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In this entry, the closer to the end it is, the better it gets. I love what the endings provide for the story, but the journey to get there is comparatively lacking in both presentation, plot and writing.

Implementation of Theme: Besides the Mallorcan folklore reference with plenty of liberties taken, here, it is also present in the two “good endings” where the ragtag group were built a statue in honor of, and basically in a sense becoming the subject of a folktale. In one of the good endings (leaving the pair behind), it also demonstrates that small actions even if resulting in failure, makes a difference. Oriol’s character backstory also reflects the theme, as (if i remember correctly), he was influenced into the role of a knight by listening to stories about them. Regardless, the presence of folklore in the story felt much more stapled on at the end rather than the centerpiece, and for the majority of the plot, we don’t really feel the folklore at all because of that. However, referencing a real folktale definitely gets the entry extra points.

Story: The best part of the story is at the end where we can feel the effects of the main cast’s choices and actions; However the journey to get there is quite contrived: plot points get created whenever relevant (the part about a former member being under na Coca); and the character backstory felt shoehorned in for no reason (it’s so we can empathize with the character more, but the way it was brought up is too inconsequential that it just stops the current story beat for something else). A lot of the setup was also told instead of shown, especially since the bard’s spreading of stories seem to be extremely relevant to the endings. Furthermore, I felt like the VN starts awfully close to the end of the journey, so I didn’t get enough time to really get invested in the characters, creating a sense of being dragged along in the story instead. Regarding worldbuilding, as it references real folklore, I have no comments regarding that. The magic system screams DnD, but I’m a non-DnD-er so I felt like I understood less than I should’ve (does that make me a boomer, at least I know about the patron thing right…). To be fair, the story might not have the necessary word count to properly explain the system, and it might also prove harmful to the story’s pacing so I don’t really mind it that much. The endings are…alright, but I’m a bit confused about the timeline for the choice of leaving/fighting the pair. In both instances, they end up running anyway, just at different times. Logically to me, this should mean if they left the pair earlier they should’ve had enough time to set up the magic but then leaving later means the better ending instead? Idk man.

Presentation: The presentation is also lackluster, with some audio staying way past its welcome (the walking sfx keeps haunting me). Sprites also seem to have no variation, leading to a monotonous feeling when reading the plot. In that same department, the backgrounds felt like there were barely any differences, especially the two or three bgs with the same desert-y feels, just with different angles. The lack of CG also proved detrimental to what the story wanted to convey, as the climax of the story doesn’t feel emphasized as much as the rest of the story (which is less important). (Btw, is the choice of using a menu for socials intentional?). Furthermore, as possum has pointed out, two of the endings return an error, this is due to the variable only being created in one of the endings, therefore if you play the other paths, the variable doesn’t exist to be checked.

Writing: Writing is also patchy in some places, there are lines that flow awkwardly and wrong sentence structure, several grammatical errors, missing commas, etc… The descriptions, especially towards the end, are pretty good with plenty of descriptions (and also make me love the pair in the endings more than the main cast).

Creativity: Hard to judge, but I’d give points for the liberties taken to shape the folklore into the story. Regarding the plot and characters, the plot is like a simple RPG quest (which we basically only get a snapshot at the end), and the characters mostly acts in line with the class that they are i guess? Still, there was an attempt to make each character unique by adding a few traits of their own, so I respect that.

Rating: 4 - 2 - 2 - 3 - 4

P.S So what ur saying is, if I go on an adventure I will either die like Lambert or get a HOT WOLF MEN LOVER???? SIGN ME IN I LIKE MY ODDS.