So. Much. Death. (potentially) It's a cruel world out there. As a sovereign, the lives of the townsfolk are literally in your hands, or choices rather. Mind you, these are developed characters that may cross unexpectedly into the afterlife. There also scenarios where you may order the execution of such a character or a lesser citizen, usually due to a crime. There are often consequences for doing an execution or even worse ones when not doing so. It's important to note that this game can also result in a game over in a number of ways. This is not my favorite mechanic in a narrative-heavy game. As a design philosophy, I prefer consequences that only can move a story along and not in an abrupt end. This is mitigated by the fact that you can save and reload as much as you want, if you feel so inclined. And feel inclined I did. Even when a death or game over is not involved, certain choices can unexpectedly lead to a frustrating drop in reputation. On one hand, I appreciate the harsh nature of being a ruler in a world with political strife and uncertainty that can result in before-your-time moments. For those familiar with Long Live the Queen, dying can sometimes be the point and a fun novelty. I experienced a few of these moments is Mistwinter Bay. However, when I started the game, I only had a mindset of wanting to complete the story. I actually abandoned my first game as I realized how better to manage and mitigate these difficulties and played my second run to completion, albeit with plenty of save scumming. All-in-all. The potential for death in events grew on me a bit. However, it was still a point of frustration when having to reload. ==Conclusion== At a $30 USD price point, I understand that most people will be hesitant to give this game a chance. However, if you are a fan of fantasy VNs with simulation/management elements, then you've just found what I think is one of the best.

I am very neutral on this game, and would probably mark it as positive had it costed $10, maybe $15, instead of the $25 I paid for it. As it stands, I do not believe it is worth this amount for a few reasons. The most immediate problem of the game is its oddly bad performance. Despite being basically a visual novel, the game uses a lot of RAM. It loads oddly slowly (even on an SSD), especially when going to and from the wardrobe. The music becomes choppy if the game isn't in focus. These limitations are apparently the result of the game engine. More importantly, the mechanics are clearly set up in a way that shows that multiple playthroughs are intended to fully experience the game (ie, characters are invited to the town by building the relevant building, and some are mutually exclusive), which is a design that only works if the game as a whole feels worth replaying. This is very difficult to do for visual novels, since reading what is at least partially the same thing has rapidly diminishing marginal utility (ie, in my one playthrough I already saw the majority of the hangout events, which would remain largely the same). The balance of the game feels a bit off. The early game is difficult to get through unscathed without save scumming if you get a bad event, whereas later on, I ran out of things to build and just sat there reading hangout events and doing quests until I ran out of those too and just had to pass turns through Main Events that by that point had ceased to be impactful - ie, having to pay 200 gold for anti-dohdrum lights is painful in the first year (perhaps even impossible if the player didn't think to have resources saved up), but trivial when I have thousands of spare gold in the bank, and as far as I could tell it's entirely random when events like that come up (a lets play I watched, in fact the developer's iirc, had this event come up early on in the game and suffered immensely for it, while I got it in year 5 and the 200 gold meant nothing to me). Also, on the subject of balance, some characters seem vastly more useful than others. Kieran, MG, and Alm can do a lot of things very well, whist I never needed to use several other townspeople at all. The writing is hit and miss, in my opinion. The game is at its best when it's trying to be humorous and whimsical, like with Dough and the curse of the wheelbarrows. I noticed a few seeming inconsistencies, ie, even after I gained my independence from Straena, the narration would still talk in a way that implied we were still part of the empire. Also, speaking of our independence, why does the Empress seem to put so little effort into retaking the city - what better things did the rest of her army have to do? Even if she underestimated us the first time, it was incredibly stupid of her to make the same mistake twice in quick succession. Also, how are the Ethalians still alive, when they apparently each produce only one egg in a lifetime? Any death prior to egg-laying would permanently lower the potential Ethalian population and their numbers would never increase, unless it's possible for an egg to contain more than one Ethalian (possible but rare for real birds, and probably not enough to offset attrition). What are the Fleidalans trading, on their sad island with no resources, and why are people trading with them when everyone rightfully hates them? If it's purely geographical, one would think Utrua was in at least as good of a position, since it's nearby and has a strong ship-building industry. Given Mistwinter Bay's prime location, how was it such a small town to begin with? Why did our father, or for that matter any of the past rulers of the supposedly millennia-long history of the town, not do in his presumably many years of rule what we managed to do in only five (the only thing I could think of is maybe only city state candidates are allowed to build even basic structures, but if that's the case Straena should be rapidly falling behind the less restrictive countries)? How did a town known for its wheat not even have so much as a mill (which the epilogue I got actually lampshaded)?? We had a history of mermaid-hunting - where did the docks we used for that go? I did like many of the characters, and the fact that some characters are in fact just bad people that you can't redeem no matter what. It's also cool that almost every character in the game is romanceable, but it feels like a lot of the effort went to waste, because who's going to play the game that many times to see every romance option? The art is likewise great, and the character designer is nice (and in fact one of the main selling points that convinced me to try the game). It's a little odd, however, that it appears impossible to select a gender for the sovereign, even if it was just a field to type in what pronouns to have the game reference, because everyone else (sans the explicitly gender-neutral Erewen and maybe other nonbinary characters I missed) seems to have a gender, making the sovereign seem oddly detached from the world they live in. It's hard to imagine that each and every romanceable character just happens to be bi (especially since some have backgrounds that clearly indicate a different orientation, such as Neferu's 54 ex-boyfriends [with no girlfriends being mentioned]) and no one on-screen is shown as bigoted regarding LGBT people (it's implied in passing that some people have these problems but we never meet them). It would have perhaps added to the realism a bit if there were some characters you just couldn't romance due to basic compatibility, and it might have been validating for some trans people to be able to explicitly designate their character's gender. I also appreciated how the leaders I hated, such as Ophelia and Eria, eventually got karmic endings in the epilogue, even though I'd have liked to have executed them personally. Llemyon, unfortunately, mostly got away with his crimes, save for the humiliation of failing thirty assassination attempts on me (apparently my character has Fidel Castro levels of survivability). I would have liked to have repaid him in kind (and hopefully, as Tito bragged, I'd have only needed one). On the other hand, it would have been nice to have been able to execute Dawn. At the time I had recently executed a generic noble for the crime of conspiring against me, so in my view, I ought to have been able to do the same for Dawn when she stormed into my throne room and told me she would be doing much the same thing. Sure, such an option would presumably make me lose even more reputation with the Avallerians than her badmouthing me did, but I still would have done it. Dawn, like most Avallerians, was a monster and it would have been cathartic to have her put down rather than getting to shamefully slink away to Void knows where when I purified the den of unreason she calls a shrine. Also, I would have liked to have banned Avallerianism entirely. I was sort of expecting to be able to pass more laws - in my playthrough I only got the opportunity to pass two, one silly one suggested by Sophia and one making it so that non-nobles could become doctors.

