Adastra feels like exactly what it is; a much more lighthearted side project written to take a break from writing the literary behemoth that is Echo. Sure, lighthearted for EchoProject still includes a handful of emotionally distressing scenes, but they're in a much lesser number, intensity, and frequency when compared to something like Echo. In fact, I feel like this story is missing or weaker in a lot of the aspects I find particularly intriguing about Echo, but that kind of feels like that's the point?

Adastra strikes me as something that's more accessible to a furry audience than Echo, but way, way less accessible to a general audience. Dating the buff, half-naked (and sometimes fully naked) wolf man is kind of 'The Point' in Adastra--the Itch pages say as much; Adastra is described first and foremost a romance VN, and Echo a horror VN. This is a narrative goal, of course, that is going to appeal wayyy more to furries, and so if you liked Echo in spite of its presentation, I probably wouldn't recommend this one to you for the handful of scenes that remind me most of that game.

But does the game deliver on this goal? Generally, yeah, but I still can't help but feel disappointed in how predictable the arc of everything is, an aspect I don't think I'd ever ascribe to Echo. Sure, there's romance drama and royal drama but it's not very difficult to see the vague direction of where the story is headed, even if the path towards it is blurry at times. The political story almost feels a bit Shakesperean, and I don't really mean that as a compliment; it feels very telegraphed and theatrical, if that makes any sense. The heavy usage of Greco-Roman aesthetics and focus on royal power dynamics certainly doesn't help with that.

I wish the sci-fi elements were a bit more present. The world building is cool, and there's a decent amount of bits we get of it, but the story doesn't really start indulging in it until well past the half way mark. Aside from that most of it just feels like an explanation for the Isekai to happen, and such a vast majority of the story happens exclusively in the palace that it's pretty easy to forget that you got to this planet in a space ship that could shorten time and space in front of itself, even with the presence of Com. Just feels like a missed opportunity imo.

There are honestly a lot of missed opportunities in Adastra. I wish the MC wasn't so blank-slate. I wish we saw more than a couple of sapient races, since the game brings up the fact that there's probably, like, hundreds of them. The sex scenes feel, gratuitous, I guess? Like you could replace most (not all, but most) of them with a fade to black and not really miss anything. But I have to remind myself what the 'goal' of this VN is in the first place and that a lot of people are going to be coming to this specifically for those scenes. No wonder it's got twice as many ratings on itch compared to Echo.

I personally liked Adastra despite my issues with it, but I'm in, or at least, pretty close to, the target demographic here. I can't really see anyone too far from it getting anything out of this like I could see with Echo.

Ultimately, Adastra almost feels a bit too polished, and in that, becomes a little too reserved, like it's got all of its harsh edges sanded off. Echo is radical and experimental, it feels like a truly forward thinking piece of media. Despite having much more graphic sexuality than Echo ever does (and outnumbering its sex scenes in a third of the time), Adastra feels like it plays it a little too safe, at least as far as you can for a gay furry VN. There are hints, glimpses of something outstanding here, and there are a few scenes that I'd say cross into that, but largely Adastra is "pretty good escapism (only applicable for a small demographic) but not super notable." Not a bad place to end up for a video game, but seeing what Echo was just makes me wish this was so much more.

Starts off as fluff (featuring a lot of fluffy boys) but it goes to some certainly interesting places by the end. If you thought it was hard to parse what other characters are thinking in Echo, just wait until you read the explicitly political work by the same group of authors. If anything, I think it takes quite a while to get going, but every character feels like they get quite a lot of time to develop and slowly have more of their beliefs and motives exposed. The central romance is very good too but it's not like that's much of a surprise because I already read Echo so I know what these guys are capable of.

Adastra took a bit to really grow on me; its opening hour makes for an incredibly tough sell that's probably going to throw off a lot of people on its focal love interest, and a lot of its initial character introductions and world building is just okay. It's several hours in where Adastra really turn the gears once you have that starting knowledge and development, and by the second half flipping itself on its head that what started as a relatively simple political battle with a cheesy romance on the side turns into something so much more extensive and intriguing by playing with the idea of trust and the different faces that people put on to get what they want from others. There's also a big gay himbo space wolf at the center of all of it, and as stupid as he can be and how rough his first impressions are, there's a point where it's hard not to at least find him even a little endearing. Will admit I did get choked up at one point, if only because having to read some of the most descriptive text possible for the biggest and most stoic cast member breaking down and sobbing his heart out is difficult not to have empathy for!

