It's a visual novel, yeah, so I'm not expecting the highest bar of quality, but it's pleasant to find that it's very well done. It uses the Ren.Py engine so it holds up pretty well with only a handful of graphical errors here and there. The writing is good, great at times even, with me really enjoying a couple of the routes you can take. There are a few errors here and there but overall, it's fine.
The gameplay for 80% of the time is box standard. But that 20% extra bit makes it...very interesting. There's a great magic system for learning spells, but in all honesty you only need to use like 5 or 6 spells throughout the whole game while the rest of your spellbook gets filled with things you'll never use, making spell navigation a nightmare. Overall it's not bad, but it needs a lot of work.
The other big issue is the graphics. Now, I'm not expecting Mona Lisa tier graphics, but I won't be the first person to admit that most of the characters look ripped straight out of one of those "How To Draw Anime" books you'd find as a kid at one of those scholastic book fairs. The sequel seems to have fixed this but still, it's a bit of a bar to clear if you're used to other visual novels on Steam.
Finally, you're gender-locked into playing as a girl. Granted, that's not at all a real issue considering that most visual novels on Steam force you to play as a guy, but it's still a thing to make note of. The sequel does do the inverse of this, but still. Just throwing this out there at the end.
Overall it's really not that bad if you can get around the absurdly dated visuals that you'll be staring at constantly through your playthrough. I wouldn't pick it up unless it was on sale, but still grab it if you like visual novels that give you the option to play with stats.
The gameplay for 80% of the time is box standard. But that 20% extra bit makes it...very interesting. There's a great magic system for learning spells, but in all honesty you only need to use like 5 or 6 spells throughout the whole game while the rest of your spellbook gets filled with things you'll never use, making spell navigation a nightmare. Overall it's not bad, but it needs a lot of work.
The other big issue is the graphics. Now, I'm not expecting Mona Lisa tier graphics, but I won't be the first person to admit that most of the characters look ripped straight out of one of those "How To Draw Anime" books you'd find as a kid at one of those scholastic book fairs. The sequel seems to have fixed this but still, it's a bit of a bar to clear if you're used to other visual novels on Steam.
Finally, you're gender-locked into playing as a girl. Granted, that's not at all a real issue considering that most visual novels on Steam force you to play as a guy, but it's still a thing to make note of. The sequel does do the inverse of this, but still. Just throwing this out there at the end.
Overall it's really not that bad if you can get around the absurdly dated visuals that you'll be staring at constantly through your playthrough. I wouldn't pick it up unless it was on sale, but still grab it if you like visual novels that give you the option to play with stats.