समीक्षा

• gamedeal user

  Nov 21, 2022

  This is it. The new gold standard for visual novels. Okay, the story could be better, the music's a little flat, and the variety of art is rather low... but all of this is rendered completely irrelevant by how the game handles the protagonist's dialogue and player choice. Let me explain.

  Typical VN Pitfalls

  If you've ever played a visual novel - be it an Ace Attorney, an Otome, or your typical Catgirl Breeder 69000 - you're probably used to the typical formula, which goes something like this: - you're introduced to your protagonist, who's usually the first person narrator - sometimes you get to name them - you watch your protagonist interact with characters, usually from their own point of view - so you (almost) never get to see "yourself" - occasionally, you get to choose from two or three options of dialogue or action. Those choices will impact which route you'll enter, and which ending you'll get. In more edgy novels, making the wrong choice will kill you - and you'll need to reload your game. In other words: one - the protagonist is their own character, someone whose role you assume during the game. And two - your choice of dialogue is ultimately motivated not by what you think is right, but by what do you need to do to get that best ending, or to bang the chosen Neko-chan/get claimed by Mr. Dommy CEO. Arcadia Fallen, on the other hand, says "F**k all that s**t".

  F**k All That S**t

  Here, your character never speaks on their own without your input - but no worries, you're given multiple chances to speak per scene. And when you do, you're given a list of options; usually there's 3, sometimes more, sometimes less, and they don't only summarise your answer, but also have a little label which explains the tone of what you're trying to say. Why is it such a big deal? You know how sometimes in visual novels you're thinking hard about what to say, go with the chosen option, and then realise that the actual answer is nearly the total opposite of what you were trying to say? Mass Effect also suffers from this, and it feels more prevalent in Otome games... anyway, if you know both the summary and the involved emotion, that problem is completely resolved. As a sweet bonus, you get some very strict control over what sort of person your character is.

  Control Everything

  And that's the gist of it: control. You can customise your look, your gender, your voice. At certain points you're given a bit more defining choice; what drives you? What is your attitude to the burden fate has placed upon you? Those choices will affect what sort of "mood options" you'll be getting later on - and no worries, the game very explicitly tells you that. The game really goes out of its way to make you feel like this is your story - even the narration is not in the first person ("I saw Mime sitting on a barrel") but in second person ("You see Mime sitting on a barrel"). Also, sometimes one of your companions tells you about an internal conflict they're struggling with, and the way you help them resolve that conflict will influence their storylines; the game tells you when you're about to make one of those decisions, and you get some extra explaination as to what this option means.

  The Bad Things

  Okay, so that's all very, very nice. Transformative. Revolutionary. Sadly, Arcadia Fallen... fell a bit behind on other things while pursuing this incredible endavour. Even though the writing is good - especially the dialogue between the characters, with sass, bonds blossoming in spite of animosity, hidden depths, internal conflicts - the characters themselves feel a little... unexplored? Undeveloped? Out of 4 romancible characters, only one I'd call well-developed (talking about Michael). Kaidan's story just kind of... cuts off in the middle, right after I've decided to romance him. Victoria is incredibly flat and boring, and the last one... there are moments where she tries to be an interesting character, but in the end also fails. Even the ending comes kind of... out of nowhere? It's sudden, it's strange, it's over way too fast. I feel like the production got a little rushed towards the end. Also, if you're used to getting lots of scene pictures when playing a VN... you won't get many here. I don't think there are any, in fact. Even the amount of character poses is a little low, especially considering that they sometimes do not correctly express the character's mental state. Michael in particular has a very wide range of emotions, and the game simply does not show his darkest moments correctly, I feel.

