When the Night Comes is a romantic indie visual novel set in a fictional world where Hunters control the monster population and are in turn controlled by Enforcers, mages who act as a handler of sorts. In this world, the main character is newly sent to a small town to solve a string of murders specifically targeting Hunters and across the 10 chapters, grow close to a character and solve the murders. When the Night Comes surprisingly has a strong voice cast! Gideon Emery is in this. GIDEON EMERY. THAT'S FENRIS FROM DA2 AND BALTHIER FROM FF12 GIDEON EMERY. I didn't initially intend to start with his character but I got sucked into it when hearing his voice. I wasn't sure initially, but I knew it after hearing a certain line. It's interesting, he has such a distinct way of voicing lines but then by the end of the game, it felt a bit monotonous HAHA. The game is partially voiced (so every character has some lines voiced, some not), and everyone does their best. My pre-game ranking was: August>Piper>Omen>Ezra>Finn>Alkar Post-game ranking: August (I just loved their voice acting? There was so much passion and emotion in their lines!)>Finn>Piper=Omen=Alkar>Ezra The game is a little diverse with different skin tones and relationship types, the MC can use she/her, he/him, they/them pronouns and you can set a first/last name; you have a choice of a monogamous or poly-amorous relationship, and the lines are adjusted to account for the fact that there are two characters there, instead of mashing two individual storylines together. There are 9 CGs for each individual character and the poly routes have 5 CGs each. You can also read some mini-stories after the game ends (reading each one unlocks the next). The game is more of a single common route, then it branches off into the story with the love interest complementing the route. As for how I feel about it, I have some thoughts. I liked the story and there are some codex/lore entries that are several pages long that expand on the world-building (which is nice to not have info-dumped in the story but just accessible for a reader to go over), and I liked the characters. I think even though I had clear favourites, each one had their own charm that made their routes enjoyable. I am a completionist so I did go through each route even though the poly ones were not really for me. In some ways it's not quite fully an otome...as when you don't romance certain characters, they have their own romantic relationship with others. The game controls were pretty standard, but not all of them are listed in the pause menu. You can right click to open the save menu, but theres no way to load a save file unless you go back to the main menu? And then load from there? And sometimes the hover over for Main Menu or Exit wouldn't work at all. Sometimes when Alt-Tabbing the game would have a random screen/dialogue showing and it wouldnt respond until I tabbed back and clicked a few times. You can mouse-scroll to go back lines, space/enter to progress dialogue and you can also view extras while still mid-route (which also includes the mini-stories). You can change the skip setting in the menu, but it doesnt seem to do anything. One thing I found frustrating was that for one or two slightly different contextual lines, I wouldn't be able to FFWD through dialogue I'd already read. In Alkar's route, the line about protecting him takes place in his forest hovel, but in other people's routes, it takes place in the pub. The game SHOULD read these as the same lines, but I'm forced to read them again and again in different contexts as if they're completely new lines - this was like The Letter, where one or two lines different in two points on the flowchart resulted in me reading the entire section again. The CGs were all really female gazey which was nice and the story gets quite steamy through text, but(!) we really missed out on being able to see our MC in the CGs and are not even able to design a character avatar. I kind of wanted that. The MC is pretty stock-standard. They are quite sarcastic/sassy and also flirty; the writing made me feel like I was reading the protagonist from Fourth Wing or ACOTAR - a stereotypical baddie (which I didn't love, honestly). The dialogue options that result in a romantic response are all marked with a heart; note that there's no bar/gauge you need to fill to get with someone, you just click a choice and go down their route. It makes the pre-Festival common route a bit weird because you can flirt with anyone at any time; even when those times are inappropriate, the character will blush/respond to the flirting (which was so immersion-breaking!). I also found one part in the routes kind of stupid where the MC is unconscious for two days after a life-threatening injury and then once they wake up they immediately have a sex scene with the chosen LI. Give it another day! Oh, and the timeline is really short for admitting feelings and love. Admittedly some of the dialogue made me laugh out loud, cringe or cry out in shock. I did feel the story was a little inspired ... the way that hunters are made is through a blood ritual where they drink the blood of the monsters inhabiting the world - demon/werewolf/vampire/etc - and then if they survive, they become a hunter and if not, then they become an abomination, I guess. It's a bit like the grey warden ritual and the witcher training rolled into one. . There's also a gripe I have with the ending, where the game doesn't let you make the truly evil choice (you still need to stop the bad guy even if you drink his serum and everyone hates you.) Regardless, I still enjoyed the journey and I'm glad I bought this game; it's more than earnt the cost with the playtime I've gotten from it. If you're into dating sims, don't miss this one.
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