"All That Ales Yew" is an ambitious VN with strong ties to the fantasy genre and I enjoyed seeing what kind of magic its world has to offer. These are what I consider the highlights:
Art:
- Breathtakingly beautiful BGs. I love to scan for the little details in this VN. Such as the café has so many cat shaped decorations in it and the wallpaper is a cute touch. I'm so happy that there is actually a full view of Ronin's dishes on the table, where the artist doesn't even need to draw it this elaborately, but who doesn't appreciate gorgeous food art?
- Very memorable unique character designs. The heroine caught my attention on the game cover, but Hattori, Ronin, and Mistress got eye-catching designs too.
- The CGs are heart-warming.
Story:
- The intro is the instant mood-setter and makes you wonder what this game is about.
- Game-y elements of choice prompts that gives off a true adventure feeling with a bit of the vibe of events in dungeon crawlers or RPGs. One example is whether you want to use the lantern or the knife. I had the suspicion that these have impact on the story but I wasn't sure, as I originally thought these were merely to get you immersed with different flavour texts without affecting the story which is common in a lot of VN. Even then, I appreciate them as it lets me pause in the story and ponder over what I would do in that situation. However during my playthrough it's only near the end where I triggered a fail state that allowed me to redo that 'character confrontation', so I thought that choices only mattered during that part. Later on I confirmed from the dev that actually nearly all prompts have an effect on the scenario, and that I by luck stumbled on the more ideal scenario, whereas a certain character could have a totally different fate. Gameplay like this is greatly appreciated and shows how much programming went into this VN.
- I can see that your team is really ambitious with the world-building and I applaud the efforts of trying to fit in such a complex story in a limited space. There is a compelling lore where you want to find out what exactly the Lost, Forgotten, and Voiceless are, and you learn this alongside the amnesiac MC. Mistress is very mysterious herself and I can't quite get a read on her.
Music:
- Very fitting RPG/fantasy style.