SoulSet

good :>

Finally got myself reading (well, not quite) SoulSet. Blankspace gave me great ZE vibes and Elevator Game with Catigirls was positively upsetting (I mean, it's supposed to be horror!) Having heard some positive opinions on this one work from NoBreadStudio, I decided to give it a try. But my day was ruined and my disappointment is immeasurable. Good points: character sprites and designs are great, backgrounds are immersive, music is mostly fine? Beginning is intriguing at least and some scenes do give vibe of great ontological mystery. However... First of all, story got magic. Mystery genre and fantasy genre are frequently NOT going together well and, despite some worldbuilding and rules present by authors, I was feeling like everything could be possible in story just by virtue of some "magic". Therefore, I couldn't care less of trying to solve some mystery part or expect logical solutions to things. As somewhat fan of Fate VN series, I also could have expected some magic battles between participants or, maybe, tactical battles of wits at least, but there were seemingly none. Only cat was supponed. I guess, cat is fine too. Second, romance part. I remember feeling relationships between characters being forced in some similar VNs, like Quantum Suicide or Fatal Twelve, and oh boy here we come again. Because potion "works this way", Mariko (and every1 else) are forced to pick partner for sleeping in same bedroom for night. Basically, outside of few exceptions, character you "sleep with" automatically becomes your future possible lover, because if you are forced to share be with someone you are automatically becoming engaged with them in real life (just kidding). Anyway, romance part felt rushed and faked due to lack of time to bond compared to many other existing romance VNs, even considering characters are mages in critical situation. Game also lacks both autosave AND flowchart features, forcing player to save on every little choice themselves and skip some scenes a LOT, considering number of endings. You will see dinner scene and bath scene a LOT, and they have choices, which seem hardly matter for all routes outside of one or two. You could also expect some TIPS or database for game of such genre, but you get "clues" menu and messages about number of "clues" in each route, which have some nature, but are present as abstract colored notes in "clues" menu. At least we got ending tracker which... is not that informative? And there is no point-and-click gameplay akin in Blankspace or Elevator Game, which makes it hard suggestion for ADV fans. Overall, concept sounds interesting and it's obvious that a lot of love went into art and even some parts of script, but project is much less reader-friendly than next projects from same devs and other indie projects in genre. If you aren't hooked by first ending you'll get, you may as well get a guide and skip through scenes and choices until 100% game, reading only some scenes and endings (as I mostly did after struggling with narrative of first two endings). There are many dirty and gloomy surprises coming from characters with such bright designs, but you may end just don't care about them due to high speed with which you get information and supposed to get liking of main cast.

Game is overall pretty good. It clearly is inspired by 9 Hours 9 Persons 9 Doors in a lot of ways. The romance was good and the story and characters were fun. It's not as deep as 999 is but that's fine.

When it comes to mystery stories, it might not be THE best one ever presented in a visual novel, but definetly the BEST VISUAL NOVEL MYSTERIES. It truly is a story that can only exist and enjoyed thanks to the medium it inhabits, and NoBread stretch the story and concepts to just about their logical extreme of what a traditional Ren'Py VN can, without any gimmicks. While the "endgame" might be a bit weak (refering to the payoff to the last endings you'll find) and finding all clues a bit of a chore at times; it's mostly a consequence of how engaging the plot and characters are, and how exploring every nook and cranny of the setting, the different routes and the personalities of the cast feels so immersive and rewarding. The developers really punched above their weight with this release. Full recommendation.

SoulSet is so good, I personally loved the story and the characters. I usually only like maybe one or two characters when I play a romance type game but I loved everyone. I really liked that you could have a friend route and weren't forced to have a romance ending with the characters, its more flexibility for people who fancy certain types of characters. I thought the story was different and entertaining I like the way the story played out and I was so happy to see it all come together. This is definitely going into my favorite games category, and I cant wait to see more developments from this developer. I hope the developer creates more they made a fantastic game!! <3

Well, I don't usually play visual novels, but this game is something else. Story sucks you in and refuses to let go, also doesn't fail to surprise. Still trying to find more time to get through the game several more times :D

Interesting story and characters, fun interactions and romance, strong protagonist. The CG art is weird and clashes with the sprites, not a thing to look forward to like in most VN, but tolerable I guess. Also it might be a small thing but I always appreciate it when games on RenPy have a proper text log instead of just scrolling back the script.

Mon principal problème avec ce jeu est que je me suis terriblement ennuyé. En fait, le jeu échoue à créer une quelconque tension dans son récit, ce qui est particulièrement dommageable lorsque ce dernier repose sur son mystère. En particulier, pratiquement tous les personnages, qui prétendent être suspicieux, ne le sont en fait pas du tout dans les actes. C'est sûrement une conséquence de la courte durée du jeu, mais cela contribue à l'absence d'impact des actions du scénario. Il m'a fallu très peu de temps pour arriver à une "bonne" fin et la résolution semblait expédié trop rapidement. J'ai tout de même persévéré mais la "vrai" fin du jeu n'en valait pas la chandelle à mes yeux.

An engaging, cohesive cast of characters is somewhat hampered by gameplay that requires a large amount of skipping and many bad/non-canon endings to see the final conclusion. 6/10

It's been a while since I played this so I can't be detailed in my review, but really liked this visual novel, more than I thought I was going to. If I remember correctly there was a twist about the main character which was fun. One of the endings felt like it was leading into a continuing plot, though. Maybe there may be a sequel at some point.