Nameless - The Departed Cycle

[i]Nameless - The Departed Cycle[/i] is a dark fantasy VN focused on two men: Israh, the game's main protagonist, who's seeking a legendary cure to save his son's life; and Nameless, a mysterious man Israh meets in the forest. (There are a few small places in the game where the story is shown from Nameless' perspective; you can tell when you're in one when the textbox border changes to be purely orange instead of the green-orange gradient.) One of the main problems short romance VNs tend to have is that they often take place over such a short period of in-story time that the relationship doesn't really feel believable. [i]Nameless - The Departed Cycle[/i] seems at first to fall into the same trap (Israh and Nameless' initial contact occurs over the space of only three days), but rather than ending the game where I thought it would end (with [spoiler]Israh leaving the forest with Nameless' favor and a promise to come back after curing Bastion[/spoiler]), it goes on a bit farther, showing [spoiler]Visage taunting Nameless/Vermillius over how short the relationship was and wearing him down to believing that Israh will never come back (he does come back)[/spoiler]. It makes the trajectory of the relationship ultimately feel more satisfying here than in a lot of similar-length VNs. Combined with the writing style itself, which is dramatic without seeping into purple prose, this is a definite hidden gem when it comes to free VNs on Steam. The art has a really nice semi-sketchy style that works really well for the story and the writing. The game also has partial voice acting, with important lines being voiced and short barks used for other parts of the story. There are a couple places where a voice line doesn't quite match with the tone of the text, but I think this is likely an issue with the direction (i.e. picking a bark based on the literal text of what's being said rather than the tone of voice) rather than the voice actors themselves. Both VAs fit their characters extremely well and do a good job with their material. The flaws in the game are by and large extremely minor, especially considering that the game is now free. The most noticable issue is that (at least on my PC, which is admittedly pretty old by now) the game lags quite a bit when there are multiple special effects on screen at once and the skip function seems to sometimes function weirdly around them (waiting for the background animations to finish at mach speed instead of just going to the next scene). For a visual novel, this isn't game-breaking, but it makes it a bit annoying to replay for different endings. [i]For more recommendations of romance games, feel free to check out my curator, [url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/32080131/]Games for Hopeless Romantics[/url].[/i]