itch.io

This is one of the hardest May Wolf VNs for me to review so far. It's really good but like Everyone is Asleep(and for similar reasons), I'm not sure how to put my thoughts on it into words. But I'm gonna try cause it deserves so much praise. Kali is a really compelling character, and the way he meets El in every world is so bittersweet. So much of what happens to the two of them is senseless and tragic and yet they still make meaning out of it all. The conversation about movies really strikes a chord when you look back on it after learning more about Kali. The concept is wonderful for exploring grief and humanity. It raises the question of what makes you you in a way that I will be thinking about for ages. The art style is simple and charming and serves to establish this well, especially given it's slightly different in every world.

However, I don't believe it fit the theme very well. I assume Kali is named after the Hindu goddess, but I'm not sure how that connects to the plot at all, and it's not really explicated anywhere. El having the names of biblical angels is more clear, but it doesn't do that much to build a folkloric theme. The advice Kali's mother gave him could also be folklore but it seems more like a mnemonic to remember important advice than stories. The story the first El tells Kali is also folklore and that's interesting, but there's so much disparate elements/folkloric references that it didn't feel like any one was particularly important.

But I really enjoyed this one and it definitely gets a high rating overall. 

This is the may wolf I've enjoyed the most of the ones this year. It would get judge's pick if that were an accolade I could bestow.  The art is really really good, both the sprites and backgrounds, and creating the conlang in a month is really impressive, especially with how much work went into the other aspects. It scratches the shonen anime itch very well. The use of folklore and the alternate definitely fits the theme and this was one of the things I like most about it: The use of mythology for telling modern and very grounded human stories is something I adore. However, I do have some negative critiques as well. In some areas, the pacing is somewhat off, there are many sentences with jarring grammar errors, and Codie was not particularly interesting to me. 

But I shall start with more detail on the good:

Using the format of an isekai to explore how Kameron is pressured by his position in the real world and what he does when the context is changed is smart writing. It's a good use of that trope, and the introspection he does and his decision to choose to love life and be authentic when he has to go back are heart-warming and powerful. I like that he was prepared to find happiness and love with someone else, and that resolution was absolutely necessary for the ending to work. It puts Ryley and Kameron on the same footing in terms of their desires and needs for the first time and their relationship is all the more powerful for it. 

Which brings me to Ryley's character arc: He'd be a minor antagonist in the plot Eugene, Lou, and Saya are in, the jerky rival who'd do anything to get ahead and who you have to beat despite him cheating. There'd be a tense fight and then he probably wouldn't be important after Eugene beats him. But because they aren't the focal characters and we focus on him and Kameron, we get to see what's behind that kind of character: Frustrated pride, loneliness, and misery. It really sells that all these shonen archetypical characters are people with their own needs, wants, and lives, which is generally something the VN excels at. I'm also a big fan of the way Ryley chooses happiness and optimism after Kameron abandons him. It would be easy for him to sink into rage and depression because of the perception that Kameron betrayed him, but he doesn't do that, proving that he isn't so selfish as he seems. Kameron and Ryley mirror each other in this way: Both are faced with the temptation to wallow in their anger and sadness, and they choose happiness anyway. I absolutely adore both their character arcs.

I also just want to touch again on the amount of creativity and work that went into this. The conlang is very impressive, and the sketchy dreamlike style of the backgrounds helps sell the vibes of an alternate world. You clearly put a lot of thought and effort into the art and set design. It makes the VN that much better. The dynamism of Kameron and Ryley's sprites is very charming. The tournament scene at the end was impressive with the comic style cut ins and presentation. I especially liked the scene where Ryley and Eugene were squaring up to fight each other, and we got the close up on their eyes. 

Another thing I want to elaborate on is the VN showing that all these shonen archetypes are people with their own needs and lives. Everything gets turned on its head after the hot spring. Eugene is not a jerk. He's been helping Lou out with surviving and has his own perspective that clashes with Kameron's but is entirely understandable. Lou was also going through his own romance. While we don't see much of it, it's clear that it was important to him and he has had revelations just like Kameron did. And Saya is much more than being defined as just Lou's girlfriend. She has her relationship with Eugene, her own job and life, and is one of the more active characters in the story. There's a sense that we've only scratched her surface. Eugene also proves himself to be surprisingly complex.  His simultaneous grudging respect for Ryley while also not wanting to be there to see Ryley officially be declared the winner of the tournament is human and quite compelling. 

However, this does unfortunately lead to the negative critiques I have. There's nothing like that with Codie. He came across to me as more of a plot device than anything; someone who can translate and explain some things to the reader without that responsibility falling to Ryley since that would mean some revelations occur too soon. He is defined by that role and as Ryley's friend without indication of much else going on there. This isn't particularly a problem for me since not every character can be fully developed, particularly in the scope of a game jam, but the story overall would have been elevated if Codie were more his own person. 

I also wish some of the quiet introspective moods lasted longer. I love Kameron's introspective nature and wish we got a bit more time with that side of him, particularly at the end when he and Ryley are both confronting their demons. The story would benefit from more time to breathe and unclench in the quiet intervals between the training and the character drama. However, I do still enjoy the quiet moments we have and it would be difficult to expand those in the context of a game jam, so I don't mind too much. 

The one thing that really jarred me was errors in the sentence structure that were fairly frequent. The VN has many comma splices and sentence fragments that routinely disrupted things as I read it. I generally feel that it's best to avoid those, but it also hurts this story in particular since there are moments when sentence fragments are used for a specific effect: The montage of Kameron training Ryley and the tournament itself. If those scenes were the only ones where phrases are short and choppy, and sentences run into each other, it would convey a sense of action and urgency. But as it stands, they aren't particularly offset from the rest of the VN because it's not a writing mode unique to those scenes. The writing would be much better if that contrast existed.