I do think Adastra suffers a bit from being what was clearly initially a side project from one of the Echo Project writers turning into something a whole lot bigger than was probably initially planned; being trapped in mostly one location for the entire game does hurt the game in trying to sell a literal galactic scale of a setting, and while it is partially the point(tm) and is something that affects the main protagonist, it tends to make parts of the game drag at points and especially during the last third of the game. There's one overly suspcious dialogue choice that feels like a bad 'gotcha' moment if you make the wrong decision for something you aren't given any clues or context for and only discover the consequences for hours later, because it means the game ends abruptly and cuts off the entire actual last third of the story, never really been a fan of those in visual novels in general. I'm also just kind of hesitant on how open the game leaves its ending off on, being clearly set up for more sequels in a story that honestly I think I would've been happy with just being standalone and smaller in scale. At the same time though, Adastra surprised me already for what I thought would've just been an okay goofy little sci-fi romp from one of the writers for Echo, so at this point I'm more than open to whatever they come up with in the future to continue this story and build off of its world and cast.

(And also a very quick brief warning to those who may have came from a more general recommendation from Echo: Adastra is a lot harder to recommend to a general audience if you don't fit into the funny 'gay furry' niche, since one of its central overarching plot points is the relationship between the protagonist and its lead character Amicus, including several straight up porn scenes! Adastra also is generally way lighter in tone than Echo is, and doesn't really share a lot of similarities beyond a brief select few darker scenes towards the end of the game. Adastra may have been written by one of the two lead writers for Echo and you can definitely spot his style throughout, but if you're expecting this to continue that game's themes and style, you'll have to look elsewhere.)

Revistando minha review eu percebi que a história é boa mas o problema em si é no pacing da história, tem alguns dias da história onde a história é mais pacata e é apenas um slice of life, onde você começa a conhecer melhor os personagens e um pouco das suas motivações mas o problema são os personagens em si que não possuem um bom desenvolvimento. Eles começam de um jeito e terminam do mesmo jeito isso é algo que falta aqui mas não são todos mas é uma boa maioria. Como eu havia dito no meu post original a história é como uma montanha russa, tem muitas coisas boas e elas ultrapassam as coisas ruins da história que no geral é boa me lembrando até do filme titanic de quão emocionante a história pode ficar.

Well, first off, I want to say that I did like Adastra! I liked a lot about it, and while I surprisingly didn't fall into the Simp-for-Amicus group of gay furries (which I fully expected myself to fall into, as I am gay furry trash), I really liked the characters and the lore and world-building. Let's dive in!

Adastra starts with a rough first hour that, while I do like that the main character and player character (Here on out I'm just gonna call him Marco, cause that's the canon name I'm pretty sure) very much didn't like this idea of him being kidnapped by an alien wolf-man who accidentally went to Earth thinking that it was a subservient planet and kidnapped Marco because he wanted a pet.
That's how things get set in motion.
In my opinion, while the story never tries to pretend that it's not a bad thing, it also never fully gets to justify it in a way that makes the rest of the story (and eventual romance) be better. It's always something that's hanging over Marco and Amicus, and instead of diving into it like I half-expected Howly, the writer, to do, it just kinda gets brushed off to the side, and even semi-justified near the end (no spoilers in this review!).
Not a great start to a gay romance-centered visual novel, in my opinion! I think there's a way to get everything to happen where Marco and Amicus meet and Marco gets to Adastra and the rest of the story happens without throwing in a very very questionable sort of "falling in love with my abductor" romance. I'm not gonna call it Stockholm Syndrome cause that's way too extreme, especially because the story tries valiantly to make Amicus more liked after this initial first impression and to give him more reasons, and a good scene of him admitting he fucked up. While I don't personally like this start, I'm glad it stays in the air and in the mind of both Amicus and Marco, even if I wish it was resolved better.
This start is what made two of my friends give up on this right off the bat, and I really don't blame them, honestly.
I also understand that, yes, this is a gay, furry visual novel with an obviously schlocky tone (at parts) that makes these events just seem more like an isekai than an abduction, and that's fine, but I still don't like it. It's the weakest part of Adastra to me, but thankfully it does get better from there.

Moving right along from my massive criticism of the start, the rest of the visual novel is a fucking blast. The characters are all superbly well-written and given quirks, personalities and fun moments that are consistent and give them all a very good breath of life. Howly's strong suit, in my opinion, is making these characters real and I love his writing for it, because I do end up really caring about Cassius' motivations, despite his cruel and elitist attitude, and I really do want to know more about Virginia, despite (and in spite of) her standoffish attitude and absolute indifference, bordering on contempt, for Marco. I especially applaud Amicus' character, because we spend the most time with him (and Marco, of course) and are able to really get a feel for what he's like while performing the role of soon-to-be emperor, or how he reacts to stress and failure, and especially how he treats his own sexuality. It's a character that feels very rooted in personal introspection, and I can really relate with him, and I love that he's able to grow, fail, and even stagnate throughout this story. It's just so, human. I love it!
Marco might be my least favorite character, through no fault of his characterization or anything like that! I just don't think we should have seen things from his POV, really. If he was referred to like Chase was in Echo, as being a character but not a self-insert, I think it really would have helped a bit with a few things, I think.
The story also gets praise from me! I loved the world-building and political intrigue that came with all these characters coming together, because it was not just fleshed out but felt almost like an espionage thriller at points. The politics of Adastra and the rest of the sibling empires is so fucking interesting and cutthroat that I want nothing more than to read the wikipedia entries for all of them!
Granted, there are several late-story elements that are more heavily involved and introduced into the galactic scale of things that I really, kinda don't like? Without going too far into things, Adastra dives headfirst into some deep themes like political warfare, sexuality, and religion, but then seemingly leaves the water very quickly when it comes to religion, going as far as to even just have a very, set-in-stone view on how things work here. It was just kind of, out of place given the events of Adastra and what all happens, and while I know Khemia goes into things a bit more, it just feels weird that something so vast and mysterious is treated as so cut and dry here.
Given Howly's writing of religion in Echo and especially Arches, I just wanted more to be done here. Second thing I think really impacts Adastra for me!
Even after I say all this, though, the thing that really elevates Adastra enough that I can just deal with the quirks I don't like, is the romance. Oh my GOD is it well written. Despite their tumultuous start, Amicus and Marco fall so head over heels for each other in such an endearing, affectionate and loving way that it almost made me cry several times through the story. It's fucking awesomely written, and it's the absolute highlight of Adastra for me and why I would recommend it. S-tier writing, especially for the gays!

With that, I really liked the presentation of Adastra as well. Haps on the sprite work was aboslutely incredible and I loved each full illustration and each change of the sprites, just so well done, well characterized and stylistic. Beautiful!

At the end of the day, though, I may have wanted a bit more from this than I think I should have expected from this? Adastra isn't as subversive as Echo, nor is it as confrontational, but it doesn't need to be. It's a romance story with political drama, a story of star-crossed lovers finding peace, or trying to, all while coming to terms with sexuality. It's really nice, for the most part! I liked it a lot, and I think I'd like to replay this again later. I debated giving this 3 1/2 stars, but just thinking of the romance bumped it back up to 4 lmao

I was trying to figure out why I was having so much trouble attempting to review this game, until I realize it is a visual novel so I am writing a review of just a story more so than an actual game. So take this as a warning, I am no literary critic.

Adastra was a really great visual novel that I never felt bored or tired of reading. It tells a compelling story full of queer romance and brutal space politics. As an avid Mass Effect fan as well, I love myself some queer romance and space politics.

I was worried near the start of this game that it was going to be awfully predictable plot wise. A shortcoming of many stories, especially many visual novels, is how predictable they can be. Visual novels especially are often guilty of falling into the same line of tropes. I worry was luckily unfounded. Though there were some incredibly predictable plot twists, there were many that I was not expecting. Additionally, the predictable "twists" naturally felt as if they were supposed to be predictable near the end of the story almost as a way of testing the player before throwing them into another completely unexpected twist. This alone cemented my appreciation for this game. It successfully kept me interested, I always wanted to know what was going to happen next considering my expectations were often incorrect. I think this alone cements Adastra or any other story as something worthy of praise and worthy of your time.

The other massively powerful element in Adastra are the characters. Virtually all visual novels are character focused and Adastra is no exception. Adastra's gallery of quirky critters is not the largest, but they are all super fleshed out for the most part. No single character really fell into a solid archetype that I've seen elsewhere which made them all seem fresh and unique. Again, the uniqueness of these characters kept me interested in the story throughout which I believe is the sign of success in a visual novel. For the sake of length and keeping this spoiler free, I will no go into the specifics of characters. Though it must be said, some characters are much more fleshed out than others.

