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(1 edit) (+3)

I think this is an example of the whole being less than the sum of its parts.

First of all, in terms of visuals, it's hard not to think this went through some kind of troubled development. The artstyle changes abruptly after the first couple of minutes. I'm usually not one to complain for contrasting artstyles in FVN, I think that is part of the charm.

In this case specifically, however, I thought the art change was to the work's detriment, for two reasons:

- First, the way the art is used changes dramatically. In the first couple of minutes you get spoiled with a million CGs per second (with fanciful transitions too). Then, for most of the story, the VN becomes a classic case of "sprites + edited pictures for backgrounds".

- Secondly, while I enjoy both renditions of Warren's character, my mind cannot process them as the same character. It's not just that the artstyle is wildly different (I would be ok with that), it's that what the art is trying to communicate does not align at all: Warren shifts from being hot steaming buff wolfman, to being adorably cute puppy dogman. Both the artists did a fine job, but a coherent art direction was missing.

Also, I can't help but feel the story is trying to setup the tower as this beautifully whimsical place with that establishing shot, but then it doesn't really lives up to it in the rest of the story. With the exception of all the teleporting around, the tower after the establishing shot feels just like an old fashioned well furnished castle.

As far as the writing goes, the writing is competent but it did leave me unsatisfied in a couple of aspects. First of all, this VN suffers from a classic case of writing with some nice illustrations on top: IMHO I never takes the step of using the VN medium to its advantage. You could mostly remove all the visual elements, and this would read the same, the visuals feel superfluous.

Secondly, I think the writing could afford to be more daring. It seems like at every turn the safest choice was picked. For example, how do we establish the premise? Opening exposition dump. That, and a lot of description of furniture. With how simple the story in the end is, I think it could have been presented in a more interesting fashion.

Like I said, I think all team members did a fine job on their own, but possibly because of time constraints and trouble development the different parts didn't really enhance each other.