Pale Spectrum - Part Two of the Book of Gray Magic

Some of the characters are pretty good, but the story is just a big mess and feels more like fanfiction writen by a ten year old. I realy liked Part 1 so its a shame Part 2 turned out like this.

Back when Brilliant Shadows: Part One of the Book of Gray Magic was released, I wrote a long and glowing review with nothing but praises for the work. In other words, I loved it. Now some years later (has it really been 2 years already?) we have the sequel, Pale Spectrum. I feel it was definitely worth the wait, and in fact there is far more game here than I expected. You see, at 12 hours I have finally finished my initial playthrough of Pale Spectrum. Now, I knew it was going to be a longer title than Brilliant Shadows' ~3-4 hours playtime had been before I started Pale Spectrum, but I wasn't expecting 3-4 times as long! And that's just a single playthrough worth. There are far more varied branches offered to the player this time around. I get the feeling many more variances to the endings exist than were in the first entry as well, if I'm reading that progress map correctly anyway. This must have been an incredible amount of work for the Ithaqua Labs dev team, the voice cast, everybody involved in the project really to basically create three times the game content in just 2 years. Just like with my review of Part One, I really can't find anything to fault this game. In fact I am left with nothing but a feeling of being awestruck, impressed with the whole thing. It went so much further and reached so much higher than even the high expectations I had held for it. I am once again touched and moved by this experience. This is how you create something that endures. If I may tangent for a moment, I feel like I am being offered the rare privilege to see something that is going to go on to be much larger and gain greater renown, like a proofreader of an up and coming famous author, or a private screening of a sure-fire hit movie. Suffice to say I am a happy kickstarter returning backer, happy that this Part Two came to exist and that I got to experience it. Back to the matter at hand, before I began my play session of Pale Spectrum, I decided I had better refresh my memory with another run through Brilliant Shadows, so I did that first. Then I followed up with a quick jaunt through Embers of Magic to brush up on that backstory as well. Doing my best to keep spoilers to a minumum for myself, I didn't dig too deeply for details on the new game (I like experiencing it firsthand.) I knew Pale Spectrum was going to be a longer game than Brilliant Shadows, and that Belinda was now the main character, and that there seemed to be more endings possible than the first game. That was about it. This raised some questions and concerns in my head. Spoilers from Brilliant Shadows: [spoiler] What happened with Ash and Terra I wondered? I knew they were in the game too of course because I had seen promotional content, but I was worried they would get thrown on the back-burner in favor of Belinda's story. I really really liked Ash and Terra especially, so this concerned me going into Pale Spectrum.[/spoiler] Thankfully though, my fears were put to rest early in the story, and those concerns were non-issues in reality. In fact, it went so much further than I expected it to that it was very pleasantly surprising how far each character's story was developed in Pale Spectrum. I was not expecting such depth or breadth of plot and character developments. And that really sums up the charm of Pale Spectrum. It's everything that Brilliant Shadows established, except bigger, more expansive, more encompassing. There was so much more of the wonderful first entry's experience here to enjoy. In just the writing alone for example, there was enough to make it at least 3 times the first game, and it was [i]oh so good[/i] too. Not just more text added for the sake of game length. Quality and quantity both. Lots of twists and turns, plenty of surprises, and frankly the story went in directions I never would have guessed, but that just made it all the more enjoyable to experience. I can't even imagine how much more work the art must have been. Some of the background pieces, especially the landscapes, were unexpectedly breathtaking. And the sheer number of character art variations must have taken...well...years! It all comes together very well though in the end. I'm sure that doesn't do the work justice, but it is a very well done aspect to the game to put it succinctly, and is even more impressive than it was the first time around. I really liked the recurring music themes from the first game. I think my outlook regarding the soundtrack in my review of the first game back then was a bit harsh in hindsight, but I will say folding in some of the pieces from the first game's soundtrack was a great idea. It helped with continuity and it did build some of that familiarity into the score and the experience while playing. The new pieces all fit right at home too and in my completely inexpert opinion felt even more expressive than before. Again, impressive work. The voicework was undoubtedly a much larger undertaking this time around too, but it was once again an enjoyable addition. With many new faces, and a lot of returning favorites, it was great to hear the characters come to life again. I liked a lot of the new characters but I think my favorite of the new ones is Sword. I don't like picking favorites though, all of them were very well done and brought the life of a voice to an interesting and colorful cast. Thank you for your hard work voice actors and actresses in helping bring these games to us fans. I can say Pale Spectrum is a triumphant success for all your hard work. You all have created something extraordinary. Knowing that the tale still has more to be told honestly boggles my mind. Pale Spectrum went so much further beyond what Brilliant Shadows and Embers of Magic started that it's hard to imagine there's yet even more of the tale to be told, and I mean that in the most supportive way possible. It was fantastic, and I think I'm somehow spoiled at the prospect of getting even more of this a few years down the road. There were so many unexpected events in Pale Spectrum and I feel more strongly for the cast of characters now than ever before. They've all grown a lot and I'm looking forward to seeing what other surprise twists and turns await in their future tales. Until then I suppose I will have to get started on a second playthrough of Pale Spectrum, from the beginning of course. I get the feeling I have quite a few more variations of the story to experience, and I know I have at least one or two more entire story branches to uncover. Thank you again Ithaqua Labs and supporting staff for all your hard work on bringing this wonderfully imaginative world to life. Give yourselves a well earned rest while you enjoy the aftermath of part two of your masterpiece-in-the-making, and just like with the first game, I'll be looking forward to the bright future of this wonderful series.

