Akash the Path of Five
Oct. 1st, 2020 11:06 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alias_sqbrThis is a fun m/f dating sim set in a fantasy world. You play The Only Girl Elemental as she decides how she feels about magic, love, and the expectations placed upon her to Make Magic Babies. It's not super deep but is fairly well written, with ok art and voice acting, an entertaining fantasy plot, and cute romances. I laughed out loud a few times and had mild but enjoyable feels. While mildly sexy, it uses it's premise for The Most Special Girl power fantasy, not dubcon porniness.
It gets a bit repetitive plotwise, and has a lot of cute, bantery low-conflict friends-to-lovers. But it's a lot of fun for what it is, and I'm surprised I haven't heard more people talking about it.
I paid $10 for this as part of the Bundle to Support Black Trans Lives, I definitely got my money's worth but I think it's also worth the usual price of US$25.
Buy the game.
It's available for Switch, PS4, Mac, and PC. I couldn't get the Mac version to run from the bare itchio download but the Steam key worked fine.
The romances are all cute and there's a some variety, but all of them are genuinely nice people who treat the main character, Aurora, with respect from the start, and everyone but Daniel has known her since childhood. The basic plot is basically the same for everyone except Daniel, and even he has a lot of repeated elements.
Though she's only really friends with Lux, and Caspian is stand-offish, the others are friendly acquaintances who clearly like her already and there's a lot of cute, low-internal-conflict friends-to-lovers. And they all tend to be Very Muscular.
Other than the romance, the plot is fun power fantasy with a fun if not super original high fantasy plot about Tensions Between Humans AndElves Elementals: female Elementals are super rare so the main way Elemental men have kids is with human women, which happens via consensual but unromantic trysts. Which makes everyone unhappy! I'm not sure the overall messages about dealing with cultural tensions or sexism are SUPER GREAT if you think about them very hard, so I'm not.
The Love Interests:
Lux: earnest, quietly intense childhood best friend. A pacifist with the body of Steve Rogers as drawn by Rob Liefield. He was very sweet, but could be subtly controlling in a passive aggressive way, like a really mild version of the yandere Older Brother type. I mostly enjoyed this route but felt like he was way more into Aurora than she was into him.
Ignatius: Awkward, grumpy 'little' guy who just wants to do art. This was lots of fun, he and Aurora banter cheerfully while having a sense of mutual connection. The game thinks of him as "small" when to me he just seems regular sized versus all the other STACKS OF BEEF.
Rowan: Cheerful jokey dumbass. This was cute but unexciting. I liked how into flowers he was.
Rocco: Self confident, flirty ladies man who has had sex with a LOT of human women. I'm not into this kind of guy, but this was cute enough for what it is, with a fun mutual teasing-and-flirting dynamic with him and Aurora. He is either bi or very open minded, which was fun.
Caspian: Cold, judgemental guy with a secret kuudere blushy side. This was pretty fun. He can be domineering but likes when MC pushes back. Voiced by ProZD/Sungwon Cho, doing a more subtle version of his Refrigerator Senpai/Miles Edgeworth voice.
Daniel: The son of the human chief, who gets captured by the Elementals. This route happens during an altered version of the regular plot, I ended up being in a relationship with Lux who I had no choice but to cheat on?? The relationship with Daniel is very whirlwind and it felt like the game was saying "this is a bad idea but sure, have fun!" Not sure how I feel about that. Also not sure if it's possible to play this route WITHOUT cheating, if you balance the points with the other guys better. Anyway it was moderately fun.
The sex scenes are fade to black and easily avoided with no negative consequences. Overall the game is cheerfully ambivalent about sex but thinks beefy guys are nice to look at and gives you many chances to do so.
Aurora is Feisty yet Sensible and Kind in a pretty typical Western Otome Heroine way but was fun to play as, and there were an enjoyable number of opportunities to give annoying assholes the finger. She's generally pretty flirty and has no shame about her own sexuality, but she's never been into anyone specifically and has other priorities. No matter what choices you make she see-saws a bit inconsistently between not taking romance too seriously and being IN LOVE. Some guys propose and she can say "No let's just be committed" and it's fine. But you have to be in a romance, outside of short alternate endings.
It's pretty heterosexual, with some belated attempts to shoehorn in references to (off-screen) same sex relationships and trans people that contradict other parts of the world-building. There's a note from the author saying they'd do things differently these days, and some well intentioned and interesting trans inclusive worldbuilding in an appendix that completely contradicts the actual text of the game. That gets a "you tried" sticker, but there's really no excuse for there being NO human women who show up on screen. There's a lot of talk about how "the humans" resent elemental men sleeping with 'their women' but how do the human WOMEN feel? How would Aurora feel if she met one: her first time meeting another woman, but they're of another species!And then they kiss. Even Rocco seems to see them as just Conquests, and the game never really challenges him on this :/ I feel like Rocco has a crush on Rowan, who sadly seems genuinely straight, but am not sure if that's just my imagination.
