Let me start by prefacing; my only experience with anime visual novels is Doki Doki Literature Club, a game that aims to subvert the medium by turning it into analog horror. I know, it’s like if you tried to get into comics by starting with Watchmen or Dark Knight Returns; you can understand what they’re saying, but you’re not gonna appreciate it nearly as much. So Chengdu-based Gratesca Studio’s Noctuary is my first proper foray into this genre, splicing together a traditional visual novel experience with occasional arena hack and slash gameplay. Did it make a good first impression? Well…
Fancia Dream and Alina Nightsong are young girls who live in the land of Inlixaland, a beautiful utopian world made up of gorgeous valleys and countryside. They are Illuminators, an all female species whose bodies are made of hard light (not too dissimilar from the Crystal Gems in Steven Universe) and they have cutesy names that align with their occupations (Guardia Heart, Classica Wine). It’s as if the Smurf’s village was stuck in a blender with My Little Pony. Their dream? To become Arborangers, a class of elite warriors that act as a mixture of knights, cops and borderline fascist enforcers. Illuminators’ natural enemy is darkness itself, which manifests itself physically as Darkritters, purple creatures with no sign of sentience and apparently attack without thinking.
It’s all very tropey, which I don’t inherently mind, but it’s in the presentation that I take issue with. Noctuary is 80% visual novel and 20% gameplay, and the visual novel stuff is just too dry for me, and a large part of that comes down to the localisation. What I’m playing here is actually the second translation made for the game’s launch on consoles. and from what I can gather is a genuine improvement over the one that launched on PC back in 2023. Now, it’s no Backstroke of the West but it does remind me of the Star Wars Prequels in that characters speak in a very formal, objective manner, largely owing to what is I assume a very direct translation of the game’s original Canto. This leads to clunky lines such as
“Well maybe I can take the role of ‘The Bird’. Her singing parts contain strong rhythms and are suitable for drumming”
and
“Cast your light upon it so that you can see its internal structure. It’ll appear fibrous or cotton-like if you find the right one. Alternatively, you can use cleavage characteristics to make your judgment as well.”
You could put this down to the main characters being part of the more aristocratic class of this society, but that second line is spoken by Guardia Heart, a working class dingy dock woman who spends her life fixing boats. There’s no dialect or slang, characters speak to each other in cutesy pleasantries where there’s no immediate conflict and the game’s narrator will often describe things that are obvious through subtext. To top it all off, they’ll do that thing where they’ll repeat what a character has just said back to them, posed as a question.
“I think it was the Darkritter Tide.”
“Darkritter Tide?”
“Yes the Darkritter Tide”
This is all the more apparent in the game’s opening chapter, a crucial time when a game must set a standard for the rest of its experience, which is largely an incredibly slow slice of life. What’s more, we are forced to spend time with a character who we, the audience, know from the prologue is secretly evil, and who isn’t revealed until far later on, a trope that makes our heroes seem like clueless idiots. We are also bombarded with heavy lore, mostly told through a notebook system that requires pausing the game and skimming through documents. It grinds the pacing to a halt, and makes skimming through the unvoiced dialogue sections a chore. However, the biggest disappointment for me was the lack of dialogue choices, a staple we come to expect of text heavy games. There’s a few here and there, but for the most part you are pressing A to move to the next predicated interaction. But if you’re after active engagement, this game does have you (slightly) covered in that department.
Occasionally, the game will give you control of the characters in combat, swapping to a 3D isometric arena view. It’s essentially a hack and slash in a League of Legends perspective. And it’s fine, just fine. Fancia uses magic based attacks and Alina carries a giant sword; you can swap between them on the fly and they each have three different attack styles. It feels punchy, combos can be pretty satisfying and you’re occasionally granted the privilege of a team up attack that nukes the screen.
The reason I have so little to say is that it takes up so little of the game in comparision. There were sections where, after reading reams of text, I was shocked by the switch to 3D and felt like I had to learn to play again. There’s no cohesion here, the story isn’t being told or enhanced by these gameplay sections, that mainly amount to you killing mindless purple creatures cos they’re Evil. Rather they sit like an undeveloped extremity on the body of the rest of the game, a blending of genres that doesn’t quite work. And it’s a real shame, because there is something here.
The true highlight of Noctuary, and probably where most of its appeal lies, is in its presentation. The illustration work is gorgeous, its large cast of pretty girls all have intricate unique designs and the backgrounds they hover in front of are stunning. It makes me sad that this game isn’t fully in 3D, as I want to jump into this world and explore its nooks and crannies. The game now has voice acting in some sections, available in Canto by default with Mandarin and Japanese options. Tragically, my Hong Kongian flatmate (who speaks Canto) is currently out of the country, so I can’t comment on the quality of the performances, but it is nice to see a game that prioritises Traditional Chinese.
The music is serviceable; twinkly, atmospheric and dreamlike but never intrusive. Its menus, the main point of interaction between it and the player, are stellar and the most cohesive part of its experience. My only gripes would be a) the scaling of the HUD during gameplay, which seems to be better suited for monitors rather than a TV and b) the frame rate on Series X during gameplay seems to target 60fps, but rarely actually holds it.
So that’s it, my first foray into an anime visual novel. I’m not familiar enough with the genre to compare its quality in the grand scheme of things. I found its pacing and localisation wonky, but perhaps these are things that VN connoisseurs actually enjoy about the genre, and to each their own. My hottest take is that I honestly would’ve preferred if they ditched the ARPG elements and invested more into the interactive driving the novel sections. I love narratives and choices, and would have liked to feel like a participant in the events of this world.
But then there’s also things in the world building that I found barebones, it’s discussion of wealth and class was minimal and there were parts with weirdly fascist undertones (Illuminators who don’t work/are lazy will die of natural causes and one ranger exclaiming “Arborangers are requested to protect Illuminators, even if it’s against their will sometimes”). At 30 hours and £30, it’s neither too long nor very expensive, and its Steam page has good reviews (though I’m gonna be honest, some of its top reviews read like they were written by ChatGPT). But at the end of the day, I just wasn’t personally engaged.