Love the game, it's seriously addictive. The variety of romance options is just amazing. The customization is incredible, like, the amount of options you have is astounding. I love how much impact your choices seem to have, and the writing is truly engaging. Would definitely recommend checking this game out, haven't had this much fun in a long time.

I don't usually leave reviews, but I thought this game deserved more recognition and hopefully can convince some people to give this a purchase. I am a huge lover of interactive text, choices matter games. I have tried many, many branching narrative games with choices that don't really matter or don't feel personal enough. Yet Mistwinter Bay feels thought out, and my choices feel like they matter and make an impact on the town. Is this game a jaw-dropping masterpiece? Honestly, no. But does it satisfy that itch of wanting to feel sucked in to a different reality, being my own person in a fantasy realm? Absolutely yes. And many "choices matter" games aren't able to do this successfully as Mistwinter Bay. If you're like me and have most of the Choice of Games library purchased, are constantly looking for games that feel like they have hundreds of branching choices, and don't mind (I actually prefer) a non combat-centric narrative game, PLEASE give this game a try. It will be worth your while.

Here are my thoughts after beating the game, and one permasave playthrough that got axed halfway through (oops). I thoroughly enjoyed this game. One of the few times I have played a game and felt like my choices actually mattered and had consequences I had to consider before making them. It was also really nice to see how all of the (alive) character's "what happened to them?" at the end of the game, and some surprising other story bits from choices I made there as well. For an example of how the story plays out, and how my permasave ended: I forged an alliance to romance one of the foreign leaders. For this alliance I had to make a choice which caused another foreign leader to turn on me. They then invaded, and I could have allowed a lafge number of their citizens to be sponsored in Mistwinter and pay I assume a permanent fee, have a 1v1 duel with their top fmage and mine, or give up the crown. In my stupidity, I didn't remember I did not have an amazing mage, and the person I chose was quickly slaughtered and my crown taken from me. This could have been avoided if I had paid, and I assume afterwards my new alliance would have helped me out. I do wish however that maybe the alliance I had made could have taken Mistwinter back? But that would've voided my mistake anyhow. Painfully restarted on non-permasave after that to reload in case I died (which I did, twice). There are a lot of story branches like that, and only a few times did I think my choice's result didn't make sense. I'd say maybe 5%? So not really a complaint, considering how many you make. Sometimes you'll make a choice and a consequence or benefit of it will show up a year later, which is pretty cool. I liked most of the characters, and was genuinely sad when I got one of them killed. I also had a choice to execute, imrpison, or free someone I liked that commited a very serious crime. Stuff like that pops up often, and you have to decide "for the good of the people?" Or for your own interests. You also get to send townies out to do tasks for you, so if you have the right people they can 100% guarantee a good outcome in some situations, so maybe you want to make sure your best alchemist or blacksmith never leaves due to hating you. The town building is pretty fun, but I did 100% the town around the end of year 3 and then resources became trivial. I liked seeing it grown and events be effected by the defense levels, would be nice to see more buildings or upgrades added. Character customization is pretty nice. Maybe a nice addition would be adding a perk to make each playthrough morr unique? Some nitpicks that are minor, and don't detract from the game much. -I wasn't really a fan of the music, but this isn't a huge budget game so understandable. -Text size can't be changed, which caused my eyed to hurt sometimes. - I wish I had the option to slap a person or two. Seriously. - Can't fast skip an event to the next choice. On multiple replays where you've seen the same social events multiple times it may get annoying to not be able to skip through. I think I'd give this game on enjoyment a 95/100? I love games with choices and social sims, and most games I wouldve dropped from how I lost my permasave.

