Visual Novels - because insomnia builds character.

Saturday, March 31, 2007

At Summer's End


At Summer's End is the second doujin game I played, after Narcissu. It is a short sweet little (non-fantasy) story with a few choices that do not affect the plot. The plot revolves around a boy and a girl who are long time friends. This story won't change your life but is fun and short to play over a cup of tea.

Graphics - The backgrounds are very professional looking while the character style looks a bit amateur. This is easy to get used to and the art has a bit of whimsy charm to it. The colors are bright and colorful to match the light story. Each scene also has a sketched opening image with a title. 7/10

Music/SFX - The music is also mostly light and cheery but there is a very nice slower song as well. It is simple but very nicely matched to the story. The sound effects consist mostly of punching and crickets. There are no voices. The sound effect are not of high quality (and the crickets get annoying) but they are not bad either. 8/10

Story - Like all other aspects of this game, quite simple but solid. The plot is well built but predictable. A happy ending. 7/10

System/Extras - This is an ONScripter release. For all of you who can't figure out why I bother to say that it is because ONScripter games happily run on English OS's while most others require tweaking. They also tend to be multi-platform instead of Window$ only. The interface is much nicer than the average doujin game. It includes all the standard features of a visual novel and some of the features I've only seen in commercial games, such as Quicksave/load, thumbnails, and a detailed options menu. The extras were the standard CG mode and music mode (the tracks had names which was quite nice). 5/5

Overall - A nice, light, little game. Worth the time spent on it. Enjoy it for what it is.

Score - 27/35 - 77% - average



1 comment:

Jon Fawkes said...

I agree with this review. It's a good game, short, but it's got a really nice interface.