I believe this is a good place to move to talking about what I did not like so much, what keeps this story from being a 4.5 or 5 star. Though every character is incredibly well written, some of them are significantly weaker than others. Additionally, some characters, though good, stay quite stagnant throughout the story in concerns to development. Thinking about it now, very few characters develop much at all. Great, abundant character development is not something I believe is always necessary, but it does leave some characters feeling a little less concerned for writing wise than others.

A final critical thought I have, for the sake of time, is that I believe Adastra could have greatly benefited from more choice. Again, choice is not something a visual novel MUST have. Adastra is a linear experience and that is completely fine. I simply feel that Adastra is the perfect game to have more choice considering the political navigation that happens within the story. Lack of choice does not damage the story of Adastra, but I feel it does hinder the experience of Adastra as a game. Simply missed potential and something I would like to see more of in the sequel.

I loved Adastra because it hits the marks of what I believe a good visual novel should have. I had a great experience going through it with my partner, voice acting the characters, giving them silly voices that accidentally fit their personalities perfectly. Without a doubt, an experience that cannot be matched in the same way.

Oh yeah, can't forget the HOT FURRY SEX. I liked it, but definitely a secondary thought for me concerning the game. Adastra is not a porn game, it just acknowledges the importance of sexuality in the experience of being alive. It does so in a tasteful way and that's all you can ask for. Do not go into Adastra looking for specially the NSFW elements because you will find yourself quite bored as they are sparse. What Adastra does offer to the space, however, is well drawn and written. It is more cute than anything else.

The last of the currently complete Echo Project VNs. It's still gay and still furry, but set in a different continuity and way more escapist in intent.

The art is nice, the presentation is more polished than Echo, and the writing is free of the weird phrasing/word choice problems that bring down a lot of the other Echo VNs. The final stretch of the story feels a bit filibustery, but that can probably be attributed to its patreon-based funding.

At its heart, it's a pretty standard romance novel. With all the books on smashwords/kindle unlimited called like "Claimed by the Shifter CEO," even the fact that it's a human/furry pairing doesn't place it that far out of the mainstream.

It's great to see this visual novel mostly finished, as I had previously played when it still didn't have its true ending. I love the characters that Haps drew for this game, their personalities certainly shining through visually to heighten the in-game text. The special in-game art that would appear in certain scenes were a treat as well, especially the newly added ones for my second playthrough. While it's easy to expect stock images and music for visual novels like these, they served the story and setting enough to not be distracting. Though I can understand if the story doesn't appeal to everyone, I had a great time through my visit in Adastra and its grand space opera.

So last month I took a chance and became obsessed with an excellent game called Echo. It was so outside my wheelhouse, being horror, queer, a visual novel, and furry, that a month later, nothing has truly captured my interest. Echo was so foreign, weird, and interesting that typical gaming experiences seemed so predictable by comparison. While I was writing my review for that game, I learned the author took a two year break in the middle of Echo’s development to complete an entire unrelated visual novel, for their mental health. And few things spark my curiosity like art made as an escape from one’s own creations.

Setting the mood: Imagine if David Lynch took a break from making Twin Peaks to direct a hentai before returning for another season as if nothing happened.

I initially felt compelled to compare Adastra to Echo because Echo felt so profound in ways that were easily accessible and relatable to me. But that does not help explain what Adastra is. Adastra is wild, ridiculous, and indulgent in all the ways my biases aligned upon first hearing the words “gay furry visual novel.” I had fun with it! But I am keenly aware this game was not made for me, and it is rare for that feeling to be so strong I become unsure in articulating my thoughts about it. Because there is nothing worse than outsiders coming into a niche space to proudly offer their ignorance as insight.

Especially since my enjoyment of this game is very much in spite of its goals. There’s politics, there’s sci-fi soap operatics, but the primary goal is romancing a himbo alien wolf man. A large part of Adastra is indulging in the fantasy of having a buff, rich, big-dicked boyfriend who loves you, provides your every material need, is always horny for you, never asks you to change, would kill to defend you, and also - happens to be a 7 foot wolf man. As a result, the build-up, justification, and logistics of the relationship are abridged, because existing in that indulgent fantasy space is the appeal.

I’ll be honest - I did not like space wolf boyfriend! He is an idiot!

