Soulslayer
released on Jul 13, 2017
An exciting advanture in a story of ancient Chinese setting.Visual Novel with multiple endings to explore.
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Yao Xiu is the eldest daughter of Yao Hongyuan, the Chief of Justice. Years ago, the poor scholar won an important military victory that propelled him to nobility, without acknowledging his former marriage and baby daughter. Yao Xiu thus enters the picture after Hongyuan had remarried and gained two new children. Even years after this scandal, there's plenty of tension and jealousy in the Yao house as Xiu's marriage steadily approaches.
And then Yao Xiu gets poisoned and dies. A spirit on the next plane of existence decides to give Yao Xiu three chances, and only three chances, to find her killer and prevent her death. She can't afford to dilly dally or goof around: she must use her wits and intelligence to uncover the scheming around her and catch the true culprit masterminding her demise.
As far as time loop detective stories go, the three loop limit adds a really interesting spin. Since you only have three chances, its in your best interest to pursue one suspect on each playthrough rather than run around the whole map. That information won't carry over to Yao Xiu on your next playthrough, but you'll personally have a greater understanding of the characters. Completing a character's route nets you different endings, where you get to see the more vulnerable moments of a suspect's life and how that plays into their modern personality. As such, the mystery almost seems less important than just learning about this cast of characters. And I'm alright with that! It helps that each suspect also throws different swerves to the greater mystery, interrupting different schemes and forcing other characters to improvise and confuse the player more. It adds a nice sense of chaos to the narrative that benefits the story's need for lots of deaths.
For all the endings you can get for dying, my one regret is that there isn't a lot of variation in the final dealing with the True Culprit. I would've liked to see how trying to report them or warn others would have gone, even if it failed. But really there's only one option ahead of you and the game ends quickly once you've solved everything.
Honestly though, its just a really enjoyable three hour mystery game. Saltytata Studios has labelled the game "Episode 1" of a series, but they seem to have largely stuck to dating sims as their output. Even then, the ambitious storytelling here makes me curious to take a peak into their other works to see if it keeps up this interesting character work.
And then Yao Xiu gets poisoned and dies. A spirit on the next plane of existence decides to give Yao Xiu three chances, and only three chances, to find her killer and prevent her death. She can't afford to dilly dally or goof around: she must use her wits and intelligence to uncover the scheming around her and catch the true culprit masterminding her demise.
As far as time loop detective stories go, the three loop limit adds a really interesting spin. Since you only have three chances, its in your best interest to pursue one suspect on each playthrough rather than run around the whole map. That information won't carry over to Yao Xiu on your next playthrough, but you'll personally have a greater understanding of the characters. Completing a character's route nets you different endings, where you get to see the more vulnerable moments of a suspect's life and how that plays into their modern personality. As such, the mystery almost seems less important than just learning about this cast of characters. And I'm alright with that! It helps that each suspect also throws different swerves to the greater mystery, interrupting different schemes and forcing other characters to improvise and confuse the player more. It adds a nice sense of chaos to the narrative that benefits the story's need for lots of deaths.
For all the endings you can get for dying, my one regret is that there isn't a lot of variation in the final dealing with the True Culprit. I would've liked to see how trying to report them or warn others would have gone, even if it failed. But really there's only one option ahead of you and the game ends quickly once you've solved everything.
Honestly though, its just a really enjoyable three hour mystery game. Saltytata Studios has labelled the game "Episode 1" of a series, but they seem to have largely stuck to dating sims as their output. Even then, the ambitious storytelling here makes me curious to take a peak into their other works to see if it keeps up this interesting character work.