kisui's Rants and Reviews

kisui is Reviewing The Butterfly Dreams by Ave Q Production

https://store.steampowered.com/app/3225570/The_Butterfly_Dreams/

A friend of mine told me about this game. A short visual novel that plays around 0.5-1 hour depending on your reading speed. It has mystery and science fiction theme but not as much as futuristic sci-fi as it is still something that you can easily imagine to exist. As the basic premise is written in the Store Page, I'll head directly to the review.

Gameplay: It is a basic visual novel without additional gameplay mechanic. You just need reading comprehension and a clicking ability to pick up choice. Nothing much here but the gameplay is smooth without any weird bugs or glitchy transition.

Art: I will separate this into Character Arts and Background Arts. The Art for characters are beautifully drawn. Each are unique and have designs that highlights their personality too. You can get to know them and their uniqueness just by seeing their characters. A very delightful package in a world where characters are usually carbon copy. For background, there's not much to say. Everything is effective and suitable for the scenes but nothing special either.

Music and Sound: The music is nice. Everything fits the scene, the usage is perfect for the story but there's also nothing to be noted. Despite of that, each of the music is fits comfortably to the scene. Additional sound effect are also used perfectly.

Plot, Story, Writings: The plot is linear for a mystery novel, but it does give an awesome entry for the world building. They explored the background of each characters and each characters shine with personality and quirks. All the characters are interesting and leave you wanting for more. The story itself while linear, do leave some rooms for guessing and curiosity. With 1 hour gameplay, it leaves you with enough closure and wanting for more.

Polish and Delivery: This is one of the best part of the game. Even though it is short, the delivery is well done and the best thing are implied within the game. If you play it without much care, you will miss A LOT OF subtle storytelling and easter eggs. Hidden motifs and hints are spread out through the game, which is perfect for mystery game. After finishing the game once, I replayed it and found a lot of things that made more sense! A brilliant polish that makes you curious to look for more and more. As a note, this game has 1 normal ending and 1 secret ending (which isn't hard to get on your first play-through but still a nice addition).

Final notes: Overall it is a nice short game. Well polished and interesting. The characters leaves you wanting for more which is an upside but also a downside at the same time (because it is short). If they have the sequel or spin off of the game, I will definitely interested in playing it too.

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Cons: