Women of Xal

A very solid VN - just finished my first playthrough and thoroughly hooked. Great characters and an intriguing mystery.

Wow! I only finished 1/4 endings but I will definitely be playing more as the plot twist was really unexpected and intriguing! The romances were cute, and I love the diverse cast of lovers you can obtain. It took 20 mins to really pull me into the plot but worth picking up if you enjoy romance games and choose your own adventures.

Women of Xal is a very ambitious title for its indie roots. I'll start with the positive, then hit the negative - but for me, the positive definitely outweighs the negative. TL;DR: Some indie jank, but given the sheer scope, it's to be expected. Still one of the most interesting and thoughtful OELVNs I've tried. I'd recommend it. The good: In my opinion, sincerity is the strongest point of any visual novel, even above writing quality. Luckily, Xal has both in spades. The game is structured such that you have a main plot that stays the same and various side routes where you pursue characters as the plot progresses. There are a pretty absurd amount of love interests (who can also be Just Friends, if you prefer that), as well as a robust polyamory system. There's too many to pursue them all on one route alone, but you can easily replay via the skip button if you missed someone interesting. The characters are likable, with surprising depth and individualism beyond their first glance (far more than most OELVNs I've seen), as well as covering topics you don't often see covered, let alone with nuance. It's very "something for everyone", so to speak. I found myself charmed by most of them, including ones that initially irritated me. It's honestly impressive how distinct they are with how many there are. The plot is interesting, and has some good twists. The worldbuilding is what I would describe as "lovingly elaborate" - the sort of thing where you can tell years of careful thought have gone into it. It also doesn't shy away from the unsettling implications of the gimmick (alien world where women are more powerful than men, and men are subjugated or often outright enslaved). Rather, it feels eager to engage with the ugly questions that arise from that, and to ask you what you think about them. There's also a lot of minor dialogue changes to reflect decisions you made, or being on a certain level of intimacy with someone. I don't typically require a feeling of choice in my games - I'm used to very on-rails experiences with VNs - but the game frequently gives you a few choices of what to say. The art is nice. The sprites are pretty, with a nice range of expressions across numerous distinct characters, and even multiple outfits (!). The backgrounds are lovingly detailed and pleasantly alien, and a lot of them even have passive animations such as clouds moving, which I thought was a nice detail. Some of the music tracks are very pretty, as well. The music is largely unobtrusive. The bad: For something so ambitious with such a small development team, there are inevitably going to be some pains. Certain things feel a little rushed, awkwardly paced, or written with the idea that you know something you do not. Memorably, I had a moment where I was very confused as to why my character was murderously angry about something - only to realize that, due to not befriending a certain character, I'd missed an optional scene that provided more context. But moments like that are rare, and largely feel like the unfortunate, yet natural consequence of an indie game with like thirteen (!) character routes. Some of the art is rough around the edges - for example, the style or proportions might change when switching to a CG. The sprites sometimes had textures that looked copied straight from photos, complete with jpeg artifacting, which was... perplexing? Some of the voice acting is also a little rough. (Voice acting is not present for most of the game - only certain animated cutscenes.) Some of it was memorably good - others made it hard to take important scenes seriously. But I understand I'm kind of a stickler in this department, so I don't know if the average person would find it to be a problem. The worldbuilding is so complete as to almost become obtrusive at times. Lots of new words and concepts, both important and just for flavor. Some of it I occasionally rolled my eyes at, like "dhajdamn" (Dhaj is the in-universe god). Some major scenes or revelations also rely on you understanding mechanics of the universe, which you may not know if you didn't take the optional worldbuilding lessons. I found it much less obtrusive on subsequent playthroughs, though. There were some spelling errors, which is understandable given the scale of the work and the difficulty of playtesting something with so much optional text, and the developers are very nice and responsive to bug reports. The stat-building system feels a bit superficial - I don't really care, honestly, but I can't say it felt like it played much of a role in my playthroughs. Lady Xuna is the main heroine, and as such, the game has many scenes and CGs involving her. I ultimately found myself kind of bored and unimpressed by her, had trouble getting a read on her character, and wished for people to challenge her more often and more directly. But I think that's probably just a matter of personal taste? While I may sound like I'm listing many negatives, most of them are pretty unobtrusive, all things considered. It is overall *VERY* well done for its scope and small team. It hits most of the shots it tries to take, and even when it misses, it's hard to fault it for trying, especially in the middle of the countless limp "parody" visual novels out there making up the bulk of popular OELVNs, dripping with derision for the genre and its fans. If you go in expecting the level of polish of a major publisher or something, you're going to be disappointed, but it's definitely one of the most interesting and well done VNs I've ever played, especially as far as OELVNs are considered. It's an enjoyable, fantastical exploration of a believable world. The sheer amount of love put into it is pretty staggering, honestly. They even have animated cutscenes. I definitely enjoyed my time with it and I'm looking forward to the sequel.

Overall I'd rate this game a 7/10. Some stuff seems a little pointless unless you want a small lore dump, like going to class or reading the books. But overall, I love the characters and story. it's very different from anything I've played before which is great! Finding fresh content these days is really hard.

This game is good give it a try

Honestly a hidden gem.

Women of Xal is a deep visual novel, with its own fantasy world politics, large cast, and plenty of things to say. As one might guess from the premise, WoX is very considered in what it does with gender, race and sexuality (which is not always a given in world-reversal media!) I think it's thanks to the care it takes with its world and characters, how different motivations overlap and people clash. The game has also been made with lots of care - there are so many interactions, unique visuals dotted around special moments (as well as voiced songs and cutscenes), plenty of music, interesting reasons to replay, and situations that are more complicated than they seem at first. My only issue is that it takes a bit of time to wrap your head around the world, characters and how your actions/stats/relationships may lead to different outcomes. I wasn't sure whether I wanted to stick with it after my first playthrough, but I'm glad I did. The prospect just seemed daunting at the time!