Update Fifty-Eight: 8 October 2017

☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆

So what happens where there’s a game in a genre you love, that’s doing something interesting and new with that genre, that’s pushing that genre in a direction that you like, with beautiful art direction…. but just isn’t written very well? That’s where I am with Herald.

Well, the first two books of Herald, anyway.

Herald is a VN+, a self-titled ‘Interactive Period Drama’. It plays more like a Walking Dead or a Life is Strange where you navigate your character, Devan, in a 3D space. There’s some very, very simple puzzles to solve (like find a lamp and find oil to put into it) but the meat of the game is more visual novel stock - talk to people and make decisions.

It’s a good first attempt from an indie studio, and the production values are pretty stellar for that level. The sprites are amazing and have a 2D-3D effect, and the models are simpler but still nice, too. Same with the environments. The color palettes used in the game are unique and pleasing, stylized enough to be lovely to look at. The animations also aren’t bad - there’s some stiffness to the sometimes, but some real bright moments of ‘yessss’ that’s it.

I would without a doubt recommend this game if the only criteria for you is ‘does it look good’? Unfortunately, the game falls flat on my two other big asks - ‘is it smart?’ and ‘does it play well?’

For the simpler of the two, the game plays fine…. but there’s no real reason to have it be a point-and-click movement game. It doesn’t add anything to the experience that a more 2D hidden object game-type navigation wouldn’t have done, and in fact ends up failing a bit. For the vast majority of the game you are on a ship, and you are going to be walking back and forth across that ship a lot. After the third time a quest had me go from one end of the ship to the other immediately after I had just done that to get there I wanted to choke. It’s not fun - and this is coming from a bitch who loves her walking some places.

The writing is more complicated. While the voice acting ranges from wonderful (the MC) to… less so (the main side character), the writing is… it’s… it’s mediocre. This is an ambitious game that wants to handle the ‘period’ part of this period drama correctly - to show the strains of colonialism and all that it entails. The game just doesn’t do this competently enough, and serious themes of conquest and racism and sexual predation just come off as… goofy. Ridiculous. And that hurts, especially because of how few games do this correctly. As much as I wish otherwise, Herald doesn’t hit that mark, either.

I also had to replay both books twice to get all the achievements, and I got to test the strength of the writing system. Almost nothing changes depending on your choices save a few big ticket items, and maybe ONE line of dialogue. Whether you’re nice or an asshole, the game moves forward the same.

I really wanted to like this one, guys, but I can’t recommend it as a wonderful experience. If you’re even a little bit interested, though, I’d say to try it, because I do want more games like this. I just want them to be good.

Next up: Is this just a Higurashi clone, or will this game stand on its own two feet?

See you soon!