Elementals ALMOST feel like a single-gender, two-biological-sex species. They are sex-and-genderless until age ten, then turn into male or female, so Aurora's classmates knew her before she became a woman, and she seems to have had exactly the same upbringing and expectations as them since then, except for the knowledge that she can have babies. The game forgets same-sex relationships exist most of the time but they're theoretically not uncommon. But also it defaults to pretty heteronormative ideas about gender, even when it doesn't really make sense for this context.
Which is to say I had a lot of fun discussing a MUCH QUEERER hypothetical version of this game(*) with a friend. But this is not that game.
The sprites are drawn in a very realistic style, which is a bad choice for dating sims in terms of expressiveness but works about as well as it can. The CGs are drawn in the same style and very well done, except for some humourous cartoony ones which also work. You get to see every LI except Daniel in two different mildly censored naked CGs if that's your jam. Sometimes the artist draws darker characters as way too pale in CGs :/
The character designer is clearly into MUSCLES, I'm not but they're still all pretty cute. The main antagonist looks like a Jewish stereotype which I think was accidental but is still Unfortunate. There's otherwise some attempt at diversity but it's somewhat undercut by the artist only knowing how to draw one nose and one and a half types of hair.
The voice acting is pretty good. Lux's actor in particular imbues even mundane lines with INTENSE YEARNING. Aurora's voice actor mostly does pretty well but never manages to quite capture sincere passion which is A Flaw in a dating sim protagonist.
The music is unobtrusive and didn't annoy me until two routes in which is better than most games manage.
There's 3d rendered animations for backgrounds and introductory scenes, these add a nice sense of place and energy but are also really half-assed. I'm sure some of this is the limits of how complex a unity scene can get without making the game super slow/large, but some of it is just...bad. Low poly 3d models can look pretty and elegant and these Do Not. But eh, nobody plays dating sims for the backgrounds.
On the plus side, unlike SOME Unity VNs I could mention it has autoplay, fast forward, and the ability to skip through long cut scenes and minigames. Which is good because the one minigame I encountered was unplayably bad.
The main plot is railroaded except for occasional bad ends. Aurora's personality is pretty set, with mild variation on each route and a few personal choices that don't affect the plot like whether she wants to get married. There's extra epilogue stories when you finish a main route, I've read Ignatius's and it was cute.
But yeah, overall: it was pretty fun!
(*)The two main options we came up with being:
(a) The human prisoner is a woman and Aurora has a lesbian awakening
(b) MC is whatever gender you like, but regardless, hot ladies want to get them pregnant with magical superbabies
Plus, you know, general inclusiveness etc.
It gets a bit repetitive plotwise, and has a lot of cute, bantery low-conflict friends-to-lovers. But it's a lot of fun for what it is, and I'm surprised I haven't heard more people talking about it.
I paid $10 for this as part of the Bundle to Support Black Trans Lives, I definitely got my money's worth but I think it's also worth the usual price of US$25.
Buy the game.
It's available for Switch, PS4, Mac, and PC. I couldn't get the Mac version to run from the bare itchio download but the Steam key worked fine.
The romances are all cute and there's a some variety, but all of them are genuinely nice people who treat the main character, Aurora, with respect from the start, and everyone but Daniel has known her since childhood. The basic plot is basically the same for everyone except Daniel, and even he has a lot of repeated elements.
Though she's only really friends with Lux, and Caspian is stand-offish, the others are friendly acquaintances who clearly like her already and there's a lot of cute, low-internal-conflict friends-to-lovers. And they all tend to be Very Muscular.
Other than the romance, the plot is fun power fantasy with a fun if not super original high fantasy plot about Tensions Between Humans And
The Love Interests:
Lux: earnest, quietly intense childhood best friend. A pacifist with the body of Steve Rogers as drawn by Rob Liefield. He was very sweet, but could be subtly controlling in a passive aggressive way, like a really mild version of the yandere Older Brother type. I mostly enjoyed this route but felt like he was way more into Aurora than she was into him.
Ignatius: Awkward, grumpy 'little' guy who just wants to do art. This was lots of fun, he and Aurora banter cheerfully while having a sense of mutual connection. The game thinks of him as "small" when to me he just seems regular sized versus all the other STACKS OF BEEF.
Rowan: Cheerful jokey dumbass. This was cute but unexciting. I liked how into flowers he was.
Rocco: Self confident, flirty ladies man who has had sex with a LOT of human women. I'm not into this kind of guy, but this was cute enough for what it is, with a fun mutual teasing-and-flirting dynamic with him and Aurora. He is either bi or very open minded, which was fun.
Caspian: Cold, judgemental guy with a secret kuudere blushy side. This was pretty fun. He can be domineering but likes when MC pushes back. Voiced by ProZD/Sungwon Cho, doing a more subtle version of his Refrigerator Senpai/Miles Edgeworth voice.
