Developer: SIGONO INC
Store Link: Steam, Nintendo, Xbox
Genre: Action Adventure
Release: July 27, 2021
The draw of visual novel games stem from the depth of their characters, and the breadth of their storytelling. Most of the JP market is filled with VNs, it's where the genre has prospered the most, some countries tried their own versions of it, experimenting even with different things. South Korea is trying too to be subversive on something Japan popularized. Then there's a Taiwanese studio, trying to turn it into a 3D adventure game and a visual novel with the 3D animation.
One thing this game accomplishes is turning it into a journey, a sense of journey that creates a lengthy story with characters having developments, depth, and great world-building that makes you care about what you're playing. And the story itself is grueling, sad, that taps really well into the flawed aspects while trying to create a wholesome story about two leads trying to accomplish their life goals.
Even with its misleading look at first, it was not a cheery game to play. It had ways of making you feel like there's this presence of hardship that got in the way by making the game less easy to play, adding well to the themes of the game's overarching story.
In the post-war age of space exploration, a lot of wounds have been left open from various factions, key among them was the East Ocean faction, where a clan heir who is now an outcast is now out looking for untouched Lumen caves along with his guardian, Kai. Jun has made his quest to restore his clan's honor by finding these lost caves and restoring mining rights and ownership from the space overlords, United Mining. On his quest, he stumbles upon a girl his age, with the same quest as he is, following a lead on some intel she collected, unfortunately he finds out that intel could be a trap, like the good Samaritan that he is, he goes to warn her.
Eda and her crewmate, Remi, are on their own quest to find her lost master that has taken care of her. Being a witch and dealing with the persecution as other witches are, Eda is fighting for a peaceful life against a space dynasty that has their way with life after a gruesome war.
After Jun and Eda meet up, the story finally sets foot, taking both of them to lost places of the world, finding history about the galaxy's inhabitants, and escaping from danger when they can.
Lumen is a luminous goop of spiritual habitation, which often speaks in singing tune. These are resources that serve as the main economy of the game's world, one which everybody is crazy about. But there's a lot of story being shared in this game regarding the different people you interact with, they'll reveal wonderful and substantial story bits, and historical info drops that adds more immersion to the world.
There are times you have to make dialogue choices where you have to guess if it'll work out or not, there are times you also pull roll on beating odds for a better outcome of the choice, something similar to Disco Elysium.
The artstyle helps imbue you into the vastness of space, a great mix of 3D effects on top of 2D backgrounds. There's a lot to do in this game that keeps you busy from having to explore different stations, asteroid mining sites, planets, and so on. You're also a scavenger, so you deal with various threats across the galaxy while looking for items to loot in uncovered or abandoned areas. It would be a case of adding gameplay filler for the story, but most of what is done here adds to the immersion of the narrative. It's pretty well done in this regard.
The game, despite how much light you'll see at the end of the planet, relinquishing away the sad sense of despair ends bittersweet, and that is pretty ballsy for a game based on a tragic setting with hope sprinkled over it.
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Half of the storytelling from this interactive VN comes from the gameplay itself, there's a lot to do. Outside the basic mundane chore of exploring different sectors of space, and finding caves to loot, there are chance encounters of both the bad and good kind, good kind if your decisions lead to getting rewards.
All these experiences are connected with the character's plight, because not everything is as it seems, there are times I had to make the best decisions out of a situation I didn't fully grasp, but often times making decisions based on my years of playing and my instincts alone actually got me rewarded more times than I could count. As if the game is encouraging me to have faith despite the odds thrown at them. And some of these good deeds are often times recognized in the story as well.
But putting those aside, the main storytelling happens around the cave exploration missions, there are puzzles that need you to sync for opening pathways, none of these are difficult and challenging to figure, just requiring you to, I believe, understanding basic geometry. One of the leading characters, Jun, being a runner, get caught into the intense aura of the Lumen sometimes, and get flashbacks to the past. There's no gameplay element requiring you to remember these bits of the story, as it does help you catch up eventually, moments like these capture the main allure that this game has.
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Selling loot is the only way to keep yourself going in space, as you'll need gas, armor, and explore kits to utilize during the voyage. Perils of space exploration creeps up depending on the story branch you're at or the sector you're traveling in. I can say for a fact that dying in this game is pretty possible, from losing oil completely, drifting into space, to one bad choice away from having your ship blow up.
I like how much the studio have invested in this game to be a very immersive narrative experience. The production quality even to the music creates this semi-fledged mainstream game, a lot of it really sticks with you to the end. The voice acting exists in 3 languages: Japanese, Simplified Chinese, and Traditional Chinese. I of course played the Japanese one, and really holds up. There are few games that exist, bringing such a pedigree from an Asian developer, as a published indie game.
Thanks for reading this out, I thought that since there's so many games to check out, I'd write about the early released ones too. I am planning on tackling much older games later on. And I thought I'd start off with this amazing game, man, the Taiwanese game industry is finally getting its mark on the map. This would probably be my 3rd Taiwan game post.