  Conclusion

  Luckily, the voice actors do amazing work bringing the characters to life. Michael, Kaidan, the male protagonist and Ronan all are excellent, and Mime's pretty cool too. The female characters, however, aren't interesting enough to romance in my opinion. And you can't romance Mime, so don't even try. But even with all those issues, I think the game is absolutely groundbreaking. I trusted in my beliefs and my friends alike, and the adventure we got through truly was worthy of a song. Not many games succeed in making you feel like the victory is yours. Not your character's, not the guide writer's, but yours. Isn't that nice? How about you find that out yourself, and play Arcadia Fallen. Curator Page
• gamedeal user

  Nov 21, 2021

  In my time, I've played more than a few visual novels. I feel no shame for that aside for the sheer volume of them all. I'm sure the next line more than a few would expect me to use would be "So, in comparison to-" or "On a scale of how this rates-", but I won't, because that's not the point of a review. A review is for marking out all of somethings virtues and sins, and if you're on the fence about getting this game or not those generic comparisons are less than helpful, so I'd appreciate it greatly if you'd take a moment to read my overly wordy ramblings, please. Now reviews being reviews, opinions will always play into it, so I'll say this now, I loved this game. Which is why I'm taking this time to speak out for it, because I'll be honest. I loved it, I loved the characters, the plot, the mechanics, the art, all of it, I loved this game. I won't try to sell you something like "This is the best game I've ever played" or something meaninglessly hyperbolic. I just... genuinely enjoyed my time with it, any complaints I'd have with it are honestly nothing when looking back on the experience as a whole. But I'd like to try to put my feelings about it into words. The biggest point I'd award this game, would be for it's characters because, at least for the main cast, I loved them all, every single one. I need you to consider for a moment what that means, for every *single* romance option in a visual novel game, to be genuinely delightful or lovable in every way? There wasn't a single unlikable thing about them to me, every single one made me want to start a new save and romance them. Even without romance playing into it, becoming friends with them was honestly just fun to me. They are all amazingly well written, lovingly crafted, and beautifully voice acted characters. I *hate* VA in stories like this, because it always forces this singular over simplified version of the character to the forefront, but not this time, every single actor did an incredible job portraying the full depths of their character, without losing any of their personality in the interpretation. Even without that, every character is so life like and well written, they were genuinely a joy to get to know, and to watch as they interact with each other, to see how their personalities, their ideals, and their prejudices clash and intertwine, that alone was worth the price of admission for me, if there was an animated series of just the party being the party, I would shell out way too much money just to watch it. Basically I'd simp for every single one of the party members with no regrets. Now as for the story, you'll note this is by far the shortest section, because the setting isn't all that uncommon, but even still I enjoyed it a lot. It was no masterpiece of course, very few stories are flawless, but it did a great job of making you feel invested in what was happening, and like your characters choices, their thoughts, and feelings, were all integral pieces to how it unfolds. It made me *want* to save the day, to become the hero, even through doubts, fears, and roadblocks. The game play segments were some of my favorite parts, in what is basically a digital picture book, the mini-game that should've just been filler, was just way too fun for what it was. The main game play mechanic is a simple alchemy mini-game that is more or less a 3 piece slide puzzle. This is obviously nothing in in scope like an atelier game, it's just a quick little puzzle you flip through, but then it starts giving you these challenges, and you get more story and background for one of the best characters as you go through it's completion, until before you realize it, you can't wait til you unlock the next ingredient and set of recipes because you've already perfected all of the previous ones. It's just, fun, it satisfies my brain in a way that it, what is basically a more complex children's puzzle, really shouldn't. it even plays into the main story and side quests in unexpected ways "Oh what's that pretty florist? you needed an alchemical solution to your problem? Why, I have one of those in my bag right now!" I just... it's a good game dude, I know it has a pretty high price for a VN, I get it, but I loved it lots. Is the price worth it? For you? no idea, that's not something anyone could tell you, but for me? 100% yes.
• gamedeal user

