SYNESTHESIA

[h1]Spiral Stairway to Heaven[/h1] [i][b]SYNESTHESIA[/b][/i] seems to be almost an antithesis of [url=https://steamcommunity.com/id/drugoja/recommended/1720470/][b]The VII Enigma,[/b][/url] the developer's previous game I reviewed last year. Colourful vs drab; anime stylised vs western graphic novel look; typical (if compressed) VN route structure vs a procedural TV-show-like composition; a ragtag bunch of [strike]high school[/strike] college kids, aka Scooby-doo gang vs a professional, mission-oriented band of freedom fighters; in-jokes vs progress reports. In contrast, grand cosmological, eschatological concepts vs dystopic down-to-earth time travel. Yet, they're more alike than first meets the eye: eclectic at their core, scooping from many soups, as if following a recipe. It certainly seemed that this novel tried to stuff as many ingredients as to the point of overflowing, almost like this is the last pot. Both are unabashed in their love for the meticulously technical sci-fi, resting on diligently crafted, rigid (faux)scientific jargon that can prove overwhelming for those unaccustomed. However, SYNESTHESIA was, on the whole, more fun to read. The most substantial improvement is in pacing and exposition. I can't even say it's a fundamentally different approach, but while The VII Enigma was guilty of rather crude, dry exposition and relentless, extremely dense technobabble, SYNESTHESIA was enriched with something crucial that was missing previously: a sense of mystery, awe and wonder. So... mystybabble? https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3016800253 And that is in no small measure thanks to the major Steins;Gate influence. In a lot of ways it felt like SYNESTHESIA was following this classic VN's template just in a rather compressed form. And by that I don't just mean that there's a tsundere girl-genius, Eris; a kind girl next door, Isla; a cryptic one you must protecc, Maya; and the criminally underused guy best friend. Jase who? We're missing a catgirl and a femboy, but I digress. Familiar Japanese VN tropes are abundant (hell, this is an ELVN, yet it's set in some near future Japan), but more importantly, where this influence really paid off is in a gradual spread of mystery. A big part of it is a route structure built around one true path, while all the others are side threads leading into it, collapsed states that happen when you'd rather postpone the inevitable by prolonging simple, carefree days with your friends. Seize them while they last, stretch the moment to eternity, the fleeting wonderful everyday. Thankfully slice-of-life is kept here at the bare minimum as all the side routes are compressed which, on the flipside, makes for unconvincing character backstories and motivations, most evident in Isla's story. There are even some light romantic moments, remnants of a truncated harem structure, but they're not the focus. Despite the shortness, these routes do their job in building up (to) the next. And therein lies a thematic resonance: they're like worldlines building off each other's failure for that one single, perfect line to succeed. The golden thread, the spiral stairway to Heaven, "a staircase built off the corpses of our alternates..." Even though character routes had left me underwhelmed, the road to true ending was paved, resulting in a much more satisfying read going forward. A cumulative effect of sorts. Multiple routes seen as parts of one whole, slowly knitting the big tapestry, is ripe for implementing the playable flowchart, like in Zero Escape. Even if the order of play is semi-enforced and divergence limited, it was refreshing being able to just jump between branches and onto specific forks. A lot of the things I wished for have been included, like interactive elements for one. Don't expect much, they're quite rudimentary, but those exploration segments and a few colour-based puzzles contributed to feeling a bit of agency in revealing the mystery. The designative synesthesia is interwoven throughout, as a gameplay and story element alike; not to mention, it makes for a colourful and illuminating world. This tingly, chromatic quality extends to music with a few memorable tracks, especially the tangibly vibrating one during mysterious revelations. It manages to transform what could've easily been many a dry lectures into something more awe-inspiring.* https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3018521569 [h3]"True resonance cannot be forged"[/h3] All of this is just a frame though. Mystical, cosmological concepts; paradoxes, conundrums and philosophical speculations [i]are[/i] the meat of this VN, just wrapped up in a colourful anime package. It's a cauldron of a bit of everything: hard problem of consciousness, universe experiencing itself, propagating patterns and teleportation paradoxes in relation to identity and its continuity, nature and (super)structure of reality, higher dimensions, the shape of the multiverse etc. All of it caught in the mystery of the Golden Spiral and with it themes of repetition and endless cycles of death and rebirth with no exit. Ouroboros, the poor snake destined to devour itself for eternity... Add such ideas like conscious reach and karmic impression - which is just a more technical way to say that desire is born from pain and the will makes the world go round, or as one character put it: "true abstract longing of all reality" - the VN referenced plethora of questions from theoretical physics to metaphysics to mystical, spiritual traditions, especially Hindu cosmology. It's like an anime version of a unified theory of everything; heh, [strike]string[/strike] thread theory. Ambitious and quite grandiose! But is it in tune with the Music of the Spheres? Is syn(es)thesis achieved? The biggest challenge in science/philosophy-heavy fiction is how to organically weave it into the narrative fabric without it appearing artificial, superimposed, or pretentiously preachy. And it's a mixed pot here. It's meticulously thought out and strung together in abstract, exposed mostly through lectures, research, night visions and monologues. But it doesn't fully resonate emotionally for me, even though it strives to be emotive, a result of those compressed routes and simplistic characterisations. There's a discrepancy between typical anime melodramatic sentimentality and momentous, fundamental questions about existence and true nature of reality. My impression was that they are what the writer really wanted to answer, everything else is just a familiar, borrowed, almost ready-made casing. On the other hand, this hotchpotch of grand and silly is so anime in its own right and requires a taste for operatic flamboyance to fully appreciate. It'll sooner be transcending your mind than its VN roots. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3025790368 Still, there's a lot to ponder in this litany of abstractions, but going deeper into it all is beyond the scope of this review, not just because of spoilers; I... don't have much to add. I know, preposterous! The game already said it all. Understated it ain't! On the contrary, it's overstated, overexplained, over-elaborate, especially the finale which I felt would've benefitted from more surrealism* (I’ll overexplain my pet peeve in the comments.) Despite appearing like I got caught in winding convolutes trying to untangle all the threads, I genuinely enjoyed it. One question still lingers though. Is the spiral descending or ascending? Whichever the case, the only way out of the cycle is by... letting go. Not a spoiler, that's an ending all of us ought to know from the beginning. Right?! [i]"Don't look back, don't even look within. Look beyond..."[/i] [h3][quote][b]Follow [url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/40848670-Drugoja-In-The-Dreaming/]Drugoja In The Dreaming[/url] down the spiral staircase

