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.
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.