Overall though, I really liked this one. It's also a dramatic improvement over Horn and Fang. I liked that one but this blows it out of the water in terms of character, plot, visual presentation, storytelling, and theming. Keep up the great work, Fuze!

Being totally honest, I didn't particularly like this one. The art is really good and it definitely fits the theme of the jam, but overall it feels a little generic. The prose is okay, but it's very exposition heavy and the overall structure of the plot falls very flat.  Cardigan and Armoredpossum said everything I think already so I'm just seconding those statements. The sex feels out of nowhere and not sufficiently built up even for a game that is just porn. it's also not very well written and a lot of Solus's thoughts and dialogue take me out of the experience. The references to how male Lucius is don't really work. 

I enjoyed this a lot. Not quite my thing, but very well executed and written, and the theme was implemented very well. 

I didn't really like this one to be entirely honest. It seemed merely fine to me, not good or bad. The character drama of the arranged marriage doesn't really get the time to breathe. It may have worked better if it escalated to real conflict instead of the small amount of sniping about the holiday. There's not much here to hold attention and the pace is a little too fast. It would have been better if it lingers a little more in each individual scene. I'm giving it 3/5 stars on the categories because it's relatively well-executed and certainly not bad but in my opinion it isn't particularly compelling either. 

I liked everything up to the point where Angler gets the phone and starts talking to Otsoa. The narration, visual presentation/art and character work for them prior to that is stellar and I really like the exploration of the quiet longing and loneliness of deep sea creatures. But Otsoa themself felt a little superfluous to me because their conversations with Angler felt a little stilted and overly drawn out. The only important thing they really did was give Angler a name and then be removed from the story. I was much more interested in Angler's internality and the exploration of the deep ocean than I was in Otsoa. I also don't feel that it implemented the theme well at all or really had a wolf. Otsoa of course technically meets that criteria by being a wolf, but in practice their nature does not matter and any nocturnal land creature would have worked just as well for this. The references to folklore are also sparse: It's only the name Otsoa and the other possible options they give. None of the really affects the plot.

However, the art here is really really good, and I like what was done with the lighting. Having it be dark for the majority of the VN really sold the idea of the crushing and bleak ocean. It also offset the moments with light, particularly the end, and made them much more impactful. 

I'm echoing what Purkka said. Their critique sums up everything I want to say. I like the idea of this plot, of being about growing up and embracing identity, and the inherent difficulty of coming out as bi to your partner but it fell a little flat for me. The rapidly changing point of view between the characters and the somewhat abrupt ending made it difficult to follow. Also, the folklore doesn't feel important to what's going on here. It felt mostly like an excuse to explore a neat old house than actually being important to the plot. Overall, it was just all over the place and nothing really clicked with me.  The character drama also gets resolved too quickly, with the exception of Anna and Fede's conflict which I feel was too open ended. It felt like half of the final scene is just missing. I actually doublechecked the dev log to see if the script wasn't finished in time because the ending was so jarring to me. 

That said, the art was very good and gave me a solid indication of the vibes of each character. I just wish we had more of the style used for the flashbacks. 

I don't really have any words for this, other than that this communicates the raw emotion of depression, grief, and anxiety so very well. The rough sketchy black and white that is never still fits this perfectly and I'm left reeling from the end.  It was depressing, but also cathartic. I'm not entirely sure what, if anything in it, was real. I cant tell if things were really disappearing, or if they never were at all, and this will be on my mind for ages. 5 stars across the board. 

To say I am blown away by this would be an enormous understatement. 5 stars all around. Val and Lilah's relationship takes center stage of course, and I love their character arcs and the confession scene at the end. I got really emotional. But all of it is amazing. I like how grounded it is in the experience of being a young adult in the United States. So much of this is painfully relatable even as it's unique to these characters. The uncertainty, the pressure of performance that we all go through, it's so well portrayed here. 

I love that so much of this is framed by the in universe camera. Also love the expectation subversion with the void opening giving way to a bombastic youtube style opening. The artistic presentation really makes this, and the art style is so stylized while at the same time incredibly grounded. I really really really like this.

I also love that it's somewhat ambiguous if the monsters really were just a dream or not. The line between the reality and the fantasy of it is blurred and that's my jam so I adore it. Fucking excellent job. 

Overall, I found this cute and enjoyed reading it.

Implementation of theme:

I concur with armored possum that it might be overcovered on the folklore aspect. What we get is really interesting, but I struggled a bit to keep track of it all as I was going through. The history of the town and werewolves and Ezath all came at me rapid fire, and I wish it had been worked in a bit more slowly. That's because I like it though, and I'm interested in hearing more. 

Story/writing/creativity:

I'm lumping all of these together because my thoughts about them all go together. I'm gonna break from everyone else and say that I didn't particularly like the story. It felt to me like it was just everything you'd expect from a werewolf story. It was a well-done version of it, and Abel is cute, but nothing was particularly innovative or interesting. I found Birdie and Leda more compelling than either of the leads. 

Presentation: 

The art here is really impressive and carries it for me. Abel's sprites are adorable and the way Mitch's body slowly changes in the CG as he transforms is really good. The art style also fits the dark fantasy tone of the story so the plot and art are integrated very cleanly. 

Conclusion: Overall, I think this was very well done. As far as writing a werewolf story, it's well-executed and done competently, but it didn't feel particularly novel. That is a matter of taste for me though. I would personally have preferred a different take on werewolves, but for the story you set out to write you did an excellent job.