  Mar 20, 2023

  The short version is, if you like otome games and you like fantasy settings, you should absolutely get this game. It's very fun and sweet, albeit a little short, but worth your coin! Also if you want to see more otome games where you can customize the MC, please support this one to show it's what the people want! (and hopefully encourage others like it) The Good: - The art style is very unique and pleasing to look at, and the designs are excellent as well. - This is 90% fully voice acted, and the performances are outstanding; they invested well on hiring actual professionals and it really shows. I wish more western otome games would do this! - The story and lore are very engaging. I would be interested in an epilogue or sequel dlc of some kind. (maybe with nsfw content? HINT HINT?) - The writing is excellent, from a literary standpoint. The dialogue is great, you get an excellent sense of voice and tone via written dialogue. - CHARACTER. CUSTOMIZATION. I love otome games, but I get so tired of playing the same white girl with mousy brown hair, and it's so hard to find otome games that let you fully customize your character. It really adds to the immersion and experience (and it's great that you can even play as a guy too!) - I really like the added element of the puzzles. Sometimes otome games can start feeling monotonous, and I'm glad they put the puzzles in there to help keep things fresh. The Neutral: - It would be nice to have some nsfw content. I know no one wants to do it, but there's a huge niche/gap in the market for otome games with nsfw content, and this could have done with some. Like I noted earlier, maybe the devs would consider some optional nsfw dlc? (For reference, there's HIGH demand for this: a recent survey done among otome game players found that nearly 60 percent of them wanted fully written and pictured nsfw content in their games) The Bad: (these are minor things, not dealbreakers) - There are almost no CGs in this. You get 1 romantic scene, but it's not a true CG in that it doesn't take up the whole screen, it's just a closeup of you and the route's character. There's a few other "scenes" like this that are non-romantic. This is probably my biggest disappointment of the game, but I'm guessing they wanted to concentrate their finances and resources on things like voice acting, which I understand. But it still is a bummer, as I'm used to more CGs than that. Maybe it's something they can change in any potential sequels or dlc. - Some of the backing tracks did not loop properly, and you could hear them stopping, a silent pause, and then the song would start back up again. It wasn't seamless. - I have only done Michael's route so far, so maybe he's the only one with this problem, but, it's bizarre to me that like 80% of his lines are voiced, except for then he says he loves you. That seems like a pretty big oversight? In most otome games this is like the height of the route and it's always voiced. I'll report back if Kaiden has this problem, too. - It would be nice to have a rewind feature for trying different options without having to use save files. - The names are all extremely common English names (Victoria, Michael, Ann, etc), which can cause problems with you having the same name as another character (this happened to me and caused a lot of awkward lines that took me out of the story). This could have been easily avoided by giving them some random fantasy-type names, but for whatever reason this wasn't done. So yea, none of those are dealbreakers, like I said. I still very much enjoyed the game and would recommend it. Michael = best boi
• gamedeal user

  Feb 22, 2023

  I ended up refunding this game after about 2 hours of play. While it has an interesting look thanks to its fun art design, great character customization options, and a really interesting world, I just didn't feel "hooked" by the game. The writing feels very "YA fantasy novel about evil bureaucrats and townsfolk oppressing poor magic users who are an allegory for whatever form of -ism you wish to address" and the characters are incredibly tropey. Plus, the gameplay was honestly very dull - the alchemy turn-wheel mechanic gets old by the fifth time I'm doing it in order to fight a monster and the "roleplaying" out dialogue apparently doesn't matter at all when it comes to determining the course of the story. Heck, it apparently doesn't even matter to determining your ending, which dissuaded me from playing the game further. I just don't think this game was worth the $25 I paid for it. Maybe if it went on a steep sale, I would consider it again... but overall, I found the visual pleasant, the world-building interesting, but the writing prosaic, the gameplay boring and static, and the characters dull.
• gamedeal user

  May 11, 2023

  3/5 would buy again in sale for 12€ solid adventure/fantasy setting ++ androgynous body option for the MC with they pronoun made my day, thank you so much! + the save from the demo ends with chapter 2 and can be used for the purchased game, which is great + voice acting was brilliant and the biggest surprise for me + the writing is perfect; everything you could think of as player is mentioned by the cast and you really have the feeling of your choices mattering - well done! ~ the world building and characters was solid; I really love in game lore and wanted to know so much more about the old gods or the "outlanders" like Kaidan but maybe that is one of the perks of Arcadia Fallen - it does focus on the adventure ahead and is not getting sidetracked but leaves you with a curiosity to come back and explore more ~ the alchemy mini game missed a good tutorial; ingame you have to use try & error to produce the "fertiliser" and I just didn't get that on my own. I hate using walkthroughs on my first playthrough but here it was really needed - if you click on the right mousebutton the alchemy disks rotate counterclockwise: that's not mentioned anywhere and critical to achieve a lot of potions with exploding ingredients ~ music and effects where much louder than the voices (to the point where you can't understand a word), but it can be changed in the options individually so it's okay - it is definitively not an otome; the romance with kaidan was 3 text boxes long (hand holding, kissing) and you can totally ignore this aspect of the game it only changes like one line in the epilogue (where your alchemist wents after the "end") - the ending felt rushed; I think it was a nice touch to have the bard tell it but I missed an artwork or just a scetch or anything to illustrate the last chapter - the later chapters where a lot shorter than the first ones, which did leave the strange impression of the game getting finished to fast
• gamedeal user

