Tell a Demon

I really enjoyed this one. It's always nice to see a VN that isn't afraid to move away from the anime style of art. All of the characters looked unique, and there were a nice number of CGs throughout. The story was interesting (I'm excited to see where future games in this series go), with a unique setting. While the story only has a few major branch points, I was surprised to see just how much my choices affected dialogue and the way the characters reacted to situations.

[i]Tell a Demon[/i] is the second part of the Asher series, which is set to be a trilogy of visual novels taking place in the eponymous fictional city. While playing the first game, [i]Asher[/i] (which can be downloaded for free on the developer's blog), is not mandatory to play this stand-alone game, it can help get a stronger grip on the lore and the motivation of a couple characters, and I would recommend playing it beforehand of after your first ending. Now, onto [i]Tell a Demon[/i]. It is undoubtedly one of the strongest visual novels I’ve played yet, both in terms of visuals and story. The art is totally unique, more reminiscent of paintings you would see in the 16th century section of a museum than classic VN art. I can’t express how much I love the attention that went into little details in the sprites: sometimes the only observable alteration comes from a raised eyebrow or a bitten lip, and yet the change in expression is striking while conveying a subtle shift in emotion. The CGs are also phenomenal, but seeing as the video in this page gives a pretty good sample on what you can expect art-wise when playing [i]Tell a Demon[/i], I won’t expand on the subject. I found the story to be extremely engaging, if maybe a little hard to get into on the first playthrough. There are a lot of characters that are only alluded to, dates and places that can easily get confused with each other and deities with several names each. However if you are willing to pay attention, this quickly becomes fascinating: the world-building is strong and coherent, taking some inspiration from classic horror stories (vampires and such) and yet revamping it into something truly unique: the Asher series revolve around the legend of an immortal-yet-dead Empress whose hubris created a cursed line of demons who continue to plague her country more than a century after her disappearance. In the present day, the player embodies three characters: a human girl - who sports a fabulous Louise Brooks bobbed haircut (did I mention the fashion is also great in this game) - aspiring to find a job far from her farming roots, as well as two vastly different, charismatic demons who must paradoxically learn how to change to stay true to themselves. The game enables you to influence both the outcome of their adventure - 16 endings, with a pretty satisfying balance kept between ‘’happy’’ and ‘’unhappy’’ ones - and their personality: this leads to a lot of variations and subtle changes in dialogue, which I’m not sure I’ve yet seen all of even after nearly 20 hours of playing. There is also a healthy dose of compelling romance - both m/f and f/f -: just enough to be satisfied without getting overwhelmed. In short, [i]Tell a Demon[/i] is a very intriguing, beautifully-crafted, expertly-written game, and I can only recommend all visual novels lovers and people who love artistic games to give it a go. I want to point out that it is not a horror game, so the most sensitive souls can stay reassured (there is some blood and creepy empty eyes though, you have been warned). Actually, [i]Tell a Demon[/i] succeeds in being as engrossing as a quality novel and aesthetically pleasing as a painting, and I can only hope that this will also be carried on within the third and final game in the series, [i]The Empress of Aeser[/i], which I’m already waiting for with eagerness.

[i]Tell a Demon[/i] is a visual novel set in an alternative 1920s where you make choices for three main characters. One playthrough takes about 3 hours to complete but with multiple routes there’s plenty of content to explore inside this fascinating and detailed world. Some of the descriptions came across as a bit long winded for my tastes and early on it was confusing - but on the whole the writing is excellent. The optional ‘mind’ mechanic helps to offer extra insight into the motivations of the characters. There’s a beautiful eeriness to the artstyle. The unsettling wistful faces remind me of classical portraits, their expressions are subtle and easy to miss. The one thing I wholly didn’t like was the music, I had to turn it off early in the game and may have missed ‘nicer’ pieces because of this. I didn’t realise this game was the second in a series until checking the forums. Despite this, the story was still engaging. The prequel, [i][url=https://www.sunlabyrinth.com/asher.php]Asher[/url][/i], can be played for free via the developers website, originally released in 2014 it was updated extensively in 2019. Something which I am now planning on playing because I very much enjoyed reading [i]Tell A Demon[/i].

[b]Demons aren’t real...right?[/b] We start the journey in the minds of three main characters: Tell, Kalevel, and Julius. And if you think we would have the intertwining story only show up towards the end, well you will be surprised. As soon as we start, we know there is a long history behind Asher, the city-state all of this takes place in. All three have their own reasons to why their paths happen in the same vicinity. Julius is a demon, specifically a shadow demon, that has recently began wondering what happened to him and luckily for him the one thing that was refusing this thought was broken. Tell lately traveling to town to pursue a job not on a farmland and come across a deadly old friend. And lastly, Kalevel, an immortal or a court demon, gets caught up in a brewing betrayal that was ready for the right time to burst out. We do get some insight of other minor characters, but we do not linger on them for too long. The choices you make determines where these characters end up and how their motivations for them. The strongest part, and arguably the one part that needs to be handled well in this genre, is the writing and in turn the story. I absolutely love it. It can honestly be overwhelming trying to keep the history together the first time, such as immortals also being classified demons but they are different from shadow demons, but afterwards is easier to grasp. There is also personifying some key aspects that take part in a shadow demon’s life that drew me in, such as giving shadow demon’s hunger it’s own character and letting it be a key point in Julius’ character. As well as the chain linking them all a visible space, loosely equating it to a stage and a spider’s web. How it handles these foreign concepts, and acts like they have their own entity, makes it easier to understand what is being talked about. There is no scene that means nothing when you first step on it, rather than realizing later on it was important or unimportant to the whole picture. There are a vast routes you can unlock, with more than 16 endings. I know what you’re thinking, I can just play it once since the other endings barely change the dialogue or just add one or two new scenes. Well, in Tell a Demon’s case, that is wrong. There are, of course, events that need to happen, but other than that everything else is left to the player. As mentioned earlier, your choices decides where the character turns to in both action and thoughts. If you choose to be vengeful, that character will lean more towards that. You want someone to be killed badly? BAM CAN’T GO BACK ON IT NOW. If you’re like me, your gut reaction may be “this can’t possibly happen to this character but I’ll humor it”, well be ready to be surprised. So if you end up playing this, you really need to do multiple endings, as there are scenes that can not be viewed unless character actions and motivations line up, as the game can end early on certain routes. As well as information not coming to see the light as you steered away from chooses that would have revealed it. If one thing would catch your eye, it is the art style. With a vast majority of visual novels adapting the anime look, or looking like they tried to tone it down, Tell A Demon avoids this. Going for a more realistic feel that reflects the 1920s. And even when you are sent into a flashback, you can tell how the fashion evolved. Everyone looks nice and there is never a moment where there is a repulsion to how they look like or how they decided to dress. There is also a lot of detail that was put into the faces, giving off emotion even though we have no voice acting. We also have some subtle detail changes other than the face, which might be missed if you’re not paying attention. The only thing that would make this visual novel better would be voice acting. But this is not a take away. You can still get the emotion from the words and how the characters faces look, as well as their thoughts of course.Tell a Demon still does try to make it easy to read despite this as you can disable the fancy font that occasionally show up, an option to switch to the OpenDyslexic font, and an option to change the speed the timer to pick choices have or disable it as a whole. There is also a great soundtrack, with the appropriate cues to tracks that match the mood. Never getting old even for as long as one might hear them within multiple playthroughs. What may surprise you, which did for me, is that Tell a Demon is a standalone, but actually the second installment of a planned trilogy. The first actually being Asher. And of course, being curious to what this one holds, I decided to play it as well. Asher puts a minor character into the main character as it focuses on Tetrine and how she deals with interacting with demons. You don’t need to play Asher to understand Tell A Demon, as there are only a couple direct callbacks to it, but it does give background information. As the developer states on the game page, it is rough around the edges. Some of the characters look different as well as some key things were changed, such as how they act (this can be attributed to the time skip, but there is a relative to an important character to Julius that proves the timeframe is not long) and quite sure Kalevel has a different background, but it nonetheless does what it is meant to. Even with it being older, you can still tell that the universe is deeply established and the marks the developer has that made Tell a Demon unique and great appears in Asher. There is a plan of remaking it so some story issues can be solved and an art update. It will always be free and you can get a download [url=https://www.sunlabyrinth.com/stories/] here [/url]. If you want more of Tell A Demon, definitely check out Asher. Don’t forget to look at Asher’s extras as well, there is a great song about River Nell that never got put into the games. [h1]Verdict[/h1] I am honestly surprised not that many people seem to have played Tell a Demon. How in depth the story seems to go, coupled with the deeply established universe, intriguing story, and multiple routes that change how the character acts and their motivations is something that many have voiced their want in. It extremely helps that the art style and the developer's unique way of storytelling makes this even more enjoyable. I highly recommend it, along with Asher, and can't wait to see what is next. As well as hoping they decide to continue making games after this trilogy ends. [code] [url=http://saveorquit.com/author/ripwitch/] 💜 Check out my other reviews at SaveorQuit! 💜 [/url][/code]