Daniel: The son of the human chief, who gets captured by the Elementals. This route happens during an altered version of the regular plot, I ended up being in a relationship with Lux who I had no choice but to cheat on?? The relationship with Daniel is very whirlwind and it felt like the game was saying "this is a bad idea but sure, have fun!" Not sure how I feel about that. Also not sure if it's possible to play this route WITHOUT cheating, if you balance the points with the other guys better. Anyway it was moderately fun.
The sex scenes are fade to black and easily avoided with no negative consequences. Overall the game is cheerfully ambivalent about sex but thinks beefy guys are nice to look at and gives you many chances to do so.
Aurora is Feisty yet Sensible and Kind in a pretty typical Western Otome Heroine way but was fun to play as, and there were an enjoyable number of opportunities to give annoying assholes the finger. She's generally pretty flirty and has no shame about her own sexuality, but she's never been into anyone specifically and has other priorities. No matter what choices you make she see-saws a bit inconsistently between not taking romance too seriously and being IN LOVE. Some guys propose and she can say "No let's just be committed" and it's fine. But you have to be in a romance, outside of short alternate endings.
It's pretty heterosexual, with some belated attempts to shoehorn in references to (off-screen) same sex relationships and trans people that contradict other parts of the world-building. There's a note from the author saying they'd do things differently these days, and some well intentioned and interesting trans inclusive worldbuilding in an appendix that completely contradicts the actual text of the game. That gets a "you tried" sticker, but there's really no excuse for there being NO human women who show up on screen. There's a lot of talk about how "the humans" resent elemental men sleeping with 'their women' but how do the human WOMEN feel? How would Aurora feel if she met one: her first time meeting another woman, but they're of another species!
Elementals ALMOST feel like a single-gender, two-biological-sex species. They are sex-and-genderless until age ten, then turn into male or female, so Aurora's classmates knew her before she became a woman, and she seems to have had exactly the same upbringing and expectations as them since then, except for the knowledge that she can have babies. The game forgets same-sex relationships exist most of the time but they're theoretically not uncommon. But also it defaults to pretty heteronormative ideas about gender, even when it doesn't really make sense for this context.
Which is to say I had a lot of fun discussing a MUCH QUEERER hypothetical version of this game(*) with a friend. But this is not that game.
The sprites are drawn in a very realistic style, which is a bad choice for dating sims in terms of expressiveness but works about as well as it can. The CGs are drawn in the same style and very well done, except for some humourous cartoony ones which also work. You get to see every LI except Daniel in two different mildly censored naked CGs if that's your jam. Sometimes the artist draws darker characters as way too pale in CGs :/
The character designer is clearly into MUSCLES, I'm not but they're still all pretty cute. The main antagonist looks like a Jewish stereotype which I think was accidental but is still Unfortunate. There's otherwise some attempt at diversity but it's somewhat undercut by the artist only knowing how to draw one nose and one and a half types of hair.
The voice acting is pretty good. Lux's actor in particular imbues even mundane lines with INTENSE YEARNING. Aurora's voice actor mostly does pretty well but never manages to quite capture sincere passion which is A Flaw in a dating sim protagonist.
The music is unobtrusive and didn't annoy me until two routes in which is better than most games manage.
There's 3d rendered animations for backgrounds and introductory scenes, these add a nice sense of place and energy but are also really half-assed. I'm sure some of this is the limits of how complex a unity scene can get without making the game super slow/large, but some of it is just...bad. Low poly 3d models can look pretty and elegant and these Do Not. But eh, nobody plays dating sims for the backgrounds.
On the plus side, unlike SOME Unity VNs I could mention it has autoplay, fast forward, and the ability to skip through long cut scenes and minigames. Which is good because the one minigame I encountered was unplayably bad.
The main plot is railroaded except for occasional bad ends. Aurora's personality is pretty set, with mild variation on each route and a few personal choices that don't affect the plot like whether she wants to get married. There's extra epilogue stories when you finish a main route, I've read Ignatius's and it was cute.
But yeah, overall: it was pretty fun!
(*)The two main options we came up with being:
(a) The human prisoner is a woman and Aurora has a lesbian awakening
(b) MC is whatever gender you like, but regardless, hot ladies want to get them pregnant with magical superbabies
Plus, you know, general inclusiveness etc.
no subject
Date: 2020-10-01 05:15 pm (UTC)Elementals ALMOST feel like a single-gender, two-biological-sex species. They are sex-and-genderless until age ten, then turn into male or female, so Aurora's classmates knew her before she became a woman, and she seems to have had exactly the same upbringing and expectations as them since then, except for the knowledge that she can have babies.
Which is to say I had a lot of fun discussing a MUCH QUEERER hypothetical version of this game(*) with a friend.
Oh yeah, that sounds like a much more interesting game. o.o
It's interesting how it feels like the worldbuilding is Almost There, but...not.
doing his Refrigerator Senpai/Miles Edgeworth voice
I laughed out loud. I am simultaneously "YES" and "oh no".
this needs crossover fic alsono subject
Date: 2020-10-02 06:31 am (UTC)Haha OH MY GOD a crossover imagines and is overcome