I played the first and fell absolutly in love with the world and writting and characters, I've been waiting on this one since the first annoucement. Spoiler Alert: [spoiler] Knife is the best, and Belinda needs to end up with Bao [/spoiler]

I had a lot of fun playing this game. Getting to know the characters and the world they live is such an adventure. it is really easy getting pulled into the game. This game gives hours of gameplay (I have way more than 3.8 hours, I played it mostly on another account). If you love Visual novels this is a good choice. With in depth character development and the world, and amazing art to go along with it. [spoiler] #Team Beligland [/spoiler]

Very well done visual novel with a lot of TLC. Unique entry in the genre from a studio with potential to continue doing new and inventive things.

Okay so I read the whole thing and like apart from minor spelling mistakes and misplaced audio tracks for dialogue, like, I loved this. It really took the prequel and just..... grew it like a tree. I really, really, really wanna see what the next one'll be like!

I am a kickstarter backer of this game! And because 1 of my characters are in there as an extra I am already bias. Even so I would buy this and gladly play through it. I so far have only played it once and have a lot of endings more to find as well as new characters I never got to see. I look forward to giving this another run and find the other endings and see the signficant change in the story. Though as of now I have yet to do that. Also I highly recommended to play Brilliant Shadows first before playing this part. This is a great and lovely experience if you are looking for a very different take of fantasy with a lot of sexuality involved, it is important to the characters and is an interesting spin for fantasy. If you expect a hack and slash game sadly, this is not for you. It is better to look at this game as a book, a hidden adventure book. Since your choices will have impact on the story. It is after all called a Visual Novel. The game is, as I said great, wonderful voice acting, fantastic dialog and writing. (Though personally I would like a little more description of their actions.) The voice acting is top-notched just like the first game with fantastic voice actors who truly excel at their job! Some voice actors had poor mics but that was mostly extras with few lines of dialog which is a shame, but understandable. This is a really nice quality game and the devs are super nice people who works extremely hard to keep updating the game to add 1 more mountain route and even to continue the "bad ending" from Briliant Shadows!!! You can tell how much passion they put into this game and it would be super cool if it could get some publicity!

While I do think the first in the series is much stronger in terms of story-telling and over-all character development, Pale Spectrum is still a fantastic addition that I had incredible fun with and feelings for. It does takes a few run through to get several different endings to be able to piece the story together properly however as from a single playthrough there are moments where the sotry feels very fractured and missing parts that should have been there or glossing over things that need deeper looking in to. Also, there appear to be a few bugs within the game that could do with a bit of fixing. However, I would still heavily recommend for any person who liked the first part however and would also heavy recommend both parts to anybody that hasn't played the first yet.

Larger, bigger and mostly better then the first! A noticibly longer continuation from book one, this one also greatly expands the rosters of characters it features and allows alot more story time devoted to them. A enjoyable tale with mainly excellent artwork and voice acting - though try the first game before this one, as it covers inportant things storywise, as well as being shorter, cheaper and more focused. A very satisfying experience :)

poggers