This is the second visual novel game by Spire Games. I've had a blast with their first game, 'The VII Enigma' and was very curious to try out this one as well. Synesthesia is quite a bit different in its setting, style, presentation, and pacing. In this VN we play as Ziek, a student in a university which was opened specifically for people with unusual abilities that are bordering on supernatural. These abilities often involve unusual heightened perceptions of people's emotions, places or events, and each student's abilities are different. The university itself has a research centre where these abilities are studied, but this research is veiled and secretive, and a lot is kept secret even from the students themselves, and thus starts the mystery adventure of Ziek and his friends in figuring out what is going on and what is the origin of these strange abilities that they possess. The story of Synesthesia does take some time to really kick off, and in the early stages it's rather slow paced and most of it introduces us to the characters and the life at the university. Over time as more information presents to us, the pacing and stakes begin to increase, and it keeps increasing all the way to the end. In that sense, Synesthesia has a slower start than this developer's previous game, where the stakes became clear right away, but nonetheless, the carefully-woven nature of the plot and the incredibly interesting characters that make it up is the same. Just as with 'The VII Enigma', there are some interesting scientific and philosophical concepts discussed which are a major part of the game's story. So it helps of course if you understand science, but even if you don't, the game makes everything clear, and the focus is more on the characters themselves and what they're going through. I think in some places the game goes a bit too much into philosophical ramblings, but that's just my personal view, and I still greatly enjoyed the overall story and cared for the characters and their motivations. This is mainly a VN with occasional choices to make, but on some occasions we do get to roam around the town streets and the university corridors by clicking where we want to go. At times we have to inspect the areas by clicking on interactable parts of the environment. So there are some elements of point-and-click included too. One inclusion into the game mechanics that I really liked and appreciated is the flowchart of different pathways that result from our choices. And the way it is presented, we get to explore virtually all of these pathways within the same playthrough, which is a very interesting take on choice and consequence, something I've personally not seen done before in games. We get to try alternate paths and learn some things about characters this way, and this mechanic of experiencing the alternate pathways from our choices is connected to the game's story and integrated in a very clever way. There are occasional puzzles to solve too, but these aren't too frequent and there are hints available to us. They shouldn't be a block that stalls players. I am normally not a huge fan of the anime aesthetic of characters (I usually have mixed feelings on it and prefer other visual styles more), but in Synesthesia it is definitely done to a good quality, and the character images are not static. They blink and change regularly, so you often feel like you are actually talking to a character. The environment and background art is also great and very colourful in virtually every location. The music is really amazing, just as with the previous game of this developer, and is one of the strong aspects of the game, as it did a magnificent job in conveying the emotions and atmosphere of each scene and place. This VN also has voiceover which can be enabled from the start, so we can actually hear the characters talk. I thought the voiceover was of pretty good quality for everyone. The only thing is that the main character's lines are not voiced over. I know that some games choose not to voice main character's lines, but I personally feel that in this game they should've been voiced, because we're not playing as our blank slate custom-created character, but rather a fully-defined existing character within the game's world, and to me personally it felt a bit jarring during conversation to only hear the other characters' voices and not his. Perhaps his inner thoughts don't need a voiceover, but spoken lines I feel should've been voiced. But this might be my personal opinion as I think it would be more consistent, and maybe others would disagree. I recommend this VN to anyone who likes interesting stories that include scientific and philosophical concepts and deeper aspects of what makes us human, what motivates us to become the way we are, and how do we view ourselves in relation to the world and phenomena which are beyond our control. These concepts and themes seem to be common in this developer's VNs and I've greatly enjoyed both of them. I'm looking forward to whatever will be this developer's next VN, as I'm sure it will also be incredibly interesting and deep regarding world building and character development.

