Zeitz Machz √Rhapsody

Zeitz Machz √Rhapsody is a free visual novel, that appeared on my radar by accident. It’s first work of the developer that was published on STEAM and it’s easy to tell. Zeitz is poorly written story. It’s missing depth and it's confusing and not clear. The confusion doesn’t come from the attempt of the creator to create plot twists, but Vns style. Sometimes; it’s not clear which character says what. The text is pouring down the screen, without any indication of the person speaking. The way it appears on the screen, feels very old-school and could be seen as a positive, if only it was more intelligible. Characters are missing depth and are irrational. They are flat and simple. Their actions don’t make sense and feel at times - stupid. It’s honestly irritating and make getting through the story challenging. I guess one positive is that the story is short. ~2h The art style is very simple but cute and appealing, so I don’t see a reason to complain about it, in basically a free game. I still want to recommend this story, even after lines and lines of “complaining”, because I see the potential. The idea of the story is good. I like the “mystery” element, but unfortunately the execution didn’t work out that well. It’s first work of the author and I believe, that after their writing matures, I will be able to come back and enjoy many good Vns from them. If you are able to get through the writing and are looking for a palette cleanser between Vns, then it’s good idea, to give “Zeitz Machz √Rhapsody” a try! 5/10

[i]Zeitz Machz √Rhapsody[/i] is a free-to-play, yuri mystery visual novel developed and published by Occult Lily. You take on the role of Ais, a female university student who is going about her life, dealing with an illness (which I assume is depression) along with the loss of her dearest childhood friend and being considered a freak by her fellow university students for not doing normal things, like dating or having a social life. After going to sleep one night, Ais wakes up the next day to find herself confined in an unknown location with a blond-haired girl named Alice. As Alice has no idea what's going on, either, she and Ais decide to work together to figure out how they ended up in their current predicament. I'll end my story synopsis here to avoid spoilers and all that. ^^ As for the gameplay, the story mostly plays out in a linear fashion. There's only one choice presented, which leads to two different endings. Also, there's a true end route, which is actually available right at the start on the main menu. A few CGs are presented as well as some tracks. However, at the time of this review, there are no Steam achievements. Now that I've gone over the story and gameplay, I'll move onto my thoughts. I enjoy a good mystery, and especially seeing that [i]Zeitz Machz √Rhapsody[/i] is free-to-play, I wanted to give this a try. First, the story is quite a doozy, but I'll do my best to explain. XD At first, it seems like your typical story of sadness, depression, and whatnot, but after Ais' encounter with Alice, it turns out that the two of them have somehow time traveled to a dystopian future. (Yes, time travel is a thing. lol) Wars among various nations have destroyed the world to the point where the population has dwindled, and there are few survivors. Now, you might be wondering why Ais and Alice have traveled to this future when they should probably [spoiler]be dead. Well, it turns out that one of them had a plan to save themselves as well as one other person in an attempt to save humanity[/spoiler]. Assuming that you read the spoiler, yeah, this might have ended up with more questions than answers. lol As for the endings, it's best to summarize them as follows. One of them is the reality ending while the other is more like the dream ending. As I mentioned earlier, there is a true ending as well, and you can read the true route without bothering to read through the majority of the story and getting the other endings. However (and there's even a warning at the beginning of the true route), if you choose to do this, you will definitely not understand what's going on, so I highly advise reading through the story first and obtaining the other endings before reading the true end. As for the characters, there's a pretty good variety of personalities. Ais is the socially awkward, scientific genius, while Alice is the more bubbly, social type with a bit of a bite in the way she speaks. As for Syren, she's the most mysterious out of the three, as she either seems friendly or hostile, depending on the situation. There is a bit of romance between Ais and Alice although it's mostly on the sweet side, [spoiler]with kisses and a love declaration in the true route[/spoiler]. The story is more focused on the mystery, though. As for the writing, it is paced fairly well. There aren't any really exciting, action-packed moments, but then again, this visual novel doesn't have that kind of story. It's more on the philosophical, slower side, making the reader question what's real vs. not real. I should note that even after reading the true end, there are going to be some mysteries that are left unsolved, but this is intentional on the developer's part. Personally, I think this is fine since in real life, there are plenty of unsolved mysteries even as we struggle to solve them. In regards to the art, I like how well drawn and colored the sprites are. The backgrounds are on the more simple side, but considering that this visual novel is free-to-play, that is fine. Also, there are a few beautiful CGs although I wish that there was a CG gallery in which to view them, so that I could have taken some screenshots. ^^ With the music, I love the tracks that are present. They mostly consist of lovely, relaxing classical pieces, which are very soothing to listen to as you read through the story. (It doesn't hurt that I'm very partial to classical music. XD) Overall, would I recommend [i]Zeitz Machz √Rhapsody[/i]? If you enjoy a good mystery story with a bit of yuri romance and don't mind that the story is on the short side, then this is worth taking a look. I wish that there had been a CG gallery and/or Steam achievements, but these are just personal preferences. For a free-to-play game, there's no reason not to give this a read. Assuming that you read through the story and obtain all 3 endings, it'll take you around 2 hours to complete. At least, that was the case for me although to be fair, I am a slow reader. ^^ [quote]For more detailed, high quality reviews like this, please follow [url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/44702020/]The Introverted Gamer[/url], prioritizing heart and soul always. ^^[/quote]

