Today I'm going to review Fading Hearts, the first game by Sakura River: a new company based in Canada who plan to bring original English visual-novels to the masses (much like ourselves at Visual-Novels.net, but they actually make them, we just report on them). So, how did they do for their first game? Read on to find out:
Storyline:
Remember the Y2K (year 2000) bug? Imagine what would happen if all computer programs at that point were not Y2K compliant? Widespread computer failure? Yes. Plane navigation systems failure? Yes. Millions dead? Yes.....
In Fading Hearts, you play the role of Ryou. A student of Crystal Stream Collegiate Institute. Two of your friends, Claire and Rina, live near to your house and you often walk into college together. Did I mention that you fancy Claire? Unfortunately, she already has a boyfriend. Rina, on the other hand, doesn't have a boyfriend, though you're not too keen on going out with her. So a rather generic dating-sim setup here.
When Y2K hit, a lot of children lost their parents through one means or another. Ryou and Rina are what are two of these children, known as "Y2K Orphans".
In other news, there's a real life magical girl called Mystica about, fighting evil...apparently. You don't really know much about that, though there has been some dark shadows in the woods recently. Maybe that's related.
So up to now, we've had drama, dating-sim, and fantasy. There's some comedy in it too.
Sadly, things go downhill about an hour or so in. The storyline gets very choppy. I'll talk about gameplay later on, but the way the game is set up means that you could end up not getting any story for ages, then suddenly get a whole load of the story. Even then, the story can be rather generic.
But...this is where it gets confusing.
When you are resting in the game, or if you've passed out for whatever reason, the screen turns black and you will get one of the following:
a) a flashback to a younger you
b) a story that is told in parts which
I think are Ryou's previous lives, though I'm not too sure
These sections can be a little disorientating, especially since I found it difficult to remember what happened last time with each part. However, these parts of the game were possibly my favourite, which is a problem. The "black-screen-white-text" sections are written really well in my opinion, and they drew me in to the point where I was disappointed to get back to the main game. When the side plots are more interesting than the main one, you know something's wrong.
Storyline score - 5/10 - Sadly, the main storyline isn't brilliant. A lot of it feels very generic. It does have its moments though, and there are some great moments, but it all feels very run-of-the-mill. The side-stories, however, are very well written in my opinion.
Soundtrack:
As with the storyline, there are pluses and minuses for this. First off, be aware that there is no voice acting in this game, English or otherwise. However, this will not get marked up or down as there are a lot of big name visual-novels that don't have voice acting simply because it's not really necessary.
When it comes to the music, it's hard to give it a score. There are some tracks in the game that make you want to rip your ears off. For me, this would be the music played during the daytime when you're doing whatever you want. To me, it feels like 30 seconds of annoying looping music. WHICH IT IS! However, there are some pieces of music that are really well composed and fit the mood perfectly, thus adding to the score. The game also has an opening sequence with a really nice song, so that's a plus point too.
Unfortunately, there's another minus point. On several occasions, there's a standard scene (e.g. the three main characters in a café together) and there's no music playing. I could understand if it was a major event when the music cuts out for dramatic effect, but this was a normal meeting. You'd expect the bouncy, annoying loop music at the very least.
Soundtrack Score - 5/10 - Some of the tracks are amazing, but the sheer lack of variety as well as the annoying loop track, It has to be a 5.
Characters:
I won't go into the character details in full, there'll be info on that on the wiki pages eventually, but there's a few notes about the characters I'd like to share.
In my opinion, there could have been a bit more character development for the main characters. You get some explanation, but not as much as I would like. The character of Ryou, for example, doesn't get that much development. They explain his circumstances, his jobs, but that's about it for him.
Now this may be a personal thing, but I think it's worth mentioning. There aren't that many "gettable" girls in this game. When I've played various other games, there have been many characters I could go after, while Fading Hearts only has a few. Also, unless there's an ending I haven't found yet, the girl I liked the most isn't an available character (which is always annoying, see Mayumi in the original [[Shuffle!]]).
Characters - 5/10 - Again, an average score. While the characters have some form of story to them, they could be developed a bit more before the story starts kicking in. Also needs a few more so it feels less claustrophobic.
Graphics:
This is actually one of the elements the game excelled at in my opinion. The character designs are really nice (especially Mystica and Sophia, who I hadn't mentioned up to this point). The backgrounds are well drawn too, as well as the occasional CG image. The opening movie has been made really well too and looks very professional from a company's first game, and compared to those with several games!
Graphics - 8/10 - Yes, it's not average, it's really good. This is one area that "ain't broke and doesn't need fixing".
Gameplay:
Sadly, this is where the game becomes seriously sub-standard. In addition to the standard visual-novel elements, there's the dating sim part. You have to earn money by working, as well as keep your stress level down, and personal strength (PS) up. This can be extremely frustrating. Days are split into Morning, Afternoon and Evening. Some days you have off college, so you can do something in each like read a book, work (online freelancer), exercise (eventually) and a few other things. However, these segments are extremely boring. Working gets you more money to spend, but only after working a LOT. Reading books help you in various ways, but mainly learning magic spells (more in a moment). Resting removes stress from work, blah blah blah. There's almost hours of doing this while waiting for the "call someone" icon to come up. When that happens, you can ask out a girl to advance the plot slightly. Then it's back to working/resting/etc again. I wouldn't mind doing it, if it wasn't so monotonous, repetitive and generally unhelpful.
OK, so magic. There's an RPG element in this game which wasn't worth mentioning until this point. By RPG element I mean clicking "attack, magic, focus" in battle against monsters. Sadly, this part isn't that good either. If you buy the weightlifting set from the online shopping bit, you can train enough to not have much difficulty with enemies. You learn magic spells by reading manga during the day (to gain the knowledge), and then you gain the actual ability at the start of the night. The RPG elements are almost as tedious as the bedroom work/sleep/etc bits. There is a bit of a mad learning curve though. The monsters get a lot more difficult, very quickly. So training is a good idea. However, at least one ending allows no use of the RPG section at all, which is interesting.
Gameplay - 2/10 - I'm sorry, but the sheer tediousness of the game, and the hour or so I spent killing monsters in the forest with nothing coming out of it, means this has to be a low score.
Replay value - 7/10 - lots and lots of endings to get. Some good, some bad. You can view achievements from the main menu, but only after going through the entire game 4 times (by whole game, it doesn't just mean save the game near the end and repeat. It means full game). So there is quite a lot of replay value. The question is, would you want to head for that?
Overall - 32/60 --> 5(ish)/10 stars
For the first product from a new company, I think they did quite well. They experimented with different ideas and they brought out a mediocre game. Compared to the big guns in Japan, they also can make mediocre games, so they'd fit in fine.
However, I must admit that I see a lot of potential with this company. Great art and the occasional great piece of music as well as the right programming skills. It's just a case of getting them right now, and I for one wish them luck!
Price: $19.95 download only
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