a short visual novel. overall alright for in between.

Tell A Demon is such a great VN that I wish more people knew about! It introduces a genuinely original story and world, and even though it can be a bit rough to find your bearings in it, it's definitely worth it. The artstyle is great, fits the tone of the story perfectly, and really serves the writing well - not that it really needs it. So many scenes are just... really, actually well-written, and don't need the help of the art of the music (both of which are still very good) to leave a strong impression. The biggest barrier to enjoying the game, I think, is that it's a lot to take in, and the story can go in many different directions without giving you a good overview of what's going on overall. You definitely need a few playthroughs to get to the end without murdering half the cast in the process and ending up as confused as you were at the beginning (like I did). When you start to get a better grasp of the backstories of the character is when the VN gets really exciting - and all the different endings are just fun to experiment with. Overall I really wish more people got into this VN - it deserves it.

+ Lovely art work, story and music overall. - 16 different endings felt iffy to me would have prefered less and longer routes.

The art and story are great, but you may want to play the (free) previous game first to understand more of the plot and get to know a few of the side characters, and more about the world. The world building in this series is probably its strongest point tbh. Also note that this game is relatively short, and it will have a sequel. Things are somewhat resolved in some endings... but the fact that there will be a sequel is quite clear, and it might be a while. Still, if you like the previous game, and this seems of interest to you, give it a shot ^^

As you can see, the art is gorgeous, and the music is very nice with just enough variety The first play through the world building is a little overwhelming, there is also a mechanic where you can check the viewpoint character's thoughts, or little tidbits to enhance the worldbuilding. Personally I think it could have been executed better, I wish there had been a popup or something when a new observation is available, otherwise you just have to keep pulling it up to see if anything's new. There are enough varied and interesting endings that I would definitely recommend several play throughs. Although there were also endings that were a bit disappointing. Overall I enjoyed the storyline and found most of the characters interesting, and some of the endings were really good and with good emotional payoffs

Highly recommended. The most obvious aspect of the game which I love is the art direction / aesthetic. Absolutely gorgeous, and really does a wonderful job of setting the mood of the story. The game universe is well detailed, as made obvious with the little tidbits of lore that get revealed along the way. The plot is interesting, the characters engaging. The choices made along the way have a very significant impact upon what happens, unlike a lot of VNs where you might have choices that only affect a few lines, etc. Sticking with a single play-through simply isn't going to do. It is relatively short, which I would say is the only downside of the game. But it was very enjoyable. It's so good to see more devs approaching VNs as a platform, without trying to copy the types of genres / tropes we see from Japanese VNs.