It doesn’t take Raining City: Millions Recollections long to go off the rails. Assuming that title isn’t ‘off the rails’ enough for you. The Raining City bit is easy enough, but Millions Recollections? Is it lots of people’s memories, or just one person thinking about those little sugar balls in a tube? Anyway, it opens with a lovely scene of a cruise ship. All nice and relaxing. Then, BAM. Our main character is covered in blood, she’s got a weird hole in her hand, and she’s being attacked by a spindly tree monster.
Not that I’m criticising it for that. Quite the opposite, in fact. The standard visual novel playbook is to focus in on asinine, day-in-the-life nonsense for long enough for my brain to atrophy, then backload the intrigue in the second half. Raining City: Millions Recollections doesn’t do that. It keeps the pace high, and introduces heavy doses of horror to keep things interesting. Much like Orca Layout’s previous title, The Chrono Jotter, I find myself intrigued by the plot and the world, though the poor localisation damages both.
I Can See Clearly Now
Let me flesh out that opening a little. Raining City: Millions Recollections begins with our protagonist, Lyu Xuan, waking up in her apartment. She’s covered in blood, despite no visible wound, and there’s a weird black hole in her palm. Numbers float around it. Turns out she’s been given ten million of some weird, otherworldly currency. Unfortunately for Lyu Xuan, everyone wants a piece of that wealth, hence the spindly tree man. Said monster is promptly eaten by a human-like creature named Paleon, who ends up clinging to Lyu Xuan throughout.
It’s a nice set up for a plot and it remains interesting throughout. Lyu Xuan meets up with a range of different characters, all of whom are drawn to her in some way and have their own share of mysteries. Take Su Lingxi, for example. A young girl that’s grown up in relative decadence in a big, golden tower. Oh, and her arms are made of weird gel wrapped around a skeleton. Or there’s Lu Wenshu, a chain-smoking scientist who seems to be connected with the whole ‘covered in blood’ thing.
Each of these characters feel nicely varied, and go through satisfying arcs as the story evolves. The actual plot does get a little loopy, though. It’s an occupational hazard when dealing with other realities and supernatural occurrences, but it gets a little confusing towards the end. Not helped by a big issue, that we’ll get to in a moment. Raining City also goes through a dramatic plot twist right at the very end, which it doesn’t really earn, and so the last section feels a bit dragged out. Still, the emphasis on horror – especially body horror – kept me very much engaged. Big, betentacled eye monsters parasitizing people? Definitely up my street.
Money, Money, Money
Gameplay-wise, Raining City tries to diversify the standard visual novel template. Alongside the main plot there are sidequests, for instance, which dig a bit further into the side characters. There are also little mini-stories that you can select from a world map, which give the setting more flavour. The main plot also branches somewhat, and a key mechanic is how much ‘money’ is left in your palm. This amount can affect the ending and is spent at key points, encouraging you to either splurge out or hold back. Though, truth be told, most expenditure seemed to be out of my control.
It’s a shame, because it ties into the feeling that Raining City‘s gameplay is a little unengaging. There’s a nice range of monsters, but Lyu Xuan fights them off without any input from us. There was scope for more choices. Cobbling together solutions for escaping monsters – and losing coins for poor thinking – would have been good. Still, the monster designs are great. The big mushroom creature, for instance. Art in general is pretty top shelf stuff. It’s certainly a pretty game, even when it’s being horrific. Voice acting isn’t bad either, though there are strange audio quality issues. Some lines feel like the mic is inside the actor’s mouth, or that they’re recording inside a bathtub.
The gameplay’s not a deal breaker. I was certainly more absorbed than others in the genre. Orca Layout have a knack for hooking me with interesting stories and characters. Still, after The Chrono Jotter, I was hoping they’d get better at localisation. No such luck. There are constant awkward sentences, for one. One character, Jasper, had her name randomly changed to Roselene for no reason. Character genders randomly flip. Several lines are still in Chinese. It makes picking up on what’s going on quite difficult at times. It doesn’t ruin things, but there are times when it pulled me out of the scene. I have to wonder if it’s mechanically translated. Certainly, a proof-reader is needed.
Raining City – Intriguing, Yet Rough
Hey, if they want a hand with the proofreading, I’ve got the time. After all, Orca Layout are two-for-two with me. Visual novels aren’t usually a genre I click with, but this might be the right formula. An intriguing plot and a big, heaping helping of body horror. What’s more, despite the shaky localisation, I like the way that Raining City is written. It doesn’t write itself in too many circles, like lots in the genre. It’s not grossly overwritten. We’re always moving forward to the next plot point.
Designs are on form, too. While I would have liked to have a bit more control during the monster sections, it was still great. It feels like a selection of folk stories and creepypastas all stitched together. It’s great, and I hate that I will not be able to properly recommend it. It’s hard to recommend something that’s so poorly localised. It gives it the feel of something thrown hastily together, when it clearly isn’t. So if you can look past a collection of wonky sentences, and have a penchant for body horror, then Raining City is definitely worth a chance.