Geleceğin neler getireceğini kimse bilmiyor. Daha dün, Ais hayatının sonuna kadar tadını çıkararak devam ediyordu. Ancak birdenbire kendini "Alice" adında tuhaf bir kızla birlikte hapsolmuş halde bulur. Daha da kötüsü, ikisi de bu olaydan önce hiçbir şey hatırlamıyordu. Peki bunun arkasında kim var? Peki bunu neden yapıyorlar?

中短篇免费科幻悬疑百合视觉小说。 个人代了初祥铃的三人行。 刚发售就入库了，但是发生了很多事，总之现在才看完。 关于游戏：30K words，作为外语读者6~7小时，本地应该是4，5小时吧。虽然不长但是还是比想象中要多。惊喜的是配乐，用的全是经典钢琴曲。有德彪西的《月光》（为什么这么熟是因为在METALLIC ROUGE里听了很多）还有肖邦的夜曲之类的。 科幻悬疑百合小说，三个关键词我觉得比较均衡吧，没有特别突出的地方。总之对我来说是一个”一直在猜测着但是又没有太多惊喜”的旅程。 推荐的话还是推荐的，毕竟纯爱很甜不胃疼，关键是免费，为什么不看看呢。 ----------以下感想包含剧透------------ [spoiler]真的是纯爱，太纯爱了：虽然是三主角三个结局但是其实就是一条线，就算选了塞壬进线BE也是在梦里和爱丽丝在一起还生了孩子x。总之塞壬完全是按照母亲写的，只是个人BE线让她的偏执得逞了而已。[/spoiler] [spoiler]末日废土的世界，时间机器，疯狂的科学家，滤镜中的青梅，溢出的的保护欲。这些熟悉的设定曾经在开头给了我很多想象，想看看会堆叠出什么样的故事。包括一直在想的，作为百合作品曾经必需的（我认为的）角色的残缺（Aris的孤独和混乱，Alice的不安和隐藏的东西），会怎么写。但是好像轻轻放下了。反而是Syren的掌控欲和偏执出现在了她的个人线。但是写的也满干燥的。[/spoiler] [spoiler]有关悬疑：（包括序章也是）序章之后，阅读的体验是一直猜测着不光是我和角色都不知道（失忆的部分），还有我不知道角色还记得的部分，以及我知道但是角色又记不起来的部分。当然还有几乎贯穿始终的科幻作品必有的世界观好奇的部分。因为一直埋着这些而我其实对这些兴趣不是很大，所以会遗憾于角色间的互动和感情不够细腻吧。可能也有语言文化风格差异的因素存在。但是我想会有读者喜欢这类的体验的吧。[/spoiler] [spoiler][strike]另外Alice线结尾塞壬对我说的“Alice在撒谎”我读完还没看出来QAQ [/strike][/spoiler] 总体而言，这是一篇关于家人的故事。虽然轻轻放下但是没有什么大问题。如果喜欢命运的幼驯染和有长女爱（大家应该多多少少有一点吧）的话应该更能带入一点然后享受游戏吧。就是这样。

A relentlessly miserable story that's confusing and nearly incoherent. I can't bring myself to recommend this. It's shallow romance doesn't make up for the nihilism teeming with immaturity in the guise of depth.

to be honest i dont dislike this game at all, i think the premise of the story seems really interesting but theres just too many flaws with the writing and story so far that prevent it from reaching its full potential and prevent me from fully reccommending this. The pacing was kinda weird at first where it started out by digging really deep into the main character before even introducing the main character herself and letting us understand what she does n stuff. besides that the writing just wasnt the best and i think the creator couldve better utilized the NVL format because the dialogue was often split up in a way that made the dialogues really hard to follow along with as well as making it harder to know when the internal monologue change to one of a different character. another small issue i had is the backgrounds did not match up well with what was going on in the story at times which undermines the severity of whats happening in the story at a given moment. that being said i still think it has its moments and the creator has the potential to put out something way better!!

I'll be honest, the start is painfully boring, but i'm happy i stuck with it. Not sure why, because it only gets somewhat interesting later too, but I do indeed wish it would have been longer. More about the vibes than the content I guess. Still, if you have 1.5 to 3 hours of time to kill, I would pick this up.