Visual Novels - because insomnia builds character.

Tuesday, July 24, 2007

A Winter's Tale

A Winter's Tale. A childhood friendship blooms into romance in this leisurely paced visual novel about a boy and girl in the depths of winter.
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Graphics - A mixed bag. The sprites are very nicely done. The clothing, expressions, and makeup change often and appropriately. The backgrounds, however, are varying. They are from the numerous free image collections available and range from nicely detailed illustrations to klutzy drawings to even photographs. Using stock backgrounds isn't uncommon but the mixed styles are irritating. 8/10

Music/SFX - The music is not outstanding but clean, varied, and appropriate to each scene and the piece as a whole. The ending theme is a fun vocal song that does not fit the piece in the slightest but was easily the best song in the game. The sound effects are the usual stock sounds and, as usual, are not adjusted for volume so they clash with the music a bit. 7/10

Story - Predictable to a fault and too long for such a piece. There is some drama but it is forced and has a predicable outcome. A Winter's Tale would be much more enjoyable if it had been condensed to only the main scenes. There is one choice but it only changes the ending conversation, not the result. 4.5/10

System/Extras - The system is a mixed bag. At first it appears to be a generic ONScripter release (bland menus) but the translators took some extra time to add in a footnote system for some of the Japanese terms and names used. The extras consist of a postscript which is mostly uninteresting. No cg mode (no CGs) and no music mode. 4/5

Score - 23.5/35 - 67% - mediocre

1 comment:

SSx said...

I liked the story, yeah it's a plain and classic story that we all have seen in other novels but it's still ok.
There is just 1 decision point with 2 options. I didn't like it because it didn't make a difference during the development of the story, just the end was altered in a way with no sense for me. There shouldn't be a decision point. Just follow one of the paths.