  Nov 21, 2021

  This is a very well made Visual Novel. It negates many of the things that usually irk me about the genre and finds solutions to them. For example. You actually get to decide what your character says! And not just "occasionally." Basically any time you are talked to directly you get to choose how to respond and there a number of different personality types for you shape your character with. Another thing that this game does right that usually bugs me in other VN's is that: the other characters actually have relationships and conversations with each other, sometimes without your character even having an input. It makes the world and characters feel much more real and alive, and not like they are all just swarming to you because you are the protagonist. The voice acting is also stellar. Like, better than some AAA titles I've played. They felt like real people more than characters and were (Mostly) all likable and even the one I didn't like was still believable. Character creation is a bonus though I wish it had more options. Background music is varied and pleasant enough that it doesn't drive you crazy. There's even a couple tracks when things get pretty harry that are good. Two complaints. One, the main story is a bit cliche. Save the world. But the characters carry it well enough and they each have their own motivation for being there and their own personal interests that are bigger than "Well, If I wasn't here, bad things would happen." They are all goal driven and have their own wants and needs and flaws. My other complaint is that my FAVORITE character, Mime, is not a romance option. I have not complete the game yet (currently about 70% done) so their might be a story reason for it, but I'd be lying if I wasn't majorly bummed out when I discovered this, so much to the point where I had to stop playing for the night when I found out... That being said, I do really recommend the game. It has too many things done well, done REALLY well, to ignore if you are into the genre. It's probably the most enjoyable VN I've played since VA-11 Hall-A.
• gamedeal user

  Jan 18, 2023

  In visual novels, there is often a "one true route", that requires you to hum and haw at your choices and maybe choose things you normally wouldn't for the sake of a smoother gameplay experience. Arcadia Fallen is not that type of game. Arcadia Fallen is written and designed in such a way that you can be 100% yourself. You don't have to worry about missing flags to romance who you want, you have choice and autonomy in how you want to solve things and the direction you want to influence the game in. It's beautifully written, the world is fantastical, the characters are detailed and interesting and the voice acting adds an extra layer of depth (HEARING your romantic interest FLIRT WITH YOU is a completely different experiences from other visual novel style games I've played, my toes have not uncurled yet). Wonderful game, highly recommend!
• gamedeal user

  May 10, 2022

  What a truly charming game! - Short and sweet, well worth the money. - It's clear that a lot of love and hard work went into it, and it damn well shows. - The music, the art and every little character interaction filled me with joy. - The puzzles are a bit easy but fun and not too repetitive. - The MANY different dialog options, each with their own clear intent (emotional label?), made it SOOO easy to navigate the right response, and built my own character's personality. - Lastly, having the option to choose both your body type and pronouns, was a nice touch! as a nonbinary individual, I feel seen <3 However... I did encounter a few problems. - the voice acting is a bit inconsistent. Some lines are loud and some (like most of Quinn's), too quiet. There are also a few cases where the subtitles don't match what's being said, and lastly the line delivery is often quite slow with many unnecessary pauses. - character stills worked great until the flower festival, where my character would sometimes switch appearance, and this continued on and off until the end of the game (shirt and eyes switched to green) (I played as androgynous) overall, a super enjoyable game, though. I couldn't recommend this enough and I'm truly so excited to see what the future brings! (hopefully a second installment! I'd be a happy costumer <3)