What kept my interest in Adastra enough to finish it was the commitment to worldbuilding that arose from placing indulgences first. You can almost work backwards in seeing how the plot, setting, and character relationships were reverse-engineered to service different indulgences. The setting is in outer space, with aliens whose cultures were the inspiration for the Roman Empire and Ancient Egypt. Why? So that every character could be shirtless and pantless 100% of the time. Swimming and visiting the communal bath are both common activities in the plot. The player character, a human man from Earth, is kidnapped by a wolf man to be his pet, which basically means grooming, massaging, and sexually pleasing him. Adastra is a textbook case of how anything “being justified by plot relevance” can just as easily be reinterpreted as “plot relevance being used to justify inclusion.”

By committing to sex slaves as a concept, Adastra is a world with whole planets of indentured servants. By committing to the idea that all these buff furry aliens are both politicians and fucking, sex and sexuality becomes central to the machinisms of the plot. I initially found it odd that, in a game going out of its way to include Annubis dolled up in glittery gold eye liner, homophobia and sexism are ingrained in galactic culture. Until I realized that by making homosexuality stigamatized, the mere existence of gayness could become the plot in a way not possible if the alien societies were more liberal. Adastra then surprised me by giving sexy Annubis enough depth to become the most nuanced and sympathetic character in the game. Even after I saw him getting absolutely railed to climax.

I’ll be honest, I laughed while playing this game more than once. At first, I feared I was being a Mika. But having finished it, I’m convinced Adastra was inviting me to laugh with it at its own absurdity. The character designs are so goofy and exaggerated. Every furry calls the human character’s love for rhythm in music quaintly “simian”. At one point, the player character dresses up as a tiger for a play, later horrified to realize this is the in-universe equivalent of blackface and the wolves are very cat racist. Above all, between the needlessly complicated politicking and the mostly mundane nothingness of most of its plot, Adastra is fun. And that is a tone very hard to write.

In my rating system, 2 stars represents an average, C rank game, and Adastra, while too niche to recommend to anyone I know, (even me!), is too much dumb schlocky fun to be considered average - especially for a game released for free(!). 3 stars at B rank feels appropriate, even if it comes with a lot of caveats. Namely, this is furry, it is very gay, you will see canine dong. My curiosity for Adastra came entirely from my experience with the author’s other work. If this level of indulgence was required in order to keep Echo the focused mastercraft that it is, I’m very happy the author got the opportunity to refresh themself here.

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As Adastra’s explicit art very much did not awaken anything inside me, I feel my curiosity with the furry visual novel genre is currently sated. Adastra currently has twice the number of ratings on itch.io as Echo, which, while being both understandable (Echo is dark) and a travesty, means I have absolutely no idea how I would reliably investigate the genre. I fear I might have repeated my experience with JRPGs by starting with Chrono Trigger, and the genre was mostly down hill from there.

Porn scenes aside, this story really connected with me. I needed an Amicus (charcter of the game) in my life when I played this game. I genuinely cried like a baby, something that didn't happen in a long time.

It's touching, it's revolting. It plays with your feelings for the "love-interest?" in the game.

I'd totally understand if you brush this off because of the art style, porn and furry stuff but just know that this game is more than that.

am i the only one who thinks this is like cruelty squad but with all of its humor removed n placed within the context of a indie furry game about roman space wolves?

but ye, this actually moved me. the characters were fascinating and weren't onesided, the art was pretty gorgeous, and i can tell that the developers didn't set out to be some calarts grift.

wolven nick mullen: hey what about this amicus voice hey i'm anti-uplift amicus, i hate the khemians. also i'm a tail-raiser

Recommending this visual novel is hard. Doing so without spoiling anything is even harder. But I think I owe an attempt to try to write about the game that gave me the most intense emotional experiences I've ever had from any piece of media, ever.

Part of what makes recommending this difficult is that in order to have that experience, you kinda have to be, at least a little bit, parasocially and romantically attracted to the himbo space wolf. You will still probably have an enjoyable experience without said attraction to said himbo space wolf, but I believe you will be fundamentally missing part of the intended experience if you don't, because the game is built around that pretext.

But if you are? Adastra is a furry sci-fi space comedy drama political-thriller heartbreaker queer-romantic orbital-strike-to-the-heart. I cried multiple times, on one occasion having to stop and go weep into my boyfriend's arms. Even now, several months after touching the game, I am still occasionally and spontaneously struck by a wave of emotion, sometimes triggered by vivid recollections of scenes or lines, other times just characterized by pangs of grief of the knowledge that I won't get to experience it for the first time again.

I look forward to the completion of Adastra's side stories, Khemia and Interea.