In a game that’s part visual novel and part action RPG, Noctuary tells a compelling story about two girls fighting the forces of darkness in an intriguing fantasy world.
Noctuary
Developer: Gratesca
Price: $30
Platforms: PC (reviewed)
MonsterVine was provided with a PC code for review.
Noctuary came out last November, but it’s largely flown under the radar. It is a visual novel with action RPG combat, although the visual novel side is heavily favored. Storytelling is critical in a game like that, but fortunately, its story, world, and characters rise up to the challenge.
Set in a world inhabited by an all-female race known as Illuminators, who are born from the dreams of plants, you follow two girls named Fancia Dream and Alina Nightsong as they use their inner light to fight the monsters known as Darkritters. At the start, the sudden rush of terms and concepts can feel overwhelming. Fortunately, a glossary of keywords together with the story’s devotion to its ideas means it doesn’t take long to understand. The names also took some getting used to, as they’re all rather on-the-nose, but eventually, you adjust to having serious conversations about people with names like Lumina Fullmoon and Classica Wine.
While the visual novel side is dominant here, that’s not to say the RPG side is weak. In fact, the 3D action RPG combat is both challenging and fun. Both Fancia and Alina are playable characters, and you can switch who you’re controlling while the other fights automatically. After a certain amount of time, switching characters triggers a powerful move, so even timing when to switch characters becomes part of your strategy. Each character has three different combat styles, each of which has a different basic attack combo and special attack. You also have two dodges on a cooldown, three heals, and the ability to revive a fallen character by standing close to them for a set period of time. A few new tools are added to your arsenal as you progress through the game, but those are the heart of the system. Combat has some bullet hell elements as well, with numerous projectile attacks that you’ll want to study to dodge successfully. It can get quite challenging, although difficulty settings are available with numerous settings that can be turned on independently of one another to make combat easier.
Main story battles reward you with Photons, which you can spend to power up stats such as your attack power, movement speed, healing power, and so on. Side quests, meanwhile, reward you with Blessings and Flower Dew. Blessings provide passive effects in combat, while Flower Dew determines how many Blessings you can equip. For example, one Blessing triggers special effects based on your combo count, another adds bonus effects to your attacks, and another increases your attack when you switch combat styles. The variety of Blessings together with the limited number you can equip makes you really think about what effects will be most useful and adds a measure of customization to combat.
Both main quests and side quests are selected from a menu, without free exploration. For the most part, you can choose them as you please, but at key points in the story, the main quest will be marked “crucial.” Any current side quests will vanish once you do a crucial main quest, so it’s important to finish side quests first if you want to do them all. Some quests involve combat, while others are purely storytelling. I was surprised at how detailed side quest stories could be; a few led to such lengthy sections and insight into characters’ personalities and conflicts that I briefly thought I’d chosen the main quest by mistake. A handful of quests also include additional gameplay elements like light exploration and puzzles. It would have been nice to see those mixed in more often, but they’re fairly rare.
If there’s one thing about Noctuary that impressed me, it was its presentation. The Blessings screen, for example, could have been a simple menu but instead displays a flower that changes based on which Blessings you’ve equipped. The title screen is animated, with different visual effects as you select each option. The start of the game even took me by surprise with a fully animated opening movie. While much of the game isn’t voiced, important scenes have Chinese voice acting, and the art is absolutely beautiful. Even the story itself took a more ambitious route than I expected, with its initial simple premise giving way to a much more complicated plot. Although there were occasional typos and awkwardly worded lines, it was never enough to stop me from being invested in these characters and what would happen next.
The Final Word
Noctuary combines visual novel storytelling with action RPG battles to create a memorable experience that will appeal most to fans of visual novels, though its combat is enjoyable as well. With easily over 20 hours of content and a great amount of attention to detail in its storytelling, it stands out as an overlooked gem of 2023.
– MonsterVine Rating: 4.5 out of 5 – Great