The music is very jarring, making the character customisation alone arduous because of how shrieking the music becomes. I also find the UI very clunky, a lot of the menus aren't streamlined or designed with more thoughts of convenience. The wheat in the main textbox also looks really distracting. It also weirdly lags a lot, but I understand the devs had optimised to the best of their ability. I also find the writing awkward at times, MC either has no personality or has like a hint of personality here and there, but otherwise they act like a wet tissue. This makes it near impossible to enjoy their dynamics with other characters, as I don't really see any chemistry between the MC with them.

It has absolutely everything a text-based RPG enjoyer could possibly want. - Well fleshed out world - Realistic characters with their own goals and ideals - Consequences for your actions that can have effects far down the line. - A metric ton of events, there's no way two playthroughs would be the same. - An INSANE amount of characters you can romance, someone for everyone. - Forming relationships with foreign leaders and having the feeling that you are affecting the world at large. - An in-depth character customization interface, characters can truly look however you'd like them to. - A really well done building mechanic in your main city that makes you think about balancing resources, as well as the best thing to build next. - An easy mode for more casual gamers like myself, who really want to get into the story without worrying too much about some of the more advanced mechanics, while still being able to interact with them.

I've been following Mistwinter Bay for nearly two years now and I literally made a Steam account just so I can play it here (mostly because of the achievements since you can see what other people have done in the game). I've just made it through the intro and I'm already so excited to continue immersing myself in the game world. I'll update the review with more thoughts and comments once I've finished my first playthrough!

Mistwinter Bay I asked reddit for a recommendation. I asked for, "Queen/Leadership stat raiser/farming sim?" game and this was recommended. It definitely scratched that itch! after 28 hours, it is finished. Two religions - or choose to be a pseudo atheist, and people notice! My not declaring for any religion cost me alliances and NPCs but the fact that I was allowed to straddle the fence instead of being forced one direction or the other was excellent. All of thee characters have opinions, you don't even have to agree with them. I love the nuance of people acting differently if they like versus dislike you. Not quite as cool as Dragon Age 2 levels of rivalry, more like Origins. The NPCs have dreams, goals, and they're striving for them and you can help or hinder them. So many events and the events are tied to the characters and you can completely different characters for your 2nd playthrough. Because each building you build has a NPC assigned to the type. So next time I'll make a brother and not a vineyard, and get the brothel NPC and get to learn more about them. And there was an epilogue story for all of them so I knew how they lived out the rest of their lives. Even the kid I adopted. having control to imprison, execute, or otherwise was 100% amazing. Definitely felt like I was affecting the world at large. In fact, the alliance I made with the Ice Country ultimately caused the fire country to attack me. They lost. This made the queen go crazy and this lava overflowed in the epilogue- she destroyed her entire nation due to her violent hubris. hot damn. I liked balancing resources while I fashioned my town. I only wish there had been even more to do there, because I had them all built by start of year four and then just sat on my hoard the last two years. maybe I was on easy mode? I felt absolutely heartbroken about choices I made but that just means the choices are memorable. The only CONS: 1. The after marriage events for my chosen spouse seemed to be entirely about the kid we adopted and his special needs brother. The romantic feeling was pretty much zero. I wish I could have continued to be involved in his political life, been given updates on how he was working against slavery. More details about what his ideal world would be like, and if there was something beyond his love of jewelry and expensive things about his personality. I won't complain that the content was there, most romance visual novels just END as soon as the relationship is confirmed and for that, I laud the writer for including relationship confirmation, a wedding AND adopting a kid. I just wished there would have been more lovey dovey talk and at least an allusion to the sex we had probably maybe? XD 2. The game is PG when it comes to the romance. Nary a kiss was even described. Blushing all around. 3. The proposal from Orreg made me have to reload. because I said I'd marry him, and then he was like, "good now convert your city to the non magic religion" and then my character auto agreed. The "yes" should be AFTER he explains that the marriage comes with a price. 4. The neck on a woman looks so muscular, even on the slender model, that I only wore garments with collars or heavy jewelry to hide it. that all said, I will be playing again, and calling it my "evil" play through. I'm really eager to find out the freedom on that front.