Solid, well-polished sci-fi mystery visual novel. As other reviewers have mentioned, SYNESTHESIA gives off Root Double and Steins;Gate vibes, but much more concise (it doesn't overstay its welcome). Good amount of worldbuilding and (pseudo)science, including plenty of TIPS to collect along the way (as well as one super sneaky post-game TIP, #88, that I had to look up on the Steam discussion forums). Also: the game has a flowchart, which is always welcome! ♥

Synesthesia is solid western VN. This isn't dating sim and it is not a happy game. Instead Synesthesia is sci-fy thriller where even true ending is kinda sad. Story is pretty good and it will remind you of Steins;Gate a little. Developers either did tons of research on the topic or pulled tons of **** out of their ***** (or both), I can't say which it is but the materials you go thru feels pretty good. Game has English voice acting that isn't terrible. I have to complain a little about English in game. I am not sure where Spire Games are from but some sentences didn't feel entirely English. I am not native speaker eihter so maybe it is just me but some parts of game felt like they were translated from another language. Also the game is set in Japan but the names didnt feel Japonese. For example MC is supposedly from Sapporo but his name is Ziek and not only that is not Japanese name but I believe it can't be writen in Japponese unless you molest it horribly. (instead of si/zi they have shi/ji)

I enjoyed this game a lot! If I had to compare this to other games, I’d say Steins;Gate and Root Double felt most similar. If that sounds up your alley, give it a shot. I was immediately really impressed with the presentation of this game. The character art is high quality and easy to look at (with blinking animations!). The soundtrack is great. There are TIPs, interactable flowchart, point and click elements, and even voice acting, too. All these really helped elevate the story and made me immersed in the world. The game itself is not too long (note my playtime). I think this is a positive. I felt invested in the story, but the game didn’t overstay its welcome. I’m not big on dating sims, so I was a little hesitant about there being heroine routes, but I found all the characters to be charming (even if some get less focus than others). There were multiple mysteries to keep me guessing throughout the story, and the world building was really impressive with how detailed and well thought out it is. This is definitely worth your time if you find the premise interesting at all.

[h1]A compressed version of Steins;gate.[/h1] Yes, that means the highs aren't as high and the lows aren't as low as S;G, but we also get into it so much faster. The pacing is good, the characters are interesting and realistic, the science / tech jargon is accurate but not over-explained, the art is engaging and animated, the puzzles serve the story and are infrequent (so a nice change of pace), the music pulls you in, the romance feels natural, and the voice acting (though the game implies it is AI-voiced) is good. This visual novel is quite polished for a small dev team. My minor complaint is the main character, Ziek, is a bit of a player-insert. He feels most defined by his relationships to others; though he does have a bit of personality himself. That's not my preference, but is more of an intentional design choice than a flaw.

Spire games does a great job of blending intellectually sophisticated plot with compelling character arcs that make you question life in a way that only good story telling can (they literally get me in the feels every time and I hate it). I thoroughly enjoyed "the 7 enigma" and was keen to give this one a try and it did not disappoint. A word of warning though, if you're not into wrapping your head around abstract concepts and sending your brain into deep dives to stay ahead of the plot this might not be your gig (or maybe I'm just slow :P). Personally, I love the challenge and intrigue and it gives the plot depth and complexity. As someone has already mentioned, it's the kind of novel you keep thinking about well after it's finished and find yourself discovering hidden layers and connections, which is an oddly satisfying experience. There are already some great in depth reviews here that do a great job outlining the basic plot so I won't go into the ins and outs of it (lest I spoil more than has already been written) but I will say this. The research that has gone into making the sci-fi premise feel believable genuinely impressed me. Of course, a good sci-fi mechanic is always a little outlandish, as is this one. But the hooks in real world concepts and theories are so well thought out, it makes the plot almost conspiracy worthy and for that it has my admiration.

