The Untold Game - part 43 + Extras

Right then. Quite the excellent comic you have here.

You've got a solid piece of work here, that much is clear.

Seeing the visual novel, I decided to take a peek and see what it had to offer.

Suffice to say, I was rather.. Underwhelmed shall we say. Don't get me wrong, the prose inside it was decent. But to be brutally honest, I have seen better visual novels. As said, the prose itself was fine. But the design of the visual novel itself seemed like it could have been tied up in a few fanfiction or comic posts. There was so much prose to work though I ended up skipping to see if there was any actions the player could take. Far as I could tell, they seemed to be spread rather far apart from what I have been able to look at.

Now granted, it is very much possible that there is more to be seen in the visual novel itself. But what I *did* see didn't paint a very good impression on me. The introductory was dense. Too dense with material. Enough that it would also make a poor impression on other players who may just get bored and shut the game off. With few actions as is, it seems less of an interactive experience and more of a glorified slideshow with dialogue at the bottom, sometimes interrupted with actions that you can take. But considering the fact that a player like myself just began to breeze through the dialogue just to see if there was anything to do, I do believe you may have crippled your introduction by throwing so much at the player at once.

It certainly wasn't digestible by any stretch.

There is only one other visual novel game I have played called Angels with Scaly Wings, but during the introduction I saw a couple things that stood out in stark contrast between your production and that of AwSW. Put simply, AwSW got kept a short but effective introduction that hooks the player almost immediately. First by keep things short and to the point in condensing all the most essential details needed for a player on a need to know basis, then dangling the rest in front of them as an incentive to keep moving forward, plus multiple opportunities to interact with the environment and characters directly.

Your visual novel did not have those elements, at least not in the same way that AwSW did.

Additionally having your character act as but a mere ghost of sorts also may have crippled your visual novel. While I understand the intent behind it, I do not believe it did well to service the visual novel itself. Not when you buried the player in so much text that it bores them. I cannot speak for other players, but I would bet decent money to say you probably turned off a fair number of players by packing in so much into the intro. Such would overwhelm almost anyone with information overload, causing them to skip past and ignore what might be pivotal information.

To sum all of this up? Your main problem is your introduction was dense, with too few interactions inbetween for the player to be interested for long. The same I would assume applies to the rest of this visual novel.

I get it. Making *any* game is hard work, even just a visual novel. Just by what you have here I can see the effort invested into your production. But it won't be of use to you if you lose your audience within the first few minutes or so because of the intimidating amount of text to sift and digest all in one sitting. When that happens, few if any could expect to remember the important details without writing it all down, a little counterproductive for what you were going for.

You have potential, that much is clear. But I would say you have much to learn before you've mastered the art of visual novels, at least from a gamer's perspective such as one from myself. It may very well be that I am not the intended audience. Which is fine. This stuff isn't for everyone. But I would be remissive in my desires to see your production climb to the highest peaks if I did not note such flaws for you to take a look at in the first place.

With all that said, I have a couple suggestions for what you could do proceeding forward.

Condense the most essential points in the first few minutes of the game. Don't bury your player with overwhelming amounts of information.

Give them a hook that they will latch onto to incentive them to keep playing the game. I.E: Some mystery or what not to keep it all interesting.

Give the player something to do with more frequent action/decision prompts so they don't just feel like a mere spectator here. (This extends into the decision to make the player a ghost spectator. The protagonist is interesting, but even the most devoted will have their senses worn going through the introduction.)

Have the player take a more direct role in the game. Maybe using some meta knowledge to provide certain aid as tasked by Arceus himself within certain limitations. (As for why, I guess you'll have to ask Arceus yourself. He works in mysterious ways for us mortals. More to the point, it's a way to explain how the player is able to directly interact with the others while also explaining away the gameplay limitations. I.E: Spouting off essential plot points that may derail the plot you are going for.)

Another alternative is to have the player as a "character" of sorts that is part of the story. Either an already existing major one such as one of his mons, human partners, antagonists, or something else that would excuse the direct interaction.

Aside from those major issues, there were a few more minor flaws such as mispellings and scene transitions that could have been done better with the music, but these are fixable with having a beta tester look into it and/or someone fluent in English as a first language. (I checked. Your English is commendable for not being a native speaker. Aside from those few minor mispellings and grammar mistakes, you got a solid command of the English language.)

Overall, I see what you were going for. But this visual novel seems like what would be a first attempt at making one.

An ambitious and okay one by the standards of a beginner to be sure, but still lacking. Nonetheless, I think you can learn a few valuable lessons for the future if you ever decide to make another visual novel in this style. Just try to keep all of this in mind when moving forward.

I hope this pseudo review/critique was of at least some help for you. If not, I apologize I wasn't able to be of more assistance. In any case, I look forward to your next major update when it comes.