Scarlet Heels is a horror mystery visual novel that follows Marion, a private investigator who uncovers the mystery behind the disappearance of several girls from the dance school. The story is written with mystery in mind and the art style uses noir and pictograms as representation of the visual part of the story.

Story and Art:

The visual novel is well written with has no issues and has sufficient enough content to tell the entire story while having a solid direction from the start. The depiction of the story with the noir stylized art is really effective and helps captivating the idea of a mystery genre. The use of pictograms to represent part of the story work really well in simplifying the visual needs of the story and gives the reader an immediate sense of who and what is happening at the moment. Good use of ADV and NVL dialogs since it creates a sense of transition between scenes and forwarding time in the story. The dialogs between the two main character Marion and Charles were smooth flowing and natural with a good sense of distinguishable identity and their relationship on the matter. The depiction of the victims through a painted artistic manner gives both the feel of horror as well as beauty, something that isn't easy to explain in words. The audio used pair well with the entire visual novel while the climatic segment had its own track that sends chills down ones's spine.

Theme:

(Spoiler Alert! Start)The theme that was picked is conservation of energy which is acceptable in this context since it was described how the victims are drained of bodily fluids (a resource for the magical plant) and becoming dried husks. Besides that the game does feature a magical girl, albeit for a short moment during the climax segment, where the missing girl, Hazel, was able to grow the life draining vines engulfing the entire house which can be identified as a magical girl powers(Spoiler Alert! End).

Overall:

Its a good short horror mystery that could be expanded on further since the story ends in a manner than writes off the mystery for lunch.

The writing for this story is very good:  I got strong film noir vibes from it, the characters are presented well with distinct personalities and voices, and characters were interesting. The visual part of the visual novel is mixed: sometimes there are pictures of the characters (which do a good job at showing who they are representing), but sometimes there are not, and the lack of those pictures puzzles me. I know that visual novels don't always have to show pictures for everything, but sometimes I felt like there should have been a picture, and there wasn't. The red flowers and Hazel's scene were done well, and the creepy music that accompanies the latter scene was on point.

The alternate ending choice is unimpressive and feels tacked-on. Had there been more choices in the story leading up to that point it may have made more sense.

In summary, the story is good but the mechanics that make a visual novel a unique medium need to be better fleshed out.

Very interesting read! The writing and dialogue was all good. I enjoyed the art style, the black and white with accents of red was very effective.

The music was excellent, and the big scene towards the end was great!

I can't say that I understood it all at the end, but maybe that's both intentional and for the best! Regardless, like was a really good visual novel. Great work!

I really enjoyed this mystery. Great atmosphere, and really effective timing!

That was a nice creepy little mystery, though I must admit I don't quite understand the (either) ending.

Only problem is even maxed out the text speed was a bit slow for me :)