Checking this visual novel out for the first time, I was immediately reminded of Steins;Gate, and for a very valid reason.. As the awakening to the powers of minds has reminded me a lot of the divergence meter from that one masterpiece. I was really hoping for this one to be able to match up to that masterpiece, even if it were to be in just a few parts, but that's unfortunately not been the case for me. - Right after about two hours of reading, I was thinking of how much I regret reading through this, how much of a loss of time it is.. Only to be proven wrong and otherwise after ignoring my own thoughts and instead going with the flow. I've really liked the character design together with their personalities. I can't explain that properly, but it was as if their designs were having fitting personalities..? .. Even though, there's no way to relate to how's a character's personality gonna be just based on their artistic design. The characters had their stories to tell and were later on kinda easy to empathize with, to the point that I felt like reading their thoughts, which I have no way to prove, but based on the actions around the plot and story of this novel, I've had a pretty good idea of what was it that they were pursuing deep down. Some of the cracked jokes were easy to relate to, just like many of the described experiences of the past. What I, however, really disliked was that there was barely any introduction to the characters and their past. It took quite a while to get to the point of getting to know some more about them, and even this past of theirs that I'd consider to be of the most interesting part of the visual novels along with their art styles, of course, felt as if it was cut short. The disappointment was immeasurable, but I managed to shake it off and ignore it. It's not like each and every single novel is going to be cut out to be a masterpiece, that's merely my own wishful thinking and unrealistic expectations. I do merely wish, the character development and their stories were to be a lot more expanded, prefereably to carry on for at least an hour or two for each involved character, but that's not been the case here. What's worth mentioning is the plot. Fairly simple to be understood, and because those are some spoilers, I can't really provide much of an insight of mine here, but I liked it. The mystery was almost everywhere; I had many doubts and didn't know what to believe in, as there were or I had many theories of how things were to be, only to learn that I'm being mistaken the entire time. That was definitely part of the novel that stuck out with me. I loved being kept in blind, but there was next to no terror to supply it with.. It was all of mystery and nothing else, so the impact wasn't as emotional as I would've expected if I were to read this review of mine from those lines. It was mysterious, alright, but that's about it. Because of the way the character development is planned in this novel, I had no possibility of relating to the characters given the story until later on, by which time I forgot about the parts that I'd consider to be important to the portrayed characters in the novel, and that's quite a miss that had a chance to deliver something absolutely amazing, beautiful even! ** Because I forgot to mention anything about the music, I had to edit the review. It's fitting. The tracks do seem to be fitting the atmosphere at the given moments, but they haven't really managed to hit that deep, unfortunately. The best way to describe them would be.. Interesting. Unique. Something along those lines, I guess. That's not to say that I disliked them; In fact, I really liked some of them and ended up excited to hear it the next time it would play out. Such are my thoughts about this novel. It was a hit and miss, some good parts together with some bad parts, unfortunately not really sticking out with me. There was definitely some emotional impact in some situations, but that was purely out of relating to the presented situations rather than feeling empathizing with the characters, and due to how shortly cut those situations appeared to be, it wasn't as powerful as I was hoping it to be each time I experienced it.. As with that, I would've managed to remember it a lot more clearly and enjoy it all the more. - Welp, it is what it is. Still, the reading was good and I can't call it bad. It was very well worth the time. (I should probably note that I do read a bit faster than your average person, so the estimated length is to be a bit higher for an average reader.) That's all I can say about this interesting piece of a visual novel, I guess. Hopefully, I'm not forgetting anything important that I would've liked to mention.. At any case- Have fun, Happy reading!

Decided to give it a try on a random Friday and, after finishing the game, I must admit, I LOVED IT! Characters were interesting and charming all by themselves, the different routes are really good on their own and the true ending caught me off guard in a positive way. However, this game has a very complex plotline, not something impossible to get a grasp on, but still, you might need to read the dialogues twice in order to not miss anything. Storywise, it has great buildup as well as a really good pacing and the twist is great. The game itself offers in the UI a 'Tips' section on which all the information gained across the different fragments of the flowchart is stored as data to access later in case you forget something, which you'll need 100% because there's a lot to keep in mind. Therefore, it's not a game to play if you want to chill out, this visual novel requires your attention in order to comprehend whats happening. 8/10!! TL;DR I entirely recommend giving it a try, although it's not a visual novel to shut you brain off since it's a complex and detailed story.

This is one of those mystery VNs that stay with you after the ending. If you like VNs like ZE, Ever 17/Remember 